DPV Price vs performance

[stuartv]

While it is easy to damage the sealing surfaces if you're not careful (The same thing could ultimately be said about any scooter),

Yep. But, it is easier to damage them on a scooter that has to be opened up every time it's charged than a scooter that is sealed once and stays sealed (even while charging).

Even the Seacraft Go! - now a $5K scooter - has charging through the hull. These days, once you exceed the BlackTip price point, there are enough options with through-hull charging that I wouldn't even consider buying a "big boy" scooter that didn't have that.

 

[lostsheep]

Generally I will do two dives a day with about an hour of trigger time each and my batteries will still be around a half charge at the end of the day.

At what speed and with what gear configuration?

4 hours on 9ah is a very generous claim. DiveX themselves only claim 90 minutes at cruise with the 9ah.

Be careful trusting those battery guages, they are not accurate. If you used a watts-up meter or similar I suspect you’d find you have way less charge remaining than you think you do.

I said it before but I’ll say it again, we’ve killed the 12ah batteries, running speeds 3/4, pulling doubles with a deco bottle, in about 75 minutes.

I’m not anti blacktip, they are good for what they are.

 

[passedoutwookie]

At what speed and with what gear configuration?

4 hours on 9ah is a very generous claim. DiveX themselves only claim 90 minutes at cruise with the 9ah.

Be careful trusting those battery guages, they are not accurate. If you used a watts-up meter or similar I suspect you’d find you have way less charge remaining than you think you do.

I said it before but I’ll say it again, we’ve killed the 12ah batteries, running speeds 3/4, pulling doubles with a deco bottle, in about 75 minutes.

I’m not anti blacktip, they are good for what they are.

I may have not worded that as well as I could have. Trigger time is about an hour total per dive so two total hours of trigger time running in 3/4 per day. No alterations to gearing or the prop from factory. Generally running sidemount 85s or 117s. I am basing remaining charge on the battery and BT's displays, which I understand may not be super accurate so take that with a grain of salt.

I just looked up a Watts-Up monitor and looks like it would be worth the money to be able to more accurately judge range. Are you just plugging this inline and leaving it in the tube?

 

[stuartv]

I may have not worded that as well as I could have. Trigger time is about an hour total per dive so two total hours of trigger time running in 3/4 per day. No alterations to gearing or the prop from factory. Generally running sidemount 85s or 117s. I am basing remaining charge on the battery and BT's displays, which I understand may not be super accurate so take that with a grain of salt.

I just looked up a Watts-Up monitor and looks like it would be worth the money to be able to more accurately judge range. Are you just plugging this inline and leaving it in the tube?

My take was that you posted that you ran for 2 hours and were at half charge. Implying that you could run 4 hours, if you ran to empty.

I suspect that you were VERY close to actually having your scooter die by the end of that second dive.

 

[L13]

This last weekend, I just did ~2hrs trigger time at speed 3/4 (mostly 4) sidemount/drysuit on my Waitley 9AH batteries and they showed 55% remaining at the end.

When I start doing dives where my scooter is safety critical, I'll upgrade to a Genesis or some such. Probably the next thing after a re-breather. Until then, I love playing with my BT Travel. I use it on almost every dive lately, and don't regret not buying more now.

I've test driven a full size scooter (a Suex I think), and it was undoubtedly a major upgrade. But for what I am doing now, I'd rather have the money than the upgrade.

 

[lermontov]

If you are looking to take a scooter deeper than 100m...
The low cost entry level scooter isn't the right choice.

ahh fortunately for me i was looking at the wrong spec - the tech has 122m rating ( thought mine was a travel )