Suunto Vyper Battery Life

[JMedway]

I'd say "Not Good". I've had mine for 2 years, and battery is dead for a second time.
And I've only used it on two dive trips, so ~ 15 dives.

Any idea how/why that could happen when it's completely idle for 360 days a year?

 

[keyshunter]

I usually get about 400 dives from a Vyper battery. But, I never use the backlight. At night, I usually take one of our Gekkos or Zoops, since I prefer them for night dives.

 

[w3dge]

I find the buttons on my Vyper fairly difficult to press normally to be honest. You seem to have to press them a lot harder than you would expect, and there isn't much tactile feedback to let you know that you've actually pressed it.

 

[Alastor]

Which Vyper do you own ? The very old model is not hard to press, even if lacks tactile feedback, but it is not a problem until you look at it while pressing.
In any case, I don't normally press any button while diving, but the lights in the very few night dive I do.
I also noted that the rubbr boot having the pads over the buttons makes the pressing a bit easy, because the larger surface, especially wearing gloves.
No help for tactile feedback even in that case...
Regarding hte battery, I just changed it once over 4 year and now it is dropping one bar - about 300 or more dives on it - rarely using the backlight.
Cheers

 

[miketsp]

I'd say "Not Good". I've had mine for 2 years, and battery is dead for a second time.
And I've only used it on two dive trips, so ~ 15 dives.

Any idea how/why that could happen when it's completely idle for 360 days a year?

One of the major factors for battery life of the Vyper is how quickly you rinse it off and get rid of the "AC" on the display.
As long as the DC is detecting a conduction path between the two interface contacts located in the recess in the base it will automatically stay in dive-mode and show AC. This is a huge battery drain compared to when it's in standby.
The early Vypers were much more sensitive to any residual salt build-up and dampness. The later ones are better but even so I found that if I put the DC still wet directly into a plastic box while unequipping after the dive, it could still be in dive mode some days later when I took it out to download the dives. So a couple of days like this would be equivalent to weeks if not months of diving.
Nowadays I make of point of rinsing the contacts with fresh water after each dive and drying them with a tissue or a GENTLE jet of air from a cylinder. I say GENTLE because you don't want to force air into the depth sensor.

 

[Alastor]

Now you pointed at AC, I can say you are probably right.
'Cause I don't like unnecessary dive mode I always paid attention to clear it up - rinsing or just drying with a towel ...
This could be a good reason for long batteries duration like in my case...