| Colkan Eagle first chamber dives + pictures
Well guys its official 3 Colkan Eagles went in the chamber last night for a dive to 50 meters (164ft) - total run time was 90 minutes.
We dived 1 fully electronic unit and 2 constant add units.
Over all the units performed very well and the work of breathing was VERY acceptable to all the testers.
Bazza - usually dives and inspo
Steve P - currently dives Kissed 15.5 - i think previously inspo
Steve L - currently dives standard 15.5 - previously inspo
We did had some glitches with the secondary display on the constant add units and this is maybe a cell position issue or some code in the display board - will be resolved next week with the software designer (Jason) going to the factory to spend some time.
Jason also does the electronics for the Mk 15.5 untis and the electronic eagles all of which work, and work very well so im sure it is just some debugging and that was the point of the chamber dives.
Col and Kane rigged up some water tubes that were connected to the mouthpieces of the units. Along side the water tubes was a scale so we could measure the water differential pressure on the inhale and exhale.
See the pictures - these are the white boards hanging off the roof of the chamber.
The worst reading we got was 10mm water above and 10 below equlibrium. (me) - I think Bazza had about +/- 6mm.
I simulated a hard work cycle at 50m and found that the WOB was acceptable. I managed to lower the setpoint in a 2 minute cycle about 0.3 so the solenoid opening sequence will be tweeked to stop this - again the whole pont of testing ..
We packed the scrubbers with 2-5mm sofnolime for the record.
Did't notice any breakthough but I wouldnt expect that this would be the case anyway on a 90 minute dive, longer dives are comming in the next few weeks.
We set the units up on one side of the chamber and sat opposite (see the pics)
The dives were conducted on air both on the Eagles and in the chamber.
The chamber operator wanted us to do the last stop on the oxygen bibs not the Rebreather's.
I flushed the fully electronic unit at 6m and all reading held steady and when we went to 3m the cells tracked perfectly.
See the pics below for the fun.
Now it's official - not vapourware
More later
Regards,
Steve L
Last edited by SteveL : 4th May 2007 at 08:24.
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