O2 Cell Replacement Time....

[Jeremy Williams]

Poseidon released them. Used on the Se7en right now, but have not gone to the other manufacturers yet so you can only use them in one CCR. Hoping that it will change very soon. The solid state cells are optical so wouldn't require calibration after the factory calibration, and being LED based would certainly outlast the rest of the unit on an hours basis.

I think Posiedon would be happy for you to use them on other rebreathers. You just have to do it as a parallel electronic interface to whatever you have right now. Per DGX prices, that's $1800 for the SSO2 sensor and CPOD bundle and $1800 for an M28 computer. You probably need a T also, but that's a rounding error. It's not an inexpensive retrofit proposition at the moment. Given the digital interface to the sensor, who knows when it will become a drop-in option to any other rebreather. The key question is probably when will Shearwater add support for it to their DiveCAN controllers. I strongly suspect that Poseidon put the CAN bus chip in the CPOD and not directly on the sensor but I don't know that for certain.

 

[tbone1004]

@Jeremy Williams IIRC Shearwater said they had some in for testing. There is definitely going to be a delay in production and @Shearwater surely won't release anything official until they've proven in. @Bruce_Partridge can you weigh in on this at all?

 

[kelemvor]

I think Posiedon would be happy for you to use them on other rebreathers. You just have to do it as a parallel electronic interface to whatever you have right now. Per DGX prices, that's $1800 for the SSO2 sensor and CPOD bundle and $1800 for an M28 computer. You probably need a T also, but that's a rounding error. It's not an inexpensive retrofit proposition at the moment. Given the digital interface to the sensor, who knows when it will become a drop-in option to any other rebreather. The key question is probably when will Shearwater add support for it to their DiveCAN controllers. I strongly suspect that Poseidon put the CAN bus chip in the CPOD and not directly on the sensor but I don't know that for certain.

The information Poseidon provided to various "news" sites indicated the sensors would also have an analog output.

Poseidon Announces "Game-changing" 'Solid State Oxygen Sensor'

Poseidon state this technology is accurate, reliable and has fast response times. The sensor provides both digital and analogue outputs and comes calibrated from the factory. It is believed that the user will never need to calibrate these cells.

It is good to see that Poseidon has put thought into the shape of their new cells. Each cell is the same size and shape as current standard galvanic cells and should fit existing mounts. That said, the new sensor does require a separate power supply however it appears that power consumption will be low.

Did it change, or was the initial info provided to the press inaccurate or some third thing?

I remember shopping for RB's and at one point I was interested in Poseidon seven. I know it comes with a computer, but I could have sworn you could upgrade to shearwater electronics. Maybe that upgrade isn't available anymore if the sensors are only compatible with the Poseidon computer. Seems a shame to have to give up one nice feature in order to gain another.. if that's the case.

Do you know for sure that the analog output has been removed?

 

[tbone1004]

@kelemvor the CPOD has an analog output because it includes the canbus interface. I believe it is powered by the M28.
"All" shearwater has to do is develop an O2 board that will power the cell, and process the input signals. I'm 98% confident they have either done it or are really close. The question is whether they've deemed the product reliable enough, both from an actual working function, but more importantly from a supply chain perspective.

$1800 for the cell/cpod/cable
cpod is $570, and the Cable is $250, so the cell is $1k ish.

I do not believe the Poseidon has ever been available with a Shearwater computer unless you used the 3rd cell holder to an independent computer. I do not believe that was ever offered from the factory/dealer so you had to buy the 3rd cell holder from Poseidon, then buy the Shearwater from another dealer.

The Se7en's that are older than 2ish years IIRC need to be sent back to the factory to have their O2 boards upgraded to accept the SSS inside of the head and you need to have the M28 upgrade as well.

 

[taimen]

The SSS was "released" is 2016 and should have been delivered for over a year now. For some reason we haven't been able to hear/read any first hand user experiences online or in the press. Are current users actually still beta testers and under NDA or what is going on? Are their issues with the SSS, either reliability or production numbers?

 

[Superlyte27]

I thought the dive industry was trying to develop and encourage a 'Just Culture', whereby divers can feel free to talk about the mistakes they made in the dive community without fear of being called derogatory terms such as 'stupid'. That way everyone learns from everyone else's mistake including their own. Its called Human Error, it does not mean your stupid but labeling people as being stupid for making a mistake is one sure fire way of getting them to stop divulging their mistakes and then we all lose as no-one gets to learn from other divers errors.


Cathal

I thought divers had thicker skin. Grow up. It's just a word and this isn't the beginners forum.

I have to wonder if you actually read what I wrote. Try it again.

If you pump your loop full of pure oxygen and immediately descend beyond 20', what do you call it? We can use your term I guess, whatever that is. But to me, it's stupid. Kinda like looking down the barrel of a gun to determine if it's loaded.

I guess I could have said, "you don't possess the common sense and intelligence necessary to dive a CCR" but "stupid" was less typing.

 

[tbone1004]

The SSS was "released" is 2016 and should have been delivered for over a year now. For some reason we haven't been able to hear/read any first hand user experiences online or in the press. Are current users actually still beta testers and under NDA or what is going on? Are their issues with the SSS, either reliability or production numbers?

not many divers that you hear from use the Se7en and with the cost to upgrade them, I'm not sure how many actually have been done yet. I wish they would release some more information though

 

[rjack321]

The SSS was "released" is 2016 and should have been delivered for over a year now. For some reason we haven't been able to hear/read any first hand user experiences online or in the press. Are current users actually still beta testers and under NDA or what is going on? Are their issues with the SSS, either reliability or production numbers?

betting the production numbers just don't exist

 

[688ClassRebreather]

not many divers that you hear from use the Se7en and with the cost to upgrade them, I'm not sure how many actually have been done yet. I wish they would release some more information though

At the risk of getting way too far from the original question, I dive the Se7en with the M28 and solid state sensor (SSS). I also dive the Inspo and have an aftermarket (TECME) T-piece to use the M28 and SSS on it as well. I probably have over 200 dives with the SSS between the two rebreathers.

I love it and have not had any issues with it. It responds more quickly than the galvanic cells even though it is installed down stream of them. Since it is only used as an extra cell and not controlling the loop, yet, it has limited utility. Poseidon should be able to upgrade my emodule to use it in the head in the near future, and I will definitely get mine done.

 

[michael-fisch]

I thought there was some new solid state o2 sensors on the market that were supposed to fix many of the problems with galvanic. I vaguely remember them not requiring calibration and supposedly lasting nearly forever. Did those not actually become available or was the hype all just marketing bs?

My info is that they cost about 800 Euros retail each , that the manufacturer is locked into a contract with Poseidon for anything diving related, and if you were able to buy them for any other use the manufacturer would still want about 650 Euros each. You are still stuck with creating your own interface to whatever dive computer you are using since the Poseidon M28 probably is not the last step in dive computers. Would recomend that somebody designs an interface with a linear analog output of 12mV at 960 mBar in Air and 57.1mV at 100% O2, with more than one battery and seperate circuitry for each sensor.
Since the solid state sensors are not expected to last much more than 10 years, I'm not sure that it will ever become cost effective.
Michael