Mares Integrated Puck

[supergaijin]

personally I detest the Puck after having to work with it as a rental.
One button navigation can be a PITA.

 

[Rogersea]

I love the one button programing of the puck and have used them in lots of classes, you just need to be aware that if you are not paying close attention while setting it you can easily pass by the right setting and have to start again..

I am however, disapointed with the Puck because 50% of the ones I own are kaput... Not being in the states make it very difficult to get them serviced at a reasonable cost.. The one time I was able to send one(defective out of the box) back to the states it was repaired/replaced at no cost but it took a longish time to get it back to me..

So if you are fortunate enough to get one that holds up I think you will love it, but I am no longer recommending them to my students....

Cheers,
Roger

 

[DazedAndConfuzed]

One button might be more of a PITA on the surface when you need to navigate through things, but underwater, for this computer, it is all you need. I was diving with a few computers and one of them had a whole bunch of buttons with submenus and sub sub menus, and in my dive, I suddenly went into some sort of config mode and I thought WTF, I am in the middle of a dive.

In the same dive, due to the new env, wetsuit thickness/compression and weights, went into an unintended ascent. I was looking at the Puck Air and though, OK, got that extra bar, maybe I am ascending above what I should, but then I looked at the other computer and it was flashing the word "Too Fast" (the 3rd one was blinking its LED). When I saw those words, I thought I must be in trouble, so quickly slowed down and went back down. The Puck had that dot matrix display and could have warned me on that, but it didn't. It does have a actual ascend rate in ft/min, so that is good if you don't like to know why one is going from 2 bar to 3 bar when one is going up at what seems to be the same rate.

What the puck air lacks is a nitrogen and/or oxygen loading bar graph, so you have to rely on the remaining bottom time counter.

 

[supergaijin]

if you are not paying close attention while setting it you can easily pass by the right setting and have to start again.

Yep- that's the PITA I was talking about. I was doing this at least a few times per day on a moving boat as I had to get divers' details for the roster.

However if you actually owned it, you'd only have to do it once.

For around $20/unit more I went with the Suunto Zoop for our rentals- fairly rock solid design, no flashy bling, easy interface to navigate, water-activated, no need to push buttons underwater. For a cheap, no-frills recreational dive computer, it's as good as any I've seen or used.

 

[epointer]

Yep- that's the PITA I was talking about. I was doing this at least a few times per day on a moving boat as I had to get divers' details for the roster.

However if you actually owned it, you'd only have to do it once.

For around $20/unit more I went with the Suunto Zoop for our rentals- fairly rock solid design, no flashy bling, easy interface to navigate, water-activated, no need to push buttons underwater. For a cheap, no-frills recreational dive computer, it's as good as any I've seen or used.

The computer the op is asking about is air integrated the Zoop is not. The Puck Air really isn't a bad computer,and gives you a lot for the price.

 

[medicjack]

Thanks all for the input!! Being new to all this it really helps to see what others think. I think I will give the Mares Puck a try for my first computer. Seems to be a good price for an air integrated unit.