Trouble with SDA after flying

[LennyP]

I just had the same problem on a dive trip to La Paz, Mexico. I had my 2 SDA's with me in the cabin of a small tubo prop plane out of Los Angles. When I arrived the older of my 2 SDA's was reading 8 ft and counting the minutes of very long dive. The newer one was fine. I took both down on a few dives the good worked fine, the bad one still read 8 ft at surface and continued counting dive minutes. The battery ran out a couple times. I charged it up but it still read 8 ft, went right into dive mode, starting a NEW dive.
Now the good news. I keep it on charge the rest of the week and flew back to Los Angeles on the exact plane. When I arrived in LA, both seemed normal. The old one was off, I turned it on and it had a big message saying something about last dive incomplete. After awhile that disappeared and it seems back to normal. The newer one look OK all along. I'll dive both next week and see how the do.
I also had a friend put in a trouble ticket with the "new" Uemis owners. The got back to him within the week and here is what they said. Looks like you can also send in your SDA for service if need.

Uemis’s replay to trouble ticket:
Hi
Basically there are three diffrent possiblities to solve this issue:

1) Put the UEMIS under a vacuum bell jar and apply carefully a vaccum until the SDA in the surface mode. Afterwards reduce the vaccum very very slowly (probably during an hour) in order to be sure that the SDA does not goes back into the dive mode.

2) What I have seen on the internet is, that customers went up to a mountain. There you will have a reduced air pressure and the dive computer goes back into the surface mode. Please reboot the device by pressing the left and right button against each other. We do not have any experience regarding this solution but could be worth to try it out. You can also switch on your UEMIS on your return flight before take of. After a while the UEMIS should reach the surface mode.

3.) You can return your device to our repair center in Signau and we are doing this service for you. In this case we will charge you CHF 63.80 (excl. VAT and shipment). In order to send you the shipping instruction I should know from which country you like to return your SDA.
Kind regards,Hansjoerg
--

Freundliche Grüsse / Best regards
Support

M. & H. Adam

Phone: +41 (0)34 552 08 08
http://www.uemis.com

 

[b3v]

1) Could have worked for me, don't know, it is reminiscent of the T-fish procedure I used succesfully.
2) Same effect, but not everyone has mountains nearby.
3) Is very nice, thank you, new owners, but it is not a business model and merely covers the expenses they have without adressing the root cause.

1) 2) and 3) or whatever... it could happen again on your next flight and spoil your diving.

The root cause is that this is a software bug, plain and simple. And I suspect Uemis does not have the man power to fix it, such as things are right now. Which is a shame because it leaves their best asset in peril, unreliable if not downright useless for serious divers.

My suggestion is that they open source the software and let us improve it, we are highly motivated and they will get the Zurich into the front position it deserves.

Consider how, in another thread, crafty people hacked the download-of-profile-data problem, whithout the company, literally in a few days whereas Uemis dragged their feet forever....same thing with the trimix update. It could be done with, in days, the moment they realize that the users are not helpless cattle but rather a strong helping hand.

Open the software, Uemis, realize that the well engineered hardware is the crown jewel. I want nothing more than to see Uemis take care of their assets and prosper this time around.

I would personalize the screen layout immediately, lots of things could be better.

Uemis’s replay to trouble ticket:
Hi
Basically there are three diffrent possiblities to solve this issue:

1) Put the UEMIS under a vacuum bell jar and apply carefully a vaccum until the SDA in the surface mode. Afterwards reduce the vaccum very very slowly (probably during an hour) in order to be sure that the SDA does not goes back into the dive mode.

2) What I have seen on the internet is, that customers went up to a mountain. There you will have a reduced air pressure and the dive computer goes back into the surface mode. Please reboot the device by pressing the left and right button against each other. We do not have any experience regarding this solution but could be worth to try it out. You can also switch on your UEMIS on your return flight before take of. After a while the UEMIS should reach the surface mode.

3.) You can return your device to our repair center in Signau and we are doing this service for you. In this case we will charge you CHF 63.80 (excl. VAT and shipment). In order to send you the shipping instruction I should know from which country you like to return your SDA.
Kind regards,Hansjoerg
--

Freundliche Grüsse / Best regards
Support

M. & H. Adam

Phone: +41 (0)34 552 08 08
http://www.uemis.com

 

[tbrady]

Much easier procedure just received from the new Uemis using a mixing flask and a wine bottle vacuum pump worked for me. file is here: http://brassanchor.com/Getting out of dive mode.pdf

 

[Gruz]

My suggestion is that they open source the software and let us improve it, we are highly motivated and they will get the Zurich into the front position it deserves.

Consider how, in another thread, crafty people hacked the download-of-profile-data problem, whithout the company, literally in a few days whereas Uemis dragged their feet forever....same thing with the trimix update. It could be done with, in days, the moment they realize that the users are not helpless cattle but rather a strong helping hand.

Open the software, Uemis, realize that the well engineered hardware is the crown jewel. I want nothing more than to see Uemis take care of their assets and prosper this time around.

I would personalize the screen layout immediately, lots of things could be better.

There are dive-comps with open-source software, even comps with OLED screens. But I do have some serious reservations towards such dive comps. Personalizing the screen layout is on thing, implementing a trimix dive-model is something completely different. Who does the testing of the model, who implements it? Did he/she really understand what he/she was programming? Who checks the code? How stable is the code? Who does the real-life testing?

If I buy a dive comp, I should be at least tried and tested thoroughly, I don't want to do the beta-testing with my health..

 

[Scubacastor]

I also own a DR5, one of those open source dive computer and I am skilled enough to see how the code works. The code is well written but it took me quite some times to understand where things were and how they were linked. The trimix version of the ZH-16 model in itself not complicated and available widely on the net but getting it working on an embedded platform (ie a circuit with a screen, some pressure sensor, I mean the hardware part of your dive computer) is far from simple because you have to work as well on storing the data somewhere, on writting a set up interface which mean sending the right command to read and validate the user inputs, to activate the screen. Customizing the layout is the easiest part of the job and it's not an easy thing as well.

So yeah, having the source code the SDA would be nice and this stupid flight problem would probably have been long corrected by those who of us are skilled in embedded computing but going further is another story.

 

[tarjan]

For another solution to this issue you can go to walmart and for 5 dollars pick up a ziplock vacuum bag system. Works a treat, and weighs about 1/4lb so you can easily pack it just in case.

 

[timbo917]

Hello,I am new here to the forum and stumbled on this forum after googeling the problems with my uemis.
I am Tim and I live in Belgium. I been having the same problems with my uemis but never took it on a plane.
It keeps diving after surfacing. It goes in to surface mode and than after a couple of minutes it starts to dive again.
Been having this problem some time now. I send a mail to the new uemis firm and they gave me a possible solution.
I had to create some files on my pc and save them on the uemis. It worked fine 2 dives and after the dive of yesterday its still
duiving today. when the battery goes flat the problem is gone and the uemis is in surface mode but with a huge desat.
What is causing this problem? I have only dived it once in salt water because I did not trust it anymore. The dives I do with the uemis
are fresh water and shallow (15 meters). So salt deposits on the sensor is not the problem I think. Sombody told me it could be a future dead battery.
Could this be true? Please some help

regards

Tim

 

[Gruz]

Hi timbo
Interesting that you've got some files from Uemis, which should cure the flight-mode-dive problem. Uemis announced early june, that they were working on a new firmware, which should cure this problem. So, what they sent you is probably an early version. If you have problems with it or its not working properly, you best contact Uemis directly about it. Since the new firmware hasn't been released yet, I guess Uemis is still testing it and they might be really thankful for your feedback.

I don't think there is any relation with the battery, at least I have so far never heard of a case where those two problems were related with each other. I had a dead battery with my SDA myself, but never experienced the flight-mode problem.

 

[Gruz]

Good news!
UEMIS just released the german version of the SDA manual describing the new flight mode, which will be introduced with a firmware update in the coming weeks.

In short: The new flight mode can be enabled in the preferences on the SDA prior to a flight. It will prevent the SDA from going into dive mode when the air-pressure increases (plane going down for landing). You will have to change the setting again manually before diving. To remind you about the flight mode being active, a green box will show ("flight") on the main screen.

 

[sitoon07]

I had this probleme with my SDA, i make a reboot by updating firmware with SDA vaccum.

So I try to find a solution and for the last two travel , I put my SDA in seal box with a cheat of paper in the joint. And no more problem.
I think this smooth the pressure during the travel, I only open the box some hour after I arrived.

But I'm style waiting for the 1.12 firmware