Asteve
Contributor
Review of the Cressi, Leonardo underwater dive computer.
Background - I bought this computer for my March 2015 trip to Cozumel.
The Leonardo Underwater Dive Computer was a match made in hell - So,you will know were I am coming from.
Let's get started with the manual. I think of the DC as life support equipment. So,no lawyer speak, thank you. If a company is not willing to pay for a good translation shame on them.
I will start with the Warnings -
Page 5 WARNING: this instrument is designed to be a dive aid and does not replace the use of the dive tables.
I have read that tables are being dropped from the OW curriculum, therefore, your training will not allow you to use this computer. If this DC is an aid for dive tables, I can not find any tables that are more conservative than this DC, so how is this DC going to aid me in following the tables, I would put this DC into 48 hours lock-out all the time. Why have it? Why would an aid disable itself?
Page 6 WARNING: While diving, be equipped with a depth gauge, a manometer, a diving timer or watch and dive tables. Please always check your diving cylinders pressure to be fit to the planned dive and, while diving, often check the cylinders air capacity by means of your manometer.
How many of you dive with a manometer? Poor translation.
Page 9: WARNING: Currently, no validated scientific literature allows to dive more than twice a day for periods of one or more weeks without the risk of decompression sickness. For your own safety, it is important to avoid diving for more than two times a day. A rest of at least 2 hours between two subsequent dives is mandatory. The next/repetitive dive shall be shallower and its minimum duration shall be 15 minutes.
How many of you do more then 2 dives a day when on a week long vacation? This should have been a deal breaker. Shame on me, I did not read the warnings before I bought it. I did read the manual. As life support equipment I should be willing to follow the rules, they have laid down for this device. I did not. Is this device teaching bad habits or I am I just a dangerous diver doing more then 2 dives a day and not following the warning?
Page 45 DANGER: Surfacing too fast dramatically increases the risk of decompression sickness. Cressi recommends, at the end of each dive,a safety stop of 3 minutes at 10 ft 20 ft., ........
At 20 ft. the computer can put you into deco. I will expand on this later It should be 19 feet. Poor translation.
OK. Now how was it on dives? Background - I did 4 dives a day for 4 days and 5 dives on the 5th day (a night dive). This left 3 days before flying. I did 2 dives in the morning and back to the resort and catch the afternoon boat for 2 more dives. Normally about 2 plus hours Surface Interval between morning dives and afternoon dives.
First dive of the day, The computer did the dive at depth as other did. All 5 days.
Second dive of the day, It was rare to get more then 1 hour SI between 1st and 2nd dive. The same was true of the 3rd and 4th dive. Normally a 45 to 55 minutes dive. I would get about 2/3 of the way thru the dive before I needed to start following the deco time up. I would have to go to 19 feet before it would not put me in deco. At 20 feet it will continue to reduce the time to deco, move up to 19 feet and you would have 99 minutes (max display reading). I did not try it but if I had dove tables like the Warning said too, that allow me to stay down at 30 feet, I am guessing it would have gone into deco and if I did not do the deco stop it would locked me out for 48 hours.
Third dive of the day. About 50% of the time I could do the whole dive with the other diver, the other I would follow the deco time up.
The 3rd and 4thdive of the trip. I was the odd man out on the boat, all the rest were diving together. ( the only time I was with them.). It was agreed that we would do the 3rd dive ( at 55 to 60 feet)and move the boat 100 yards and do the 4th dive. (at 25 to 35 feet.). With only a 15 minutes SI, knowing the tables, I did not see this as a problem. Guess who did over half the dive at 19 feet. Even with longer SI, I never got more then half the 4thdive at the bottom where everyone else was.
Other things that were poor :
The depth reading updates were slow and only reads in whole feet. Trying to hold your depth at 15 feet using the gauge was hard. I had a watch that also had gauge mode that updates a lot faster and reads in tenths easy to hold depth using it. My next DC will read out in tenths and update quicker.
The DC back-light to read the gauge at night did not make it readable.
I could not hear the alarm, I have some high frequency hearing loss.
The scratch guard over the face of the gauge would make it hard to read the gauge on the surface, after a dive with water drops on the back side of scratch guard.
During the week I put the DC into deco twice. When I got home and downloaded the dives, the graph shows that I went into deco 5 times. I know that the DC did not show the other 3 decos when I was diving and when I got above 30 feet, I started to play with the DC and time to deco. I would be at 28 feet and watch the deco time go to 0. If you raised the depth above 28 ft. to say 26 ft before the display updated it would not show a deco stop was needed, but when DC was down loaded to the PC,when ever I hit 0 time to deco it show I needed a deco stop. In one case it showed me coming up without satisfying the deco obligation.Again I was never locked out from diving or had warning at the end of a dive on the DC.
Pre-dive plan numbers
Depth in Ft-----29----30------35-------39------40------49--50--58--60--68--70--78--80--88--90--97--100--107--110--117 --120--126--130
Leonardo-------99*---------------------99*--------------68-------49-------37--------28------21 ------17-----------14---------11-----------09
US Navy 2008 -------371-----232-------------163-----------92--------60------48--------39-------30--------25----------20 ---------15----------10
PADI 1987---------------------205 -------------140-----------80--------55------40--------30-------25--------20----------16----------13----------10
* max the DC will display
I like to do my diving at the 25 to 70 foot range, from the above you can see why this was a bad DC for me. At the 50 foot level I am giving up 12 to 24 minutes of bottom time.
Well now that I have gotten all that off my chest.
The good:
It comes in a lot of colors.
The gauge was easy to read underwater.
The battery lasted the whole week.
The strap was long enough to fit over a wet suit.
The one button takes a little learning but no big deal.
The software and download worked well. The setup on a Windows 7 was easy. It is interesting to look at the dive profile and how much I moved around.
I did not get bent diving this computer.
Background - I bought this computer for my March 2015 trip to Cozumel.
The Leonardo Underwater Dive Computer was a match made in hell - So,you will know were I am coming from.
Let's get started with the manual. I think of the DC as life support equipment. So,no lawyer speak, thank you. If a company is not willing to pay for a good translation shame on them.
I will start with the Warnings -
Page 5 WARNING: this instrument is designed to be a dive aid and does not replace the use of the dive tables.
I have read that tables are being dropped from the OW curriculum, therefore, your training will not allow you to use this computer. If this DC is an aid for dive tables, I can not find any tables that are more conservative than this DC, so how is this DC going to aid me in following the tables, I would put this DC into 48 hours lock-out all the time. Why have it? Why would an aid disable itself?
Page 6 WARNING: While diving, be equipped with a depth gauge, a manometer, a diving timer or watch and dive tables. Please always check your diving cylinders pressure to be fit to the planned dive and, while diving, often check the cylinders air capacity by means of your manometer.
How many of you dive with a manometer? Poor translation.
Page 9: WARNING: Currently, no validated scientific literature allows to dive more than twice a day for periods of one or more weeks without the risk of decompression sickness. For your own safety, it is important to avoid diving for more than two times a day. A rest of at least 2 hours between two subsequent dives is mandatory. The next/repetitive dive shall be shallower and its minimum duration shall be 15 minutes.
How many of you do more then 2 dives a day when on a week long vacation? This should have been a deal breaker. Shame on me, I did not read the warnings before I bought it. I did read the manual. As life support equipment I should be willing to follow the rules, they have laid down for this device. I did not. Is this device teaching bad habits or I am I just a dangerous diver doing more then 2 dives a day and not following the warning?
Page 45 DANGER: Surfacing too fast dramatically increases the risk of decompression sickness. Cressi recommends, at the end of each dive,a safety stop of 3 minutes at 10 ft 20 ft., ........
At 20 ft. the computer can put you into deco. I will expand on this later It should be 19 feet. Poor translation.
OK. Now how was it on dives? Background - I did 4 dives a day for 4 days and 5 dives on the 5th day (a night dive). This left 3 days before flying. I did 2 dives in the morning and back to the resort and catch the afternoon boat for 2 more dives. Normally about 2 plus hours Surface Interval between morning dives and afternoon dives.
First dive of the day, The computer did the dive at depth as other did. All 5 days.
Second dive of the day, It was rare to get more then 1 hour SI between 1st and 2nd dive. The same was true of the 3rd and 4th dive. Normally a 45 to 55 minutes dive. I would get about 2/3 of the way thru the dive before I needed to start following the deco time up. I would have to go to 19 feet before it would not put me in deco. At 20 feet it will continue to reduce the time to deco, move up to 19 feet and you would have 99 minutes (max display reading). I did not try it but if I had dove tables like the Warning said too, that allow me to stay down at 30 feet, I am guessing it would have gone into deco and if I did not do the deco stop it would locked me out for 48 hours.
Third dive of the day. About 50% of the time I could do the whole dive with the other diver, the other I would follow the deco time up.
The 3rd and 4thdive of the trip. I was the odd man out on the boat, all the rest were diving together. ( the only time I was with them.). It was agreed that we would do the 3rd dive ( at 55 to 60 feet)and move the boat 100 yards and do the 4th dive. (at 25 to 35 feet.). With only a 15 minutes SI, knowing the tables, I did not see this as a problem. Guess who did over half the dive at 19 feet. Even with longer SI, I never got more then half the 4thdive at the bottom where everyone else was.
Other things that were poor :
The depth reading updates were slow and only reads in whole feet. Trying to hold your depth at 15 feet using the gauge was hard. I had a watch that also had gauge mode that updates a lot faster and reads in tenths easy to hold depth using it. My next DC will read out in tenths and update quicker.
The DC back-light to read the gauge at night did not make it readable.
I could not hear the alarm, I have some high frequency hearing loss.
The scratch guard over the face of the gauge would make it hard to read the gauge on the surface, after a dive with water drops on the back side of scratch guard.
During the week I put the DC into deco twice. When I got home and downloaded the dives, the graph shows that I went into deco 5 times. I know that the DC did not show the other 3 decos when I was diving and when I got above 30 feet, I started to play with the DC and time to deco. I would be at 28 feet and watch the deco time go to 0. If you raised the depth above 28 ft. to say 26 ft before the display updated it would not show a deco stop was needed, but when DC was down loaded to the PC,when ever I hit 0 time to deco it show I needed a deco stop. In one case it showed me coming up without satisfying the deco obligation.Again I was never locked out from diving or had warning at the end of a dive on the DC.
Pre-dive plan numbers
Depth in Ft-----29----30------35-------39------40------49--50--58--60--68--70--78--80--88--90--97--100--107--110--117 --120--126--130
Leonardo-------99*---------------------99*--------------68-------49-------37--------28------21 ------17-----------14---------11-----------09
US Navy 2008 -------371-----232-------------163-----------92--------60------48--------39-------30--------25----------20 ---------15----------10
PADI 1987---------------------205 -------------140-----------80--------55------40--------30-------25--------20----------16----------13----------10
* max the DC will display
I like to do my diving at the 25 to 70 foot range, from the above you can see why this was a bad DC for me. At the 50 foot level I am giving up 12 to 24 minutes of bottom time.
Well now that I have gotten all that off my chest.
The good:
It comes in a lot of colors.
The gauge was easy to read underwater.
The battery lasted the whole week.
The strap was long enough to fit over a wet suit.
The one button takes a little learning but no big deal.
The software and download worked well. The setup on a Windows 7 was easy. It is interesting to look at the dive profile and how much I moved around.
I did not get bent diving this computer.
