Possible altitude glitch on Shearwater Petrel?

[Caveman]

Howsit everyone

I recently managed to get my hands on a secondhand Petrel 1 and had it updated to the most recent V53 firmware, and everything seems to be running great. All, except for one issue although I am not sure if it is a computer glitch or if it is meant to be this way.

On the system setup, when you scroll through to the display setup tab whereby you adjust the depth and temperature units, as well as brightness settings, flip screen and, of course, altitude.

Now when I chose to edit altitude, all that happened was the altitude lettering 'auto' changing from white (or whichever respective color I may have configured) and changed over to the darker shade of grey and would not allow me to change it to anything else. When I return to it, it has remained in the grey color and will not allow me to edit it whatsoever. I have tried to edit altitude in every mode (OC rec, OC Tec etc) and it has done the same thing every time. The manual states that the altitude should change between Auto and SeaLvl. But all that has happened to me is what I have explained and you can see it in the photo here.

Is this normal and was perhaps part of a previous firmware upgrade that had occurred after the manual was released or is this a glitch and is not supposed to occur? If anyone has experienced this, can they please advise on what to do? If this is a glitch, that is.

 

[tcoen]

Howsit everyone

I recently managed to get my hands on a secondhand Petrel 1 and had it updated to the most recent V53 firmware, and everything seems to be running great. All, except for one issue although I am not sure if it is a computer glitch or if it is meant to be this way.

On the system setup, when you scroll through to the display setup tab whereby you adjust the depth and temperature units, as well as brightness settings, flip screen and, of course, altitude.

Now when I chose to edit altitude, all that happened was the altitude lettering 'auto' changing from white (or whichever respective color I may have configured) and changed over to the darker shade of grey and would not allow me to change it to anything else. When I return to it, it has remained in the grey color and will not allow me to edit it whatsoever. I have tried to edit altitude in every mode (OC rec, OC Tec etc) and it has done the same thing every time. The manual states that the altitude should change between Auto and SeaLvl. But all that has happened to me is what I have explained and you can see it in the photo here.

Is this normal and was perhaps part of a previous firmware upgrade that had occurred after the manual was released or is this a glitch and is not supposed to occur? If anyone has experienced this, can they please advise on what to do? If this is a glitch, that is.

View attachment 471878

Hi Chase,

The altitude setting (sea level or Auto) cannot be edited when the absolute pressure is less than 960 mbar, since there is no way that the diver is at sea level if the barometric pressure is this low. So you might be seeing this if you are at an altitude above sea level. You can see the current barometric pressure by pressing the right button a few times until "PRESSURE mbar" is shown. Typical sea level pressure 1013 mbar, although this fluctuates (about +/-20 mbar) due to weather conditions.

Also, in OC Rec mode, the altitude setting is always set to Auto and cannot be edited.

The altitude setting is not particularly useful. Its purpose is for closed-circuit rebreather divers who want their PPO2 calibrations to always result in an output as if conducted at 1 ATA of pressure. We generally recommend it be set to Auto.

Best regards,
Tyler Coen
Shearwater Research