The device that could save your life?

[Kharon]

Push a button every 30 seconds????? Talk about an intrusive buzz kill. I can just see someone getting engrosed in seeing a rare fish and waiting 31 seconds. Let alone that I would never, never allow anything to control my buoyancy but myself.

 

[Wookie]

I'm still trying to get past "Perfect physical and mental state".

 

[KathyV]

Many skydivers carry an Automatic Activation Device (AAD) to automatically deploy their reserve parachute if the ground is rapidly approaching and they have not already acted to manually open their main chute, or if the main parachute is malfunctioning. The early AADs were a bit unpredictable and sometimes created a hazard but the newer ones are much more reliable, see the link below.

So although there are a lot of drawbacks in the OPs suggestion, I feel that it is worth thinking about - there may be other, more feasible configurations for automated safety devices in scuba.

Automatic activation device - Wikipedia

 

[Solotor]

Thanks for all the links, very interesting to read.

 

[Sam Miller III]

See Kelemvor below

 

[kelemvor]

Good gosh !

Is there no historical knowledge in the diving world ? (After setting down at the Blue Hole with a Super duper Pooper PADI instructor who informed me "There was absolutely no diving until PADI was formed ??" I some how suspect there isn't any historical knowledge

With the passage of time and people I suspect diving history is being lost at a rapid rate....End of sermon

Such a device was on the market 40 years ago.

Larry Scott one of the founders of Sea Pro (aka "At Pac") while located in Fountain Valley, California designed, created, and marketed a regulator with the title DS/FS aka "Dive Safe/Fail Safe (or was it Fail Safe/Dive Safe ??) as an accomament to their at that time evolutionary At Pac BIU.

The operation was simple -- sailor proof - It consisted of a normal regulator with a leak passage to another chamber which communicated with the At Pac inflator mechanism.

If breathing ceased for a specific time air would leak into the adjoining chamber migrating into the inflation mechanism inflating it and A Way We Go to the surface.

In all the years It was on the market and in service I do not recall a mishap

So it has been done-- Larry may have some design interest in it. or since he is approaching 80 may be in the big reef in the sky
Yes I have one "Dive Safe/Fail Safe (or was it Fail Safe/Dive Safe ?) in my dive locker -- almost mint condition..It is a rare one ... any offers ?

Samuel Miller, 111

Ahem! That is the device I posted about in this thread yesterday. The device that could save your life?

 

[Sam Miller III]

@kelemvor
Ahem! That is the device I posted about in this thread yesterday. ""The device that could save your life?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I stand corrected ! I send you my most sincerest apologies, As my Dad always said "Son read the fine print !"

I have deleted my post so as not to conflict with your on line research and reply.

SDM

 

[J-Vo]

A CPU controlled BC could bring you to the surface within safe accent rates. Maybe once your done with your bottom time you could hit a button and take a nap while you surface automatically. This would be great for deco diving.

 

[Kharon]

A CPU controlled BC could bring you to the surface within safe accent rates. Maybe once your done with your bottom time you could hit a button and take a nap while you surface automatically. This would be great for deco diving.

Having programmed computers for around 40 years, there is no computer program I would trust to control my buoyancy. Two reasons. First, there won't be enough saturation/usage to test every set of parameters and find every flukey software bug. Second, software engineering studies indicate that at least 3% of the bugs in any non-trivial system will never be identified by the coder. They might be discovered, often catastrophically, only under unanticipated and rare circumstance.

I will depend on myself, thanks.

 

[Rred]

So basically, you want to build a very limited, very expensive, potentially unreliable electromechanical buddy.