Vyper failure

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I, too, am in the sensor failure club. I have a Gekko and a Zoop in the parts drawer. It is a bit disconcerting when I am at the anchor I dropped in 95 feet and the computer reads 340 feet. My first computer of this group is an 18 year old Vyper which is still going strong after more than 2000 dives. A Gekko with about 1000 dives and a Zoop with about 200 are still working as well. Out of curiosity, I recently bought a Zoop Novo, (good deal) and although it is working ok, I hate it. Probably just me.
 
Hang on to your broken computers. I'm sure there must be a way to open these up and replace the sensors. It may not be economically viable for Suunto, but with a good video tutorial and cheap parts ordered from aliexpress I'm sure anyone with reasonable soldering skills will be able to do it.
 
Found someone who has replaced the sensors: Suunto Gekko - jak ho rozebrat
The main thing for me here is he describes how to open the computers and provides photos to help.

I don't believe mine needs a sensor replacement, I suspect a different component. He describes that the new sensors he fitted seem to read off by about 6%.

A few more comments here hint at the re-calibration procedure in this video:
connan731 year ago
Intersema 5412/5212 maybe will broken. You will replace it , and edit calibration data in eeprom 24c64. Thats all.

Pedro CHAVES
10 months ago
Do you how to open a suunto cobra (more generally, any suunto diving computer) and how to calibrate the pressure sensor? Thank you!

Poul Erik Thomsen2 months ago
connan73 A
connan7310 months ago
I open with a plastic card. Sensor recalibration requires pressure equipment. Maybe this year I finish it (made it). First few bytes in eeprom - calibration data. If You will erase it - computer turn in test mode , and totaly useless. Test mode is for calibration (first start in manufacturer , calibration mode in pressure equipment). Find me on FB , and we talk about.

It appears the eeprom needs to be reprogrammed, but there's a lack of details about the exact values which need to be set. I would imagine once the computer is in calibration mode it needs to be pressureised to a predetermined depth (maybe just sealevel) and then the reading from the depth sensor needs to be saved to the eeprom.

Datasheets are available for the eeproms and the pressure sensors but without any help from Suunto some more reverse engineering is required.
 
The video didn't show him opening it. Perhaps I was going at it all the wrong way, but I'm still skeptical.
 
I see it now, thanks. Have you attempted to open yours yet? I don't think I have any more of these around, but I'll look.

I can see now how a credit card can be used for those tabs. I wonder if they moved from glue to those tabs, or if my recollection is faulty.
 
Hi.

I just got it open using a credit card and carefully but forcefully working it in and around.

The removes the top over and the screen which contains the buttons and has an O-ring around it.set this aside and you can then remove the main screen and PCB from the bottom casing. Carefully prize it up using the small holes. 2 near the bottom buttons and one at the top. Once you remove the screen and PCB be careful as there are small springs which attach the contacts in the black base section to the PCB for battery (+/-), buzzer, and serial connection. That's 5 wee springs in all and they will easily fall out.

The screen can be separated from the PCB easily with 3 small clips. Again be careful as there are 2 metal contacts, 1 for the mode button and one for the bottom buttons which will fall out.

Reassembly should be very simple. As usual you'd want to clean and grease (maybe replace) the orings. There is a big one around the screen, what looks like 2 around the pressure sensor, and one around each button shaft (I think, too small to see but the shafts could be removed by taking the circlip out.

There is no sign of water ingress in mine so I suspect the issue with mine is component failure. I'm going to get some advice from someone more knowledgeable before proceeding but hopefully an SMD capacitor or the crystal is all I need to replace.

Both of the larger ICs on here appear to be purpose build. I took the sticker off the larger one and it says Suunto on it. Again I need to speak to someone who knows more, but with a bit of luck it might have an ARM core with some code for the algorithm in eeprom, meaning eventually we could load it with different algorithms (Although for recreational diving I am a fan of Suuntos RGBM).

One possible fun experiment could be to get the beeper to play nokia phone ring tones during your surface stop, that would be a fun project and really annoy other divers. :D

I'll upload some photos soon.
 
with a bit of luck it might have an ARM core
Greater likelihood is that it's an in-house MCU.

Thanks for the pics.
 
Hi may be you should check the lcd flex ribbon cable.
It is a common failure for LCD screens and the symptoms on your video look similar.

PS I have a failed pressure sensor on a cobra dive computer and found your thread looking for possible solutions to my problem.
 

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