Shearwater Petrel Review

[vs9205066]

I’m so relieved you’re glad my uncertainty has waned….Hahahah. What I am uncertain about is the temperature reading. I dove my Petrel for the first time on the 19^th in Hood Canal; the ambient temperature at the time was 51 degrees F I also took my VT3 which also showed a surface temp of 51 F. I dove both computers; the VT3 showed 45 F at depth and the Petrel still read 51 F. If you look at the graph carefully after you download it you can see a slight fluctuation in the temp, less than one degree. Does anyone know if this is a fix that may come in a firmware download or will have to send the computer back? I don’t know if anyone will have an answer but I thought I’d throw it out there.

 

[Dr. Lecter]

You must have looked so hard before asking the question: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/shearwater-research/440578-petrel-temp.html Nothing in the firmware update notes through v12 for the Petrel mentions any temp sensor changes. From someone else's post in the thread, this is Shearwater's reply to their question re: Petrel temp being high:

Hi Michael,

There are two issues involved in the temperature reading. The first is that the pressure and temperature sensor is in the middle of the case and isn't in the water. It is slow to react because of the mass of the case. On longer dives, it will reach maximum accuracy after about 15 minutes.

But we have noticed that many of the sensors seem to read about 2 degrees too high. We don't have any explanation for that. The sensors are digital and we calculate the temperature according to the specification of the manufacturer.

We have an action item to spend more time evaluating this issue, but high temperature accuracy appears to be low on the priority list for most of our customers.

Bruce

How long was your dive time? I wonder if, like the Cobalt, the heavier case on the Petrel doesn't lead to it being less sensitive to changes in the ambient.

As you can see from the prior thread, this apparently a non-issue some people care very much about; I wouldn't be surprised if you can get Shearwater to care, but I certainly don't.

 

[vs9205066]

Each dive was at least an hour, more than enough time for the temp to stabilize I would think. Yeah I guess it’s a non-issue like the memory but when you pay close to a thousand dollars for what you understand is a high quality dive computer you have higher expectations.
Hey, what happened to Ocean Concepts? Do you know if they are totally non-operational?

 

[Dr. Lecter]

If you mean Ocean Concepts, Inc., who designed the Cobalt, they're still around. If you mean the Oahu scuba company, yeah, they're totally defunct now. Both the Waianae and Pearl Harbor shops are dead and blown away.

 

[mathauck0814]

Each dive was at least an hour, more than enough time for the temp to stabilize I would think. Yeah I guess it’s a non-issue like the memory but when you pay close to a thousand dollars for what you understand is a high quality dive computer you have higher expectations.
Hey, what happened to Ocean Concepts? Do you know if they are totally non-operational?

Temperature never mattered much... it's either "cold" or "not cold" as evidenced by the presence or absence of hypothermia