Hard off switch on the Hammer Head

Mark Chase · 30th October 2006, 14:16

Posted by Jradomski

Quote:

The HH isn't perfect, but its setpoint control is better than anything else I have tried, and IMHO not having a hard off switch is a good thing..

Bearing in mind the amount of clout Jradomski is likely to have with his opinion on the Hammer Head I thought Id raise this as a specific issue.

I reeeeeeelllyyy like my Hammer Head. I find it simple to use and effective. Unlike J I don't find the set point control to be obviously better than the classic. In fact at first glance its obviously worse flitting up and down all over the place. However my old Classic was fitted with a Uri HUD and I soon found that it was picking up cell errors and issues way before the classic handsets even registered an issue. If this is due to buffering in the classic hand sets or just that the HUD was much more sensitive I don't know but what is obvious is that the read outs on the Hammer Head are equally volatile and I have concluded rightly or wrongly they are a little more representative of whats actually going on than the Classic I used before

In the grand scheme of things it hold set point close enough for jazz and i don't worry about periodic 0.05-0.1 +/- fluctuations.

The battery issue is a bummer and having no indicator of remaining battery life is very surprising on such a power hungry beast however I can live with this problem if I can have the option of switching to the back up hand set if / when the master goes down.

But you cant

The master doesn't go down without a fight. It dies and reboots over and over again and every time it reboots it injects a big slug of 02 into the loop.
There is a way of switching off the solenoid but this is also on the master so you cant get down the menu to operate the function. QED in this situation its useless.

The back up hand set has never failed me but your not left with the option to run the unit manually because the master just keeps rebooting and injecting 02.

Simple problem to solve. Switch off the Master. But you cant. SO I have to switch off the 02 supply to the solenoid and wait for it to blast the remaining pressurized 02 through the loop and then I can switch to my separate back up 02 bottle and run the unit manually.

Its a bodge to get around the problem of not being able to switch off the primary. All the time your setting up the bodge your sucking big PP02s or wasting dill on flushing the loop.

OK my bodge works but I don't like totally depressurizing a 1st stage all sorts of nasty things might happen like salt water going where its not supposed to. Have you seen what a low pressure hose looks like at 60m when its not gassed up? its flat. That cant be a good thing.

To me the HH is great and any one who asks will get told it has issues that I hope are being resolved but it has one massive inherent fault. To fix this it either has to be reprogrammed not to test fire the solenoid once in the water or it needs a hard off switch on the master.

The back up is cool have that permanently buzzing the HUD and flashing warnings to the diver who hasn't carried out their pre dive checks but the battery issue would be a non issue for me as long as I could safely use the unit at depth should the master fail.

So apparently Kevin and Jradomski think I am wrong? What is the logic behind their stance? How do they suggest dealing with a constantly rebooting and repeat firing solenoid?

Please don't tell me to take the battery out at 60m+ because A: i am more likely to chop my thumb off at depth than successfully undo the battery cap at depth using the back of my knife and B: The hassle and cost of sending the flooded hand set + head back to Kevin is more than i could bear.

ATB

Mark Chase

PCDiver · 30th October 2006, 14:51

I agree with Mark for 100%. Before I installed the new battery caps and used the conductive grease, I ran into the same problem a couple of times (primary continously rebooting and injection O2).

A hard switch is an option, but not easy to implement. What I would like to see is that the no 02 is injected at startup if depth is below 6 meters. The other option could be for the primary to check whether a button was pressed continously (e.g. 3 seconds) at startup. If a button was pressed, the controller could go to inactive mode until another button is pressed. This could function as a soft "switch off" function.

sensor330 · 30th October 2006, 15:08

Or maybe a rechargeable pack inside so its not required for the user to open and close the battery compartment. As well have a battery life indicator and have something in the programming that if the handset comes on at depth below 6 m to automatically turn the solenoid to off.

Scott

***jradomski*** · 30th October 2006, 15:34

Quote: (Originally Posted by Mark Chase)

Posted by Jradomski

Bearing in mind the amount of clout Jradomski is likely to have with his opinion on the Hammer Head I thought Id raise this as a specific issue.

I reeeeeeelllyyy like my Hammer Head. I find it simple to use and effective. Unlike J I don't find the set point control to be obviously better than the classic. In fact at first glance its obviously worse flitting up and down all over the place. However my old Classic was fitted with a Uri HUD and I soon found that it was picking up cell errors and issues way before the classic handsets even registered an issue. If this is due to buffering in the classic hand sets or just that the HUD was much more sensitive I don't know but what is obvious is that the read outs on the Hammer Head are equally volatile and I have concluded rightly or wrongly they are a little more representative of whats actually going on than the Classic I used before

In the grand scheme of things it hold set point close enough for jazz and i don't worry about periodic 0.05-0.1 +/- fluctuations.

The battery issue is a bummer and having no indicator of remaining battery life is very surprising on such a power hungry beast however I can live with this problem if I can have the option of switching to the back up hand set if / when the master goes down.

But you cant

The master doesn't go down without a fight. It dies and reboots over and over again and every time it reboots it injects a big slug of 02 into the loop.
There is a way of switching off the solenoid but this is also on the master so you cant get down the menu to operate the function. QED in this situation its useless.

The back up hand set has never failed me but your not left with the option to run the unit manually because the master just keeps rebooting and injecting 02.

Simple problem to solve. Switch off the Master. But you cant. SO I have to switch off the 02 supply to the solenoid and wait for it to blast the remaining pressurized 02 through the loop and then I can switch to my separate back up 02 bottle and run the unit manually.

Its a bodge to get around the problem of not being able to switch off the primary. All the time your setting up the bodge your sucking big PP02s or wasting dill on flushing the loop.

OK my bodge works but I don't like totally depressurizing a 1st stage all sorts of nasty things might happen like salt water going where its not supposed to. Have you seen what a low pressure hose looks like at 60m when its not gassed up? its flat. That cant be a good thing.

To me the HH is great and any one who asks will get told it has issues that I hope are being resolved but it has one massive inherent fault. To fix this it either has to be reprogrammed not to test fire the solenoid once in the water or it needs a hard off switch on the master.

The back up is cool have that permanently buzzing the HUD and flashing warnings to the diver who hasn't carried out their pre dive checks but the battery issue would be a non issue for me as long as I could safely use the unit at depth should the master fail.

So apparently Kevin and Jradomski think I am wrong? What is the logic behind their stance? How do they suggest dealing with a constantly rebooting and repeat firing solenoid?

Please don't tell me to take the battery out at 60m+ because A: i am more likely to chop my thumb off at depth than successfully undo the battery cap at depth using the back of my knife and B: The hassle and cost of sending the flooded hand set + head back to Kevin is more than i could bear.

ATB

Mark Chase

I'll never agree with a hard off, but I do agree he HAS to fix the problem with injecting o2 on reboot (I never had this problem with the older units).. Since implementing the fixes on the cap, I havent had a reboot (I only had 2 before that).. Even with that I was easily able to disable the solenoid.. If you try and go in immediuately after a reboot it may reboot again.. if the po2 is above the target and you wait for the powerup sequence to finish you can get to the menu.. I tried it on batteries that were weak enough to cause a continuous reset, these were unable to fire the solenoid..

The po2 display on the primary is not continuous (although internally I believe the update is more frequent), if you need realtime po2 feedback use the secondary..

with the HH you woun't overshoot the po2, using an independent cell (plus my own po2 logger) and recording the po2 the HH is pretty flat not like the classic which is over and below the setpoint all the time.. The HH is consistent across all depths, the Inspiration works best around 20m and gets worse as depth increases..

If your po2 always seems a bit lower than you like raise the IP.. 135-145psi (about 9.3 to 10 bar) works great.. On the HH, if you set it to 1.3 don;t expect to see a 1.30 on the display.. its the average of the 3 cells.. so ~1.26-1.30 = 1.3

I also take a few precautions when I know getting wet is a possibility.. I put the dried handsets in a plastic bag, and have never had a turn on..

I usually use 3.6v lithium cells , since I dont trust the performance of alkaline cells in cold water (I will use them in warm water though)...

Ben Field · 30th October 2006, 15:48

Excuse me for butting in... (I don't have a HH or Inspiration but saw Marks post starting the thread and wondered if I might have a chuckle at another life and death tussle with his electronics at depth I wandered in...

)

Considering the HH is a finished product... I can't think of another piece of dive gear (with the exception of a camera in a housing perhaps) that needs such a constant supply of new batteries and constant drying, wraping up, greasing of things etc.

I know the single AA approact makes things easy when finding a replacement in far off places is involved but it seems a right royal pain in the backside the rest of the time?

Surely one battery for the handset that lasts ages and another larger battery elsewhere for the solenoid makes more sense?

That way the handsets never/rarely fail so you know whats going on all the time and the solenoid should last a trip instead of a dive, if it gets wet it should still work when you finally do get to dive and as both have batteries you can pick something suitable for each rather than something that struggles with doing both?

I realise that that would mean a complete redesign so of no real help.... sorry

I've been watching the HH for years now, except for the battery issue it seems pretty sweet.

BEN

Genesis · 30th October 2006, 15:50

Not knowing that you are diving and going through some startup checks that can spike the PO2 underwater is an unacceptable design flaw.

Its also simple to fix - if the unit is underwater when its turned on don't fire the solenoid! The unit has BOTH wet switches AND a depth sensor.....

***jradomski*** · 30th October 2006, 15:58

Quote: (Originally Posted by Ben Field)

Excuse me for butting in... (I don't have a HH or Inspiration but saw Marks post starting the thread and wondered if I might have a chuckle at another life and death tussle with his electronics at depth I wandered in...

)

Considering the HH is a finished product... I can't think of another piece of dive gear (with the exception of a camera in a housing perhaps) that needs such a constant supply of new batteries and constant drying, wraping up, greasing of things etc.

I know the single AA approact makes things easy when finding a replacement in far off places is involved but it seems a right royal pain in the backside the rest of the time?

Surely one battery for the handset that lasts ages and another larger battery elsewhere for the solenoid makes more sense?

That way the handsets never/rarely fail so you know whats going on all the time and the solenoid should last a trip instead of a dive, if it gets wet it should still work when you finally do get to dive and as both have batteries you can pick something suitable for each rather than something that struggles with doing both?

I realise that that would mean a complete redesign so of no real help.... sorry

I've been watching the HH for years now, except for the battery issue it seems pretty sweet.

BEN

Battery life depends on the type of battery... if you use the correct 3.6v lithiums you generally get 2-3 weeks of diving everyday.. If you use aa alkalines you should change them everytime you change the scrubber.. You can get away with less frequent changes in warm water, but in cold water alkaline batteries lose about 50% of their capacity..

as to battery, Kevin can use just about any power source (non rechargable that he wants) its all a matter of the battery connection.. The PS will work with any voltage from about .9v to 10v

Mark Chase · 30th October 2006, 16:33

Quote: (Originally Posted by jradomski)

Even with that I was easily able to disable the solenoid.. If you try and go in immediuately after a reboot it may reboot again.. if the po2 is above the target and you wait for the powerup sequence to finish you can get to the menu.. I tried it on batteries that were weak enough to cause a continuous reset, these were unable to fire the solenoid..

This worked once. I immediately switched to a 0.7 set point and ran the unit manually at 1.3ish and I had no dramas. However i reckon (its just a guess) that this was a straight low battery problem. All the other times it just kept on rebooting no mater what I did to the set point. Only on the first ever failure did i not attempt this procedure. (I didn't know about it at the time thanks to Joe I did soon after)

I now have some 3.6v batteries I inherited with the new unit. I was confident with the Alkaline ones i just binned them after two dives (4-6 hours) but with the 3.6 i am wondering how long to push my luck? The long boat journeys are a problem as sometimes conditions are bad and you just cant pop out every now and again to ensure the hand sets are off.

Tried bags with limited success. Pre dive OK but post dive not brilliant. The bigger sensor holes and a big dollop of silicone seems to work better but it feels like a bit of a lottery.

However the worry about an irritating master failure would not be an issue as long as I have my secondary and now (as of today) my Sherewater to back it up)

I have no idea what sort of reprogramming issue is involved in preventing the solenoid firing at boot up in the water but I hope its something thats soon available.

ATB

Mark Chase

PCDiver · 30th October 2006, 16:36

Quote: (Originally Posted by jradomski)

Battery life depends on the type of battery... if you use the correct 3.6v lithiums you generally get 2-3 weeks of diving everyday..

I have the same experience. The primary ran for around +20 hours dive time on one 3.6V battery. I used smaller capacity batteries because I had switch off problems due to incorrect depth sensor readings and a wetswich that was far too sensitive. Both problems are now fixed. So big batteries is the way to go.

Kevin only needs to provide a software update to fix the "reboot - pffft - reboot - pfft"-issue.

PCDiver · 30th October 2006, 16:40

Quote: (Originally Posted by Mark Chase)

The long boat journeys are a problem as sometimes conditions are bad and you just cant pop out every now and again to ensure the hand sets are off.

Tried bags with limited success. Pre dive OK but post dive not brilliant. The bigger sensor holes and a big dollop of silicone seems to work better but it feels like a bit of a lottery.

Disconnecting the wet switch is easy

30th October 2006, 14:16	#1 (permalink)
Mark Chase I go down for ages Current Rebreather/s: Classic Kiss Other CCR Other Rebreather/s: Inspiration Classic Other CCR Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Kent Posts: 2,410	Hard off switch on the Hammer Head Posted by Jradomski Quote: The HH isn't perfect, but its setpoint control is better than anything else I have tried, and IMHO not having a hard off switch is a good thing.. Bearing in mind the amount of clout Jradomski is likely to have with his opinion on the Hammer Head I thought Id raise this as a specific issue. I reeeeeeelllyyy like my Hammer Head. I find it simple to use and effective. Unlike J I don't find the set point control to be obviously better than the classic. In fact at first glance its obviously worse flitting up and down all over the place. However my old Classic was fitted with a Uri HUD and I soon found that it was picking up cell errors and issues way before the classic handsets even registered an issue. If this is due to buffering in the classic hand sets or just that the HUD was much more sensitive I don't know but what is obvious is that the read outs on the Hammer Head are equally volatile and I have concluded rightly or wrongly they are a little more representative of whats actually going on than the Classic I used before In the grand scheme of things it hold set point close enough for jazz and i don't worry about periodic 0.05-0.1 +/- fluctuations. The battery issue is a bummer and having no indicator of remaining battery life is very surprising on such a power hungry beast however I can live with this problem if I can have the option of switching to the back up hand set if / when the master goes down. But you cant The master doesn't go down without a fight. It dies and reboots over and over again and every time it reboots it injects a big slug of 02 into the loop. There is a way of switching off the solenoid but this is also on the master so you cant get down the menu to operate the function. QED in this situation its useless. The back up hand set has never failed me but your not left with the option to run the unit manually because the master just keeps rebooting and injecting 02. Simple problem to solve. Switch off the Master. But you cant. SO I have to switch off the 02 supply to the solenoid and wait for it to blast the remaining pressurized 02 through the loop and then I can switch to my separate back up 02 bottle and run the unit manually. Its a bodge to get around the problem of not being able to switch off the primary. All the time your setting up the bodge your sucking big PP02s or wasting dill on flushing the loop. OK my bodge works but I don't like totally depressurizing a 1st stage all sorts of nasty things might happen like salt water going where its not supposed to. Have you seen what a low pressure hose looks like at 60m when its not gassed up? its flat. That cant be a good thing. To me the HH is great and any one who asks will get told it has issues that I hope are being resolved but it has one massive inherent fault. To fix this it either has to be reprogrammed not to test fire the solenoid once in the water or it needs a hard off switch on the master. The back up is cool have that permanently buzzing the HUD and flashing warnings to the diver who hasn't carried out their pre dive checks but the battery issue would be a non issue for me as long as I could safely use the unit at depth should the master fail. So apparently Kevin and Jradomski think I am wrong? What is the logic behind their stance? How do they suggest dealing with a constantly rebooting and repeat firing solenoid? Please don't tell me to take the battery out at 60m+ because A: i am more likely to chop my thumb off at depth than successfully undo the battery cap at depth using the back of my knife and B: The hassle and cost of sending the flooded hand set + head back to Kevin is more than i could bear. ATB Mark Chase __________________ Is it supposed to make that noise ? I took my unit to the dive shop and demanded they bolt on every thing that would fit. Join my elite diving teem and get a Tshirt "Doing It Chasey"Hammerhead Eccr Advanced Diving System Last edited by Mark Chase : 30th October 2006 at 14:19.
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30th October 2006, 14:51	#2 (permalink)
PCDiver Submerge Productions Current Rebreather/s: Inspiration Vision Other Rebreather/s: Inspiration Classic Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Belgium Posts: 878	Re: Hard off switch on the Hammer Head I agree with Mark for 100%. Before I installed the new battery caps and used the conductive grease, I ran into the same problem a couple of times (primary continously rebooting and injection O2). A hard switch is an option, but not easy to implement. What I would like to see is that the no 02 is injected at startup if depth is below 6 meters. The other option could be for the primary to check whether a button was pressed continously (e.g. 3 seconds) at startup. If a button was pressed, the controller could go to inactive mode until another button is pressed. This could function as a soft "switch off" function.
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30th October 2006, 15:08	#3 (permalink)
sensor330 Custom Title Allowed! Current Rebreather/s: Megalodon Other Rebreather/s: Not Bought Yet Inspiration Classic Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Posts: 545	Re: Hard off switch on the Hammer Head Or maybe a rechargeable pack inside so its not required for the user to open and close the battery compartment. As well have a battery life indicator and have something in the programming that if the handset comes on at depth below 6 m to automatically turn the solenoid to off. Scott
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30th October 2006, 15:34	#4 (permalink)
*jradomski* Moderator Current Rebreather/s: Inspiration Classic Sport Kiss Optima rEvo Other CCR Home Build Other Rebreather/s: Inspiration Vision Evolution Megalodon Classic Kiss rEvo Other CCR Home Build Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: "Da" Bronx Posts: 2,795	Re: Hard off switch on the Hammer Head Quote: (Originally Posted by Mark Chase) Posted by Jradomski Bearing in mind the amount of clout Jradomski is likely to have with his opinion on the Hammer Head I thought Id raise this as a specific issue. I reeeeeeelllyyy like my Hammer Head. I find it simple to use and effective. Unlike J I don't find the set point control to be obviously better than the classic. In fact at first glance its obviously worse flitting up and down all over the place. However my old Classic was fitted with a Uri HUD and I soon found that it was picking up cell errors and issues way before the classic handsets even registered an issue. If this is due to buffering in the classic hand sets or just that the HUD was much more sensitive I don't know but what is obvious is that the read outs on the Hammer Head are equally volatile and I have concluded rightly or wrongly they are a little more representative of whats actually going on than the Classic I used before In the grand scheme of things it hold set point close enough for jazz and i don't worry about periodic 0.05-0.1 +/- fluctuations. The battery issue is a bummer and having no indicator of remaining battery life is very surprising on such a power hungry beast however I can live with this problem if I can have the option of switching to the back up hand set if / when the master goes down. But you cant The master doesn't go down without a fight. It dies and reboots over and over again and every time it reboots it injects a big slug of 02 into the loop. There is a way of switching off the solenoid but this is also on the master so you cant get down the menu to operate the function. QED in this situation its useless. The back up hand set has never failed me but your not left with the option to run the unit manually because the master just keeps rebooting and injecting 02. Simple problem to solve. Switch off the Master. But you cant. SO I have to switch off the 02 supply to the solenoid and wait for it to blast the remaining pressurized 02 through the loop and then I can switch to my separate back up 02 bottle and run the unit manually. Its a bodge to get around the problem of not being able to switch off the primary. All the time your setting up the bodge your sucking big PP02s or wasting dill on flushing the loop. OK my bodge works but I don't like totally depressurizing a 1st stage all sorts of nasty things might happen like salt water going where its not supposed to. Have you seen what a low pressure hose looks like at 60m when its not gassed up? its flat. That cant be a good thing. To me the HH is great and any one who asks will get told it has issues that I hope are being resolved but it has one massive inherent fault. To fix this it either has to be reprogrammed not to test fire the solenoid once in the water or it needs a hard off switch on the master. The back up is cool have that permanently buzzing the HUD and flashing warnings to the diver who hasn't carried out their pre dive checks but the battery issue would be a non issue for me as long as I could safely use the unit at depth should the master fail. So apparently Kevin and Jradomski think I am wrong? What is the logic behind their stance? How do they suggest dealing with a constantly rebooting and repeat firing solenoid? Please don't tell me to take the battery out at 60m+ because A: i am more likely to chop my thumb off at depth than successfully undo the battery cap at depth using the back of my knife and B: The hassle and cost of sending the flooded hand set + head back to Kevin is more than i could bear. ATB Mark Chase I'll never agree with a hard off, but I do agree he HAS to fix the problem with injecting o2 on reboot (I never had this problem with the older units).. Since implementing the fixes on the cap, I havent had a reboot (I only had 2 before that).. Even with that I was easily able to disable the solenoid.. If you try and go in immediuately after a reboot it may reboot again.. if the po2 is above the target and you wait for the powerup sequence to finish you can get to the menu.. I tried it on batteries that were weak enough to cause a continuous reset, these were unable to fire the solenoid.. The po2 display on the primary is not continuous (although internally I believe the update is more frequent), if you need realtime po2 feedback use the secondary.. with the HH you woun't overshoot the po2, using an independent cell (plus my own po2 logger) and recording the po2 the HH is pretty flat not like the classic which is over and below the setpoint all the time.. The HH is consistent across all depths, the Inspiration works best around 20m and gets worse as depth increases.. If your po2 always seems a bit lower than you like raise the IP.. 135-145psi (about 9.3 to 10 bar) works great.. On the HH, if you set it to 1.3 don;t expect to see a 1.30 on the display.. its the average of the 3 cells.. so ~1.26-1.30 = 1.3 I also take a few precautions when I know getting wet is a possibility.. I put the dried handsets in a plastic bag, and have never had a turn on.. I usually use 3.6v lithium cells , since I dont trust the performance of alkaline cells in cold water (I will use them in warm water though)... __________________ Joe Radomski CCR Trimix Instructor Trainer ANDI Instructor Trainer Director #10 All posts are personal opinions and DO NOT reflect any affiliated agency unless specifically stated.
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30th October 2006, 15:48	#5 (permalink)
Ben Field CK+Shearwater Current Rebreather/s: Classic Kiss Other Rebreather/s: Sport Kiss Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: London, England Posts: 1,442	Re: Hard off switch on the Hammer Head Excuse me for butting in... (I don't have a HH or Inspiration but saw Marks post starting the thread and wondered if I might have a chuckle at another life and death tussle with his electronics at depth I wandered in... ) Considering the HH is a finished product... I can't think of another piece of dive gear (with the exception of a camera in a housing perhaps) that needs such a constant supply of new batteries and constant drying, wraping up, greasing of things etc. I know the single AA approact makes things easy when finding a replacement in far off places is involved but it seems a right royal pain in the backside the rest of the time? Surely one battery for the handset that lasts ages and another larger battery elsewhere for the solenoid makes more sense? That way the handsets never/rarely fail so you know whats going on all the time and the solenoid should last a trip instead of a dive, if it gets wet it should still work when you finally do get to dive and as both have batteries you can pick something suitable for each rather than something that struggles with doing both? I realise that that would mean a complete redesign so of no real help.... sorry I've been watching the HH for years now, except for the battery issue it seems pretty sweet. BEN __________________ www.hugsac.org.uk Beware Fridge Suck
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30th October 2006, 15:50	#6 (permalink)
Genesis Bubbless Box of Death Current Rebreather/s: Home Build Other Rebreather/s: Home Build Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Sunny Florida Posts: 1,394	Re: Hard off switch on the Hammer Head Not knowing that you are diving and going through some startup checks that can spike the PO2 underwater is an unacceptable design flaw. Its also simple to fix - if the unit is underwater when its turned on don't fire the solenoid! The unit has BOTH wet switches AND a depth sensor..... __________________ "A venturesome minority will always be eager to get off on their own, and no obstacles should be placed in their path; let them take risks for Godsake, let them get lost, sunburnt, stranded, drowned, eaten by bears, buried alive under avalanches - that is the right and privilege of any free American." http://www.denninger.net http://www.diversunion.org/liability.htm - Fix the Diving Cert racket
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30th October 2006, 15:58	#7 (permalink)
*jradomski* Moderator Current Rebreather/s: Inspiration Classic Sport Kiss Optima rEvo Other CCR Home Build Other Rebreather/s: Inspiration Vision Evolution Megalodon Classic Kiss rEvo Other CCR Home Build Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: "Da" Bronx Posts: 2,795	Re: Hard off switch on the Hammer Head Quote: (Originally Posted by Ben Field) Excuse me for butting in... (I don't have a HH or Inspiration but saw Marks post starting the thread and wondered if I might have a chuckle at another life and death tussle with his electronics at depth I wandered in... ) Considering the HH is a finished product... I can't think of another piece of dive gear (with the exception of a camera in a housing perhaps) that needs such a constant supply of new batteries and constant drying, wraping up, greasing of things etc. I know the single AA approact makes things easy when finding a replacement in far off places is involved but it seems a right royal pain in the backside the rest of the time? Surely one battery for the handset that lasts ages and another larger battery elsewhere for the solenoid makes more sense? That way the handsets never/rarely fail so you know whats going on all the time and the solenoid should last a trip instead of a dive, if it gets wet it should still work when you finally do get to dive and as both have batteries you can pick something suitable for each rather than something that struggles with doing both? I realise that that would mean a complete redesign so of no real help.... sorry I've been watching the HH for years now, except for the battery issue it seems pretty sweet. BEN Battery life depends on the type of battery... if you use the correct 3.6v lithiums you generally get 2-3 weeks of diving everyday.. If you use aa alkalines you should change them everytime you change the scrubber.. You can get away with less frequent changes in warm water, but in cold water alkaline batteries lose about 50% of their capacity.. as to battery, Kevin can use just about any power source (non rechargable that he wants) its all a matter of the battery connection.. The PS will work with any voltage from about .9v to 10v __________________ Joe Radomski CCR Trimix Instructor Trainer ANDI Instructor Trainer Director #10 All posts are personal opinions and DO NOT reflect any affiliated agency unless specifically stated.
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30th October 2006, 16:33	#8 (permalink)
Mark Chase I go down for ages Current Rebreather/s: Classic Kiss Other CCR Other Rebreather/s: Inspiration Classic Other CCR Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Kent Posts: 2,410	Re: Hard off switch on the Hammer Head Quote: (Originally Posted by jradomski) Even with that I was easily able to disable the solenoid.. If you try and go in immediuately after a reboot it may reboot again.. if the po2 is above the target and you wait for the powerup sequence to finish you can get to the menu.. I tried it on batteries that were weak enough to cause a continuous reset, these were unable to fire the solenoid.. This worked once. I immediately switched to a 0.7 set point and ran the unit manually at 1.3ish and I had no dramas. However i reckon (its just a guess) that this was a straight low battery problem. All the other times it just kept on rebooting no mater what I did to the set point. Only on the first ever failure did i not attempt this procedure. (I didn't know about it at the time thanks to Joe I did soon after) I now have some 3.6v batteries I inherited with the new unit. I was confident with the Alkaline ones i just binned them after two dives (4-6 hours) but with the 3.6 i am wondering how long to push my luck? The long boat journeys are a problem as sometimes conditions are bad and you just cant pop out every now and again to ensure the hand sets are off. Tried bags with limited success. Pre dive OK but post dive not brilliant. The bigger sensor holes and a big dollop of silicone seems to work better but it feels like a bit of a lottery. However the worry about an irritating master failure would not be an issue as long as I have my secondary and now (as of today) my Sherewater to back it up) I have no idea what sort of reprogramming issue is involved in preventing the solenoid firing at boot up in the water but I hope its something thats soon available. ATB Mark Chase __________________ Is it supposed to make that noise ? I took my unit to the dive shop and demanded they bolt on every thing that would fit. Join my elite diving teem and get a Tshirt "Doing It Chasey"Hammerhead Eccr Advanced Diving System
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30th October 2006, 16:36	#9 (permalink)
PCDiver Submerge Productions Current Rebreather/s: Inspiration Vision Other Rebreather/s: Inspiration Classic Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Belgium Posts: 878	Re: Hard off switch on the Hammer Head Quote: (Originally Posted by jradomski) Battery life depends on the type of battery... if you use the correct 3.6v lithiums you generally get 2-3 weeks of diving everyday.. I have the same experience. The primary ran for around +20 hours dive time on one 3.6V battery. I used smaller capacity batteries because I had switch off problems due to incorrect depth sensor readings and a wetswich that was far too sensitive. Both problems are now fixed. So big batteries is the way to go. Kevin only needs to provide a software update to fix the "reboot - pffft - reboot - pfft"-issue.
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30th October 2006, 16:40	#10 (permalink)
PCDiver Submerge Productions Current Rebreather/s: Inspiration Vision Other Rebreather/s: Inspiration Classic Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Belgium Posts: 878	Re: Hard off switch on the Hammer Head Quote: (Originally Posted by Mark Chase) The long boat journeys are a problem as sometimes conditions are bad and you just cant pop out every now and again to ensure the hand sets are off. Tried bags with limited success. Pre dive OK but post dive not brilliant. The bigger sensor holes and a big dollop of silicone seems to work better but it feels like a bit of a lottery. Disconnecting the wet switch is easy
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