Suunto Cobra Failure

Have a Cobra, a couple months short of two years old, been used on over 100 dives. Battery indication shows full battery. A week ago I was hooking up my computer and regs to the tank, and noticed that the depth reading incorrectly showed 13ft. deep while I was standing on the street. Also the dive time showed over 500 minutes. Tried to reset it but it was locked up. Stuck it in a bucket of water and the depth read 14ft. deep. Pressure reading okay. Then went for a shallow dive, and around 28ft. deep it falsely indicated a mandatory stop and some other stuff I ignored. Next day when I checked it seemed okay.

My initial guess is that this is the work of either banshees or gnomes. Not sure.

So now the Cobra is in the shop for a checkup. Anyone have any clues as to what might be wrong? Any generic Cobra issues I'm not aware of? Any guesses as to how Suunto might handle it? I'm kinda dreading having to part with some bucks to fix it. I don't recall what the Suunto warranty situation is. In any case I soak it in fresh water after every dive for at least an hour, so I doubt if there's any salt buildup issues.

Thanks.

Mongoose alert! I have never seen this happen. You might consider removing and replacing the battery!

Salt build up wouldn't cause those issues. Send it back to Suunto. Hey, I thought Suunto's never had problems!

Good luck, you'll probably just have to pay shipping.

Just buy one off the internet. What's another $500 to anyone these days?

Seriously, no idea of what the prob could be. Please do keep us posted.

I had one of those only worse. My Vyper logged a dive of 136 metres for 999 minutes. I took it back to the shop, showed the owner the logged dive, after a brief moment of shock, he replaced the battery, and I decided to take it to the pool, where it wouldn't register a depth at all. On the surface it seemed to be fine, the menus worked and it didn't think it was diving, it looked normal. The problem was it kept this everything is fine attitude all the way through the pool dive. I thought that perhaps some extra depth would help things out, so I planned a dive in a quarry down to 20 metres, same thing.

Next it got sent back to Suunto, who sent back a few weeks later a brand new module and all for free (I didn't even pay for the shipping).

Jim,

Something is probably interfering with the pressure sensor. Rinse it over night in warmish water to wash away any potential salt build ups on/around the sensor and try it again. Many cobra users have problems with depth readings. All of the confirmed cases that I know of had to do with salt deposits forming on/around the sensor.

R..

Update: The repair guy called and the Cobra brains are kaput. Haywire. Goofy. Gonna get a warranty replacement. Guess I'm out of comission for a few weeks. ARGH...

mccabejc:

Update: The repair guy called and the Cobra brains are kaput. Haywire. Goofy. Gonna get a warranty replacement. Guess I'm out of comission for a few weeks. ARGH...

Click to expand...

Any chance the LDS will give you a loaner? Mine did.

Ooo, never thought of that !!! Good idea. I'll give that a shot. Thanks.

Seems to be an issue with some Cobras. I like the computer, and a lot of my friends have them. Unfortunately, they don't seem to be as "bullet proof" as most Suuntos, but not terrible in the total failure-rate scheme of things. It seems like most Cobras are fine, but some of them develop depth issues. Whenever this has happened, I've always heard that Suunto replaced the "guts" of the unit and chances are, it'll never happen again. I think Suunto is familiar with the issue and won't put up a fight over it.