Uwatec Aladin Tec - First Impressions

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leadweight

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Scubapro is now shipping to its US dealers the Aladin Tec computer in a console. Today I purchased a Tec in a wrist mount. In order to do this the dealer took a wrist mount that came with a Prime and transferred the Tec computer module it.

It looks just like the Prime that you have seen in Rodales and Diver except that the bezel is silver instead of black. Ite came with a plastic screen guard.

Although reviews of the Prime by Rodales and Diver have beenn somewhat cirtical of the use of two buttons to operate the meter instead of three, I found that I was able to quickly master navigation of the many functions. A long press on the right button is effectively the third button. I believe the reviewers' observations in this regard are a case of editorial excess rather than reality.

I have not looked at the printed instruction manual. The print is a lot larger in the PDF that I downloaded from Scubapro Uwatec web site. Both Rodales and Diver have been critical of the manual when reviewing the Prime as Scubapro decided to produce only one manual for both the full featured Tec and the "just the essentials" Prime, this problem does not apply if you have a Tec Functions on the Prime are pretty much a subset of the Tec.

Base values in the dive planner seem very conservative at 46 minutes for 60 feet and 15 minutes for 100 feet. Judging from the graphs in Rodales test of the Prime, I suspect the Tec to usually allow longer bottom times than the very popular Vyper. Note that the Vyper's manual lists no stop times that are considerably more generous. In this regard the Tec probably follows the Smart line of computers, that when tested by Rodales 2 years ago allowed a bit less bottom time than the Suunto's on the first dive of the day, and comfortably more on subsequent dives.

Of course Rodales graphs are produced in a lab where ascents are going to be perfect. In the ocean things can be quite different the Tec lacks the "mandatory" safety stop feature of the Vyper and its relatives. As far as I can tell the Tec also lacks the rounding up of FO2 when calculating maximum operating depth. For me, the most important feature of the Tec as ompared to the Prime is the ability to set the maximum PO2 to something other than 1.4.

Numbers are large and easy to read, the strap is very long.

I will get to dive this gem next week and will compare it side by side with my 7 year old Aladin Pro Nitrox.
 
I have a bit more information on the planning mode.


Depth, Pro_Nitrox, Tec_Fresh, Tec_Salt
Feet, Minutes, Minutes, Minutes
60 51 48 46
70 36 34 33
80 28 27 25
90 22 20 19
100 17 16 15

Note that the Aladin Pro Nitrox is calibrated for fresh water. So when I compared the Pro Nitrox with the Tec, the fairer comparison was to set the Tec for fresh water. While the Tec is more conservative than the Pro Nitrox, it is less so that I first thought. I seem to remember that the fresh water dive planner numbers for the Pro Ultra are the same and that the Pro Ultra is also calibrated for fresh water. Does anyone have one that can confirm that?
 
I have noticed a few more things. When the module is removed from he wrist mount, it looks quite similar to the Oceanic hockey pucks. It is possible to change the battery without removing the computer from the wrist mount. I have been wondering why they decided to go the two button route, rather than three buttons. The only things that I can think of is that it is less expensive to manufacture a computer with fewer water sealed switches, or possibly with fewer buttons they can be made larger and easier to press when wearing gloves.

A lot pf people did not like the microbubble levels on the Smart series of computers because the level stop information prevented the diver from seeing the regular decompression stop information. A level stop could be missed without a violation, but a missed decompression stop locks the computer. On the Tec the user can tell from the nitrogen loading bar if a decompression stop is near. The graphic is supposed to start flashing when no-stop time is 3 minutes or less. Also, the diver can go through the different screens of information available on the display to see how much no stop time is left, exclusive of the level stops.
 
leadweight:
Scubapro is now shipping to its US dealers the Aladin Tec computer in a console. Today I purchased a Tec in a wrist mount. In order to do this the dealer took a wrist mount that came with a Prime and transferred the Tec computer module it.

It looks just like the Prime that you have seen in Rodales and Diver except that the bezel is silver instead of black. Ite came with a plastic screen guard.

Although reviews of the Prime by Rodales and Diver have beenn somewhat cirtical of the use of two buttons to operate the meter instead of three, I found that I was able to quickly master navigation of the many functions. A long press on the right button is effectively the third button. I believe the reviewers' observations in this regard are a case of editorial excess rather than reality.

I have not looked at the printed instruction manual. The print is a lot larger in the PDF that I downloaded from Scubapro Uwatec web site. Both Rodales and Diver have been critical of the manual when reviewing the Prime as Scubapro decided to produce only one manual for both the full featured Tec and the "just the essentials" Prime, this problem does not apply if you have a Tec Functions on the Prime are pretty much a subset of the Tec.

Base values in the dive planner seem very conservative at 46 minutes for 60 feet and 15 minutes for 100 feet. Judging from the graphs in Rodales test of the Prime, I suspect the Tec to usually allow longer bottom times than the very popular Vyper. Note that the Vyper's manual lists no stop times that are considerably more generous. In this regard the Tec probably follows the Smart line of computers, that when tested by Rodales 2 years ago allowed a bit less bottom time than the Suunto's on the first dive of the day, and comfortably more on subsequent dives.

Of course Rodales graphs are produced in a lab where ascents are going to be perfect. In the ocean things can be quite different the Tec lacks the "mandatory" safety stop feature of the Vyper and its relatives. As far as I can tell the Tec also lacks the rounding up of FO2 when calculating maximum operating depth. For me, the most important feature of the Tec as ompared to the Prime is the ability to set the maximum PO2 to something other than 1.4.

Numbers are large and easy to read, the strap is very long.

I will get to dive this gem next week and will compare it side by side with my 7 year old Aladin Pro Nitrox.

Something other than 1.4 - Interesting comment - Oceanic, Aries and etc. have offered that feature for years.

Having read your post HERE I see you're not biased at all.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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