Atomic Cobalt Deco Warning Message- Anyone ever receive this?

[emb]

Hi! Mu boyfriend and I were diving today in Grand Cayman. Easy dive at the Kittiwake only 60 ft. maximum depth total time was only 50 minutes. A multi level profile with a little bit of ascending and descending within the dive, but nothing extreme. At 30 minutes, a DS warning came on his Atomic Cobalt computer at only 46 feet, we ascended a little and it came on 4 more times within the next 5 minutes and the M-DS mode at only 32 feet and continued to flash DS again as we ascended to 25 feet. We completed a safety stop and when we surfaced the warning " Decompression Violation- Seek Aid" came upon the screen . This is a very unusual warning as this was not an unusually deep or abnormal profile. Anyone with a Cobalt had this warning before? Can we continue to use the computer or is it locked up for the next 24 hours? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[chile7236]

i have not used the cobalt but a buddy does and on his first dive with it, we did a somewhat aggressive profile (130+) and it locked him out even though we did not meet deco limits...he said he was told it would happen again on a similar dive profile.

[altaskier]

Don't have the Cobalt. I can tell you that early on in my diving with a computer I got placed into deco from overly fast ascent rates. In fact the computer taught me to ascend much more slowly than what I had been doing without a computer. Since learning that lesson, I have done lots of long and deep dives, and have never had the problem again. If you have a laptop download program, you might be able to look at your profile and see if you got ascent rate warnings during the dive (in my case, I have had Suunto computers and I use MacDive to view my dive profiles).

[Kern]

i have not used the cobalt but a buddy does and on his first dive with it, we did a somewhat aggressive profile (130+) and it locked him out even though we did not meet deco limits...he said he was told it would happen again on a similar dive profile.

That's odd, according to RonR, on this board, & on the Cobalt development team, at 150' the Cobalt moves from recreational RGBM to full RGBM. So I have to wonder why anyone would say that a 130'+ profile would be too aggressive for the machine & it would lock you out on such profiles.

I think I'd be taking these sort of incidents to Atomic for an explanation.

[altaskier]

I think I'd be taking these sort of incidents to Atomic for an explanation.

Are there a number of such incidents? Possible explanations in this case include a glitch in the Cobalt's decompression calculations, or divers ascending faster than the decompression model prefers. The dive profile would help sort this out.

[Kern]

Are there a number of such incidents? Possible explanations in this case include a glitch in the Cobalt's decompression calculations, or divers ascending faster than the decompression model prefers. The dive profile would help sort this out.

Well, emb's BF & chile's buddy make 2.

I agree, there are several possible explanations, & the profile, is the best place to start. If there is nothing obvious there, Atomic would be in the best position to diagnose any fault.

[chile7236]

i never asked for specifics from him as to where he got the info that it would happen again. not sure if that's solely a product of interwebz search or word from someone at atomic but knowing him, i would say he put in due diligence trying to get an answer...i was using a veo 3.0 during the dive and i had no issues (more than likely an apples to oranges comparison, tho).

[fdarden]

I have logged over 130 dives on an Atomic Cobalt, and the only time I get these messages is in a legitimate deco situation. Im wondering if your boyfriend is running the latest firmware.. I think he should upgrade to the latest firmware at a minimum if he has not done so already. I have never experienced a problem like your boyfriends after 130 dives on the computer. I am running the latest firmware on mine.

[RonR]

Hi! Mu boyfriend and I were diving today in Grand Cayman. Easy dive at the Kittiwake only 60 ft. maximum depth total time was only 50 minutes. A multi level profile with a little bit of ascending and descending within the dive, but nothing extreme. At 30 minutes, a DS warning came on his Atomic Cobalt computer at only 46 feet, we ascended a little and it came on 4 more times within the next 5 minutes and the M-DS mode at only 32 feet and continued to flash DS again as we ascended to 25 feet. We completed a safety stop and when we surfaced the warning " Decompression Violation- Seek Aid" came upon the screen . This is a very unusual warning as this was not an unusually deep or abnormal profile. Anyone with a Cobalt had this warning before? Can we continue to use the computer or is it locked up for the next 24 hours? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Sorry, I've been off the board for a while, so I missed this.

It would certainly be possible to get into deco on a 60' dive if it were part of a repetitive series, particularly if you were multi-day diving. RGBM in general becomes more conservative in those situations, as it is trying to reduce bubble formation. Depending on your conservatism settings and saturation on beginning the dive, 50 minutes might well have gone into deco. What was the previous dive history? Was this with Air? With my settings a 60 ft air dive gives me only a 50 minute NDL with no prior dives.

The Cobalt will not lock you out, whatever you do. If you don't compete a deco schedule, it will continue to display a prominent warning for 24 hours, and require acknowledgement before diving again. But you can continue to use the computer- it's basically up to the diver to decide if the violation was severe enough to stop diving, but it is telling you it has been outside the realm of the algorithm.

He should have seen the No Deco time drop to zero, then an orange Deco Stop box come up displaying the required stop depth and time. If you then don't complete the stop, that counts as a violation. If you pass through the stop depth without making the stop, it will flash a "GO DOWN" message for one minute, then try to recalculate a new schedule, if possible. I'm guessing he would have had a short 20 ft stop?

If you look in the dive log at the dive, you can step through the profile and see the NDT at each segment. If you press the SELECT button the cursor will skip to any "event" in the dive, calculating a deco schedule being one- it will show up as "DS". Do you see this? If you want to send me detailed information on the profiles I can replicate it here, or if this doesn't seem to explain it let me know.

Ron

[RonR]

i have not used the cobalt but a buddy does and on his first dive with it, we did a somewhat aggressive profile (130+) and it locked him out even though we did not meet deco limits...he said he was told it would happen again on a similar dive profile.

The Cobalt does not have a lock out function. If you miss a stop, it will give a rather ugly warning screen, but it does not lock you out.

If he looks at the profile in the dive log he should be able to see exactly at what point it went into deco, i.e. NDT drops to zero and a DS shows in the Status area on the profile screen. Exactly what deco limits would be is dependent on the settings, the gas, the age of the diver, and the surface ambient pressure, but at 130 ft it wouldn't be too long.

Ron