Download cables...

[debitthis]

Unless you have the electrical engineering skills necessary to decipher the interface and the mechanical skills to build a replacement, you had best just swallow hard and accept it.

I included the price of the download cable going in when I picked a computer. The Aeris Atmos 2 still made the most sense since it is heavily discounted right now as Aeris is replacing it with the XS2 which doesn't have any more or different features other than the size of the computer.

The download cable is still cheaper than the $120 cothes pin on steroids for the Cressi / Tusa computer.

 

[bperrybap]

We are drifting a bit off topic here. But for the geeks among us.....
(All my comments are in bold)

Aeris/Oceanic give away their s/w for free.

That's a big plus for these vendors - Genesis doesn't even have updates on their website (PO2 is not downloading from a Nitrox dive for me). Grrrr....

One challenge would be to figure out what their s/w looks for to find the COM interface

Plug in the cable and look at your "Devices" (Control Panel|System) - it'll show up as a COM port. If you use the same USB port each time, the COM port number won't change.

Its not quite that easy. There are actually several devices that
show up. I haven't taken the time look through things in detail, but
I have noticed that the 2.x s/w and the 1.x software don't access
the port in the same way. With the 1.x s/w it was easy to
snoop on the data stream by tapping into the virtual com port.
This doesn't work with the 2.x s/w.
My guess is that it wouldn't be that hard to figure out but
it would involve patching some registry keys which the
install s/w loads and the runtime application
parses to find out how to access the Aeris/Oceanic data port.
It wouldn't be as simple as using a generic serial port.
You still have to figure out how to point the the application
at the appropriate serial port

I haven't measured it but I'd bet its not your typical +12/-12v "standard" electrical level serial interface.

The cable is a USB to RS232 cable - by definition the RS232 side will conform to current standards.

Just because it appears to be serial doesn't necessarily mean
it is RS232 voltages or even RS232 data clocking.
Since they built both ends they might have done something
slightly custom that saved money. The only way to know
would be to hook up an o-scope.


The Aeris/Oceanic connector is pretty complex. It loosely snaps into the dive computer and three spring loaded prongs push against 3 small rods that are perpendicular to the spring loaded prongs.

Yea - mine is exactly the same. Different vendor, same plug. Which is why I think the part can be sourced...

On the positive side, while the USB device ids on them
are different, the same driver is used for the Aeris
as the Oceanic cable. So either will work.
In fact, I'm using an Oceanic cable on my Aeris AI for downloading.

Its not the $50 for the Aeris cable that irks me because,
afterall, it does come with free s/w and free support,
including phone support for issues.
That price seems perfectly reasonable.

Its why do most retailers sell the Oceanic cable for quite a bit
more than the Aeris cable?
(I'm sure Oceanic priced it that way, but why?)

--- bill

 

[DiveMaven]

I have an Aeris computer and my husband an Oceanic. We bought the Aeris cable for $50 and use it for both computers.

 

[m3830431]

The download cables are not cheap. But the computer is very good and worth the price. You can spend more on a computer that does the same thing and get cheaper cables.
So as is see it, it is a wash.

 

[AstroDad]

Bill,

Its not quite that easy. There are actually several devices that show up.

From that POV (the software) you would enumerate the USB devices, knowing what device ID you're looking for and then run from there. I use a number of USB-Serial cables for my scopes, which have "legacy" serial ports. For those softwares I have to manually go look at my devices table to see what COM port it's using and then tell the sw that it's COM7 (or whatever).

Just because it appears to be serial doesn't necessarily mean it is RS232 voltages or even RS232 data clocking.

True, but I'd consider it very unlikely that anyone developing an embedded device would not use OTS parts. Especially when it comes to serial; it's too tried and trued to go reinventing the wheel. Further, my cable has the FTDI chipset (and it's accompanying generic drivers) - I know this chipset to be standard serial signaling (from a past project).

That price seems perfectly reasonable.

That's what I've tried to communicate, maybe not so well though. Yes, a $100 bucks or so for a cable seems outrageous, until you sit down and spend too much time trying to do it on the "cheap".