Quote: (Originally Posted by
Dave Sutton)
On to the rig:
The electronics are *great*. The primary electronics are the same as I am using in my Mark-15 and are the only digital electronics I have been happy with from a reliablity standpoint. The electronics are digital, not analog, but are "single purpose", meaning that they hold setpoint and do no other work. Add the deco computer of your choice and add a 4th cell to run it. The computer will be obsolete in 20 years... the setpoint controller will not.
Direct from the horses mouth Colin Said, "digital electronics are "flakey" at best, we will be replacing the digital system with an analog one" This was quoted from Colin, I was in the room during the seminar, I am not commenting on things I have not seen. also they had not provided a place for a 4th cell, but alluded they may be doing that. Are you or are you not? simple question.
Quote: (Originally Posted by
Dave Sutton)
The HUD is fine. Green = good and Red = check secondary. Little known fact: You can remove the HUD and plug in a Mark-15 primary and have the entire LED row if you prefer that to a HUD. It only takes a button push during caibration to switch the software between "HUD" and Mark-15 Primary" modes. Colkan makes an excellent LED primary if that is what you want.
If the software hangs (assuming its digital and they dont go to analog) the LED can burn green all day and the CCR could be not delivering gas, this is a "bad" alarm, you only know that it works WHEN it works, not the rest of the time. If its analog, the transister can fry and stick a solid green out there too. A flashing type HUD that is delivering information on each loop of the software subroutine is much more effective as an alarm as it also informs you continously that the software is still running. the smithers type coding does this, as well as actually reading all three cells value. Just cause its what you grew up with, doesnt mean it the best, sorry dave
Quote: (Originally Posted by
Dave Sutton)
The secondary is also the same as what I have been using on my Mark-15 and it is also excellent Leave the backlight on all the time... it does not appreciably affect battery life. Calibrate it every 3 months and forget about it.
again, according to Colin, the backlight sucks juice and will significantly deplete the battery, I asked why it was set up so that you couldnt turn the BL on during the dive, he retorted with "dont you carry a dive torch?" Sorry that was a salesman talking around the poor design features and you, dave, are defending a poor design. Question, if this was something alien to you and not your best remembered design from the warm fuzzy past, would you be defending it quite so much? There should be a way to turn the BL on During a dive, not have to decide it Prior to the dive, that is just plain lazy design and stupid. How about a tap sensor? Colin said they didnt want any switches to pierce the hull of the PO2 meter, but then they put this silly hole in the back for calibration that REQUIRES the diver to break the seal into a unit that is NOT potted (I asked) every dive that either needs calibration, or you decide to change the state of the Backlight.
Quote: (Originally Posted by
Dave Sutton)
The ADV is a Schreader and is the *ONLY* ADV that will allow a leaking or "not locked up" HP seat failure to occur without an ADV freeflow. Kudus! A leaking ADV with low 02 mix just caused the near-accident that is being discussed elsewhere. Leaking ADV's are *bad news*. This is the only rig other than the Mark-15 to use one that I trust.
Not a bad thing for the diluent side
Quote: (Originally Posted by
Dave Sutton)
The use of all HP tubing in the rig, so as to allow a HP seat failure to be tolerated is right out of the Mark-15 series. I would not add an OPV to the system, allow a HP leak to do its thing and you will not lose your gas.
this is however a bad thing for the oxygen side, with 200 bar on the manual inject valve, how much oxygen do you think is going to flow into the rig when one hits the button at depth....hmmm, Im dont have the flow rates or hose diameters, but Im going to hazzard a guess and say more than I would like, a lot more.
Quote: (Originally Posted by
Dave Sutton)
The direct reading secondary from the cells is right out of the Mark-15 and is one of the best safety features a rig can have.
Not sure if we are talking about the same thing here, this is not the old analog millivolt scale with the thumbwheel. Pic added. Couldnt get it to light up, cause it required a .4 PO2 to come alive, great for testing the unit right before a trip when you might not have any O2 to run the loop up. (sarcasm added) So it may be a great secondary, Right up until it floods cause someone was in a hurry and didnt screw the plug in correctly. How hard would it be to add one peizo switch (draeger oxygauge) a tap sensor (rEvodream) so one could activate controls w/o breaking the seal?
I have pointed out quite a few problems with this unit, I was the red headed stepchild in the crowd, Colin was not happy with the questions I asked and tried very hard to brush them off, rather than explain with logic and design principles, he weaved and dodged like Bill Clinton at an inquiry. I wasnt tryin to shoot this down, honest, but I tend to ask questions and when I dont get good answers, I tend to start digging deeper.