Shearwater as a setpoint controller

hebails

Hi, I'm moving over to eccr at Christmas after a great year on the KISS.
My new unit uses a Shearwater controller to maintain setpoint and I was wondering on peoples experiences of this.
My previous experience with Shearwater has been as an in-line deco tool and I have had both the GF & Pursuit.
Both have been exceptional and I have had many happy hours in-water with them.
The question is what are they like when controlling setpoint?
Are they stable and what is the profile like as you descend?
Presumably you auto setpoint change at depth but does it do this gradually as you drop or as soon as you hit say, 50m, does it crank from .7 to 1.2 or 1.3?
I know I'll find this out for myself when I do the crossover but a little info ahead of time would be greatly appreciated.
I'm assuming the Deep Pursuit guys will have some great info on this.
Thanks in advance.
Paul

Stephane

Hi Paul,

I'm using a Shearwater set-point controller on my rEvo3 since april. Before that, I owned a Hammerhead controller mounted on a rEvo2.
The SW is very user friendly, you just tell him to switch between low and hi set-point and he does the job.
There is no gradual set-point change when you descend or ascend, it's "brutal" and so you'll have to switch it when you're at the bottom. I personally don't use the auto switch function on descend as I like to do a slow descent and readjust my rig at bottom.
When I ascent, I let it control the PpO2 and tell him to auto switch off at 2m. Why not deeper? Because I tend to forget that the auto-off is enabled and so my PpO2 drops slowly. So I manually switch it off at 6m and I manually add O2 (even if I have a CMF orifice) to maintain the PpO2.
I never had any problem with the controller part, even when the pressure sensor broke down. The PpO2 was still accurately and independently maintained.
There are minor things I'd like to be incorporated: more pre-programmed set-points ("à la" Hammerhead) and a set-point limited to depth ("toujours à la" Hammerhead, i.e. at 2m depth it's impossible to have a 1.3ATA PpO2 so why trying to do it? Just limit it to 1.2ATA). The later point is going to be incorporated in a future software release Bruce told me.
Does this answer your questions?

hebails

Thanks Stephane, great answers and I'll watch out for the "brutal" setpoint switch
br
Paul