my tanks vary in pressure from LP steel so 2400psi, standard Al 30's, 40's and 80's, to HP steels 3500psi. Singles and doubles.
So, i guess for me, however they are figuring it (basing it on 3000 or 3200 psi), doesn't make that much of a difference. I have a SAC rate that vary's between .2 and .4 depending on work load. Perhaps that is why I didn't really notice it.
Ya, i agree that you should be able to input your tank size and working pressure, and most likely since everyone here (owners and people who've never used one) is up in arms, it will at some point.
and again, the important number for the recreational diver, stating how long your tank will last "right now" is not based on the number kludging, it's based on PSI being consumed on the dive.
Yes, i am a huge advocate of being able to calculate your SAC rate, and having an idea of how long a tank will last you on a given dive. but if you are doing dives that need that kind of planning, i somehow don't think you need a computer to tell you. I understand that people are wanting the data to be 'correct', and agree with that philosophy, but you can see the important thing (trend, working hard or at rest) even with the current calculations.
I have not used a galilleo. how does it calculate consumption rate?
again, before anyone jumps on me for 'defending a flaw', I said "i'd like to see the ability to input a tanks 'common name' volume and working pressure and have it base its consumption calculations off that" for the US market, and have given my input (and yours) to the next up on the food chain
Now we get to sit back and wait to see what Michael has to say after speaking to the big dog.
Agreed on all counts.
The Galileo does not calculate the consumption rate on board. As you noted, it will give an "estimate" of remaining bottom time based on the current rate of consumption. It doesn't need to know tank volume for that, just measure how fast the pressure is dropping.
Once you're back in the desktop software (SmartTrak), you must enter tank info. You can "name" the tanks however you want, but the software has places to input tank volume at a given working pressure, and once you've entered that for a tank and saved the profile, you can just pick "Double HP100's" or "HP133" or "Al.80" or "Lucy"
or whatever you want off the list for the future. As soon as you apply a tank selection to the dive profile, it will calculate the SAC for the dive. Without tank info, no calculations are made.(I actually had a couple of SmartTrak screen shots from an unrelated post a long time ago, so here's the input screen where you select and define tanks)
The Uemis is handy in that it calculates on your wrist without needing to download first... but, like the Galileo and any other computer (or software), it has to be told what tanks were used before calculations can be made. And as always, GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) applies.
