Unfamiliarity with your dive computer

[peterbj7]

Yet again today (it happens frequently) I had a guest with all the trick gear who didn't know how to use it. He had an air-integrated computer. I asked him on occasion for his remaining air and he told me accurately (at least, I assume he did). Then later in the dive I asked him what his remaining no-deco time was (we'd agreed appropriate hand signals). He looked at it and signalled "7" with his fingers, then again "8". Thoroughly confused I asked to see his computer. He was actually 2 minutes into deco and didn't realise. I couldn't see any "7" or "8" he could have been referring to.

Back on the boat I asked him about his conservatism & altitude settings and he patently didn't know what I was talking about, so I suggested he go back and read the manual.

Time for a hasty revision to the dive plan. Why do people take down gear they don't know how to use?

 

[Oki Dirt Diver]

I just got my first DC an Aeris Elite T3 last friday, I have been spending just about every night reading the book and playing with the computer because it's the only way for me to soak in that much info. The only reason I bought it is to help make diving safer and simpler for me being a newb, so I can't imagine using it before I understand how to operate it!

 

[Web Monkey]

Some of the computers require a significant amount of SCUBA knowledge in order to accurately interpret.

Tank pressure is usually a no-brainer, however some show both NDL and RBT, and unless the diver knows the difference, can be quite confusing.

For example, on the SmartCom, it's easy to have 2 minutes of NDL left, which is the time until it starts calculating mandatory deco, and 15 minutes of RBT, which is the time (at the current SAC rate) before the diver needs to ascend directly to the surface in order to arrive with their preset tank reserve intact.

Since RBT takes into account the time and gas needed for all the various stops, it's actually pretty cool, although I'd to guess that not a lot of owners ever bothered to read the manual to see what everything on it is for.

Terry

Yet again today (it happens frequently) I had a guest with all the trick gear who didn't know how to use it. He had an air-integrated computer. I asked him on occasion for his remaining air and he told me accurately (at least, I assume he did). Then later in the dive I asked him what his remaining no-deco time was (we'd agreed appropriate hand signals). He looked at it and signalled "7" with his fingers, then again "8". Thoroughly confused I asked to see his computer. He was actually 2 minutes into deco and didn't realise. I couldn't see any "7" or "8" he could have been referring to.

Back on the boat I asked him about his conservatism & altitude settings and he patently didn't know what I was talking about, so I suggested he go back and read the manual.

Time for a hasty revision to the dive plan. Why do people take down gear they don't know how to use?

 

[Noboundaries]

If the guy was an experienced diver, there's no excuse. If a newbie, I can relate.

My wife and I are two intelligent individuals. We thoroughly read our computer manuals after we bought them. As new divers we understood the function but not the significance of what we read. We worked with the simulations but knew we needed experience in the water.

As we accumulated a few dives, we were always scrambling back to the manual to understand the alarms we were hearing and which screens served us best. After about 10 to 15 dives we could zip through our computer and at a glance tell what's going on. On those first dives though we were learning something new about our computers on every single dive.

We probably would have been as guilty as the guy you're talking about if you had asked us questions after a dive. That's why newbies depend upon people with experience to keep us out of trouble until we accumulate experience of our own, especially with our new fangled computers.

 

[RJP]

Had an instabuddy once who responded "3200" the first time I signaled for his pressure about 5min into the dive. I thought "Oh thank god he's not an air hog!"

About 10min later I asked again. He checked his computer and then signaled "3200" again.

Uh oh.

With a sneaky suspicion as to what he was reporting I motioned that I would like to see his computer, only to confirm that he was indeed dutifully reporting his EANx percentage, which happened to be the largest number on the display.

The smile that was not visible behind my regulator quickly disappeared when my eyes wandered down to the flashing 500psi right below!

I switched him over to my sling bottle and signaled "ascend" and we made our way to 15ft where we did 3min and surfaced.

On the debrief he was glad to have me help him understand how to read his computer. "I wasn't sure whether that number was how many PSI I had left or how many minutes I had left." When I explained what the 32% meant he was pleasantly surprised to discover that his computer "had an analyzer built in - SWEET!"

We then discussed how it was that he ended up at 500psi less than fifteen minutes into a 50ft dive. "Yeah, that's really strange since my SAC has really improved lately. In fact just yesterday I still had almost a full tank after a 30min dive."

ME: "Full tank?"

HE: "Yeah - didn't even need to get it refilled since I still had 3200psi."

Ughhhhh!

 

[Paco II]

Something I consider a 'limitation' of current dive computers, is the inability to experience the dive functions while on land. Without any kind of demo mode, there is often no way to even see the computer in 'dive mode' at all. And while manuals are better than nothing, they are often lacking in their content and visuals guides. So what we are ultimately left with is having to learn while diving, as Noboundaries has mentioned. There needs to be some kind of demo or 'testing' mode to allow some to really learn how their computer works while on land.

 

[DwayneJ]

We then discussed how it was that he ended up at 500psi less than fifteen minutes into a 50ft dive. "Yeah, that's really strange since my SAC has really improved lately. In fact just yesterday I still had almost a full tank after a 30min dive."

ME: "Full tank?"

HE: "Yeah - didn't even need to get it refilled since I still had 3200psi."

Ughhhhh!

A complete lack of situational awareness is what scares me the most.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

I have to say I really miss the good old days when the plegaic hockey pucks in a variety of brands were the computer you were most likely to run into. They were simple to interpet and if nothing else the green/yellow/red bar could be interrpeted during a quick look at your buddies computer without ever having seen or read the manual.

Some computers are still easy to read with the depth, deco time remaining and, if air integrated, the tank pressure being the major large number players. Others however show really meaningless data like water temp or can't change it anyway under water data like FO2 in large numbers. Its enough to make you wonder if the designers have ever even been near the water.

 

[ianr33]

I have to say I really miss the good old days when the plegaic hockey pucks in a variety of brands were the computer you were most likely to run into. They were simple to interpet and if nothing else the green/yellow/red bar could be interrpeted during a quick look at your buddies computer without ever having seen or read the manual.

Thats what I use.

Simple enough to use on Deep Air dives

 

[SlowRain]

I guess what really scares me is I have been using the same model computer for so long now (Delta VR3) that if I was diving with someone with a different kind, I might not know what to look for, let alone help them figure it out. Just a thought.