stuck compass heading on EON STEEL

[Schwob]

Hi, my EON STEEL decided to get its compass heading stuck at 229 degrees today. Does anybody know how to get it back to sanity?
Otherwise it appears to work fine, but loosing the compass is quite inconvenient (just got back from last dive, out early on the morning again).
I tried clearing headings (none was set to begin it when it happened mid dive) and calibrating compass (did nor seem to calibrate, still stuck).

 

[Schwob]

Well, either the added time of having dinner or hooking it up to a computer and onto DM5 remedied the immediate situation. not sure which. After I hooked it up I turned it over to see if it recognized the connection and voila, the compass was turning.
That's good. But why did it lock up? How to not have it do that? How to trust it..... ? I'll see how long it goes...

 

[Schwob]

For what it's worth, no further compass lock-ups lock ups in 8 more dives over the past two weeks.

 

[RonR]

I don’t know if Suunto’s issue is the same one we have experienced, but as these parts are all very similar I suspect it is at least a possibility. The compass chips are micro-mechanical devices that need to be assembled in extremely clean environments. We have found a tiny percentage (<0.1%) that, according to the chip manufacturer, must have been contaminated with “a few stray molecules” (their words) on the tiny mechanical parts in chip assembly. These will occasionally stick- the term they used is “stiction”. The can also break lose and start working normally, often after jostling or impact. Atomic has just replaced them if we find a contaminated chip that does this- pretty rare, but it has happened. We built in diagnostics to tell us if a chip its malfunctioning, so we can diagnose this issue while it’s still in the customer’s hands. I don’t know if Suunto has something similar. If it happens again, I’d suspect the chip.
-Ron

 

[AfterDark]

I use an old Scubapro LS-1 compass. The 1st one gave me 40+ years of trouble free service, so I bought another about 4-5 years ago on Ebay. I expect to end my diving adventures trouble free with this "new-old" LS-1. A better compass for diving use has yet to be made.

Glad you got yours up and running again, until the next time that is. Maybe you should consider getting a mini-compass the kind that slip on to a watch or PDC wrist band for a back up? @under $10.00 a bargain.