| Re: Cells....
Burning the cells in with O2 for 24 hours before installation is definitely a good idea and should be standard practice.
You also need to watch the cells during the dive, and not just on calibration. We recently went through a few cells that calibrated fine, but eventually (within 1 month) went a little squirelly. I had one that would continually and consistently climb (PO2) with no addition of ANY gas (everything shut down) and would be 1.8+ while the other cells were around 1.0. At one point I saw the mV of this cell at 88. After the dive and drying out, it would again calibrate fine, but then would consistently go AWOL during the course of the dive. Curiously enough, when put in a cell checker the tech could not get anything above 12 mV regardless of PO2. This cell was only about 6 weeks old.
Another cell started reading just a hair off, but checking the mV I saw it was reading less than 30 mV at 1.6 PO2. I kept watching it as an experiment and it steadily got worse and more unpredictable before I finally binned it. This cell had been sealed only 3 weeks earlier.
The point I am trying to make is that you should not just trust your calibration nor assume a new cell has ~12 months of service. During your dive, scroll through your menu to SYSTEM MONITOR and crosscheck your mV to your PO2.
The bottom line is never-ever-ever-ever blindly trust those fuqing O2 cells! |