Atomic Cobalt DECO issues

[mbaker248]

Need some help/advise tech support asap.

Today I went diving and we dropped down to 53' ffw my NDL time showed anywhere from 59-61 minutes left. 11 minutes into the dive my cobalt went into DECO. I fulfilled the DECO obligations, and thought it was actually pretty cool to be in a DECO situation when I knew I wasn't. But anyways, I stopped at 30' for 2 minutes then 15' for 1:30. Then surfaced. My NDL time then showed 199. The total time of this dive was 20 minutes. We dropped down again and my NDL time never wavered off 199 minutes, so I don't know if it locked me out and was in gauge mode or what?
I have not used the Cobalt in 1 week prior to today; so my surface intervals etc were not an issue. I'm curious on why it went from 59 minutes of NDL to DECO in a matter of about 1 minute?

I sent my Cobalt to Atomic back in April 2013 because it locked up while I was trying to update the firm ware, and they supposedly did a "battery reset" and installed the new firmware. Since i've gotten it back I've dove several times with it, and this is the first time I have ever seen it display DECO mode.

Any help or suggestions?

Thanks
Mike Baker
SDI Instructor #16499
Ada, OK.

 

[Scared Silly]

Sounds like to me you are having a pressure sensor issue but the depth sounded accurate. Hopefully, Ron will chime in. But one thing I find in general that people rinse not soak their equipment. Though diving in fresh water how clean is it in terms of minerals? A quick rinse might seem like enough but a soak in warm water might be better to dissolve minerals.

 

[Atomic Aquatics]

Thanks Mike and Scared S! I spoke with our Technician Adan and it sounds like they have spoken with Mike and are in the process of helping them out.

Atomic Aquatics

 

[TheOnlyRae]

Ada Ok? Really? I grew up in Stratford!

 

[fejten23]

Had same type of issue in Mexico. Turns out that the older firmware did not allow the computer to switch from to 2012 to 2013, causing the computer to freak out. I spoke to Adan (thanks to VOIP internet café!) and he had me manually change the date and now computer doesn't show a DECO warning when I hit "Ready to Dive." Guess I will risk the firmware update when I get back to States...

 

[RonR]

You should definitely update to the newest firmware- there are a lot of feature enhancements.


The issue with the date was that the Cobalt (because of not rolling over the year as it should have done) saw the time as set earlier than the end of the last dive. It knows that can't be right, so defaults to the most conservative option, which is the tissue state at the end of the last dive, with zero surface interval. That will cut down on your no-deco time quite a bit. Newer firmware will update the year correctly.


We looked at Mike's Cobalt, and the issue was more esoteric. The Cobalt was fine, but a momentary bad reading may have put it into deco- and once a deco schedule is calculated, it won't go away. The Cobalt is very conservative in that sense. Last I heard it was doing fine and the issue had not repeated, but I would definitely like to hear from anyone who might have experienced something similar.

Ron

 

[Study Joe]

Need some help/advise tech support asap.

Today I went diving and we dropped down to 53' ffw my NDL time showed anywhere from 59-61 minutes left. 11 minutes into the dive my cobalt went into DECO. I fulfilled the DECO obligations, and thought it was actually pretty cool to be in a DECO situation when I knew I wasn't. But anyways, I stopped at 30' for 2 minutes then 15' for 1:30. Then surfaced. My NDL time then showed 199. The total time of this dive was 20 minutes. We dropped down again and my NDL time never wavered off 199 minutes, so I don't know if it locked me out and was in gauge mode or what?
I have not used the Cobalt in 1 week prior to today; so my surface intervals etc were not an issue. I'm curious on why it went from 59 minutes of NDL to DECO in a matter of about 1 minute?

I sent my Cobalt to Atomic back in April 2013 because it locked up while I was trying to update the firm ware, and they supposedly did a "battery reset" and installed the new firmware. Since i've gotten it back I've dove several times with it, and this is the first time I have ever seen it display DECO mode.

Any help or suggestions?

Thanks
Mike Baker
SDI Instructor #16499
Ada, OK.

Did you get an answer to this issue? I just returned from a live aboard trip on the Turks and Caicos Aggressor 2 one week ago, and I had this EXACT same issue. My computer is set to record data every 5 seconds with the following time points in my dive log.

Time 11:50 Depth 64 ft NDT 63 min Gas pressure: 2333 psi Gas mix: EAN32 Status: blank
Time 11:55 Depth 65 ft NDT 61 min Gas pressure: 2325 psi Gas mix: EAN32 Status: "DS"
Time 12:00 Depth 64 ft NDT 63 min Gas pressure: 2320 psi Gas mix: EAN32 Status: blank

The DECO stop I was told to do was at 40 ft for 2 to 3 minutes. I cannot remember the exact time, but it was definitely for 40 ft. I ended the dive, ascended to 40 ft for the prompted DECO stop, then did the prompted safety stop at 15 ft. I was on my 8th dive in 2 days. My settings were for EAN32 for all dives. I went on to do two additional dives that same day and 19 dives in the subsequent four days without any other DECO warnings or any other problems at all.

I called Atomic last week to troubleshoot the problem. They are supposed to call me back Monday. Hopefully I can get an answer. I am going diving again in the Caribbean in three weeks, so hopefully I can get this resolved soon.

 

[RonR]

Joe,

This does seem as if it might be the same as Mike's problem. Usually when there is a situation with deco coming up when it should not be it's because the time or date were not set correctly, and a very conservative profile was generated- that is not the case with yours. You show a deco schedule being created ("DS") with plenty of no-deco time remaining. We had a very lengthy look at Mike's Cobalt, and determined that there was no hardware problem, but a deco schedule was created in one dive segment just as with yours- and the Cobalt is very conservative about that, once a schedule is created it won't go away unless it is completed. Yours is only the second example of this happening that we have heard of, so we are very interested to look at it further. We put additional diagnostics into the firmware after Mike's experience in case it happened to anyone else- what firmware version were you running? Is this a Cobalt 1?

I will PM you with my contact information. Getting some more detailed information from your Cobalt might be the key to diagnosing this. So far as I know, this issue never occurred again for Mike, or anyone else.

Ron

 

[Atomic Aquatics]

Thanks Ron...We appreciate your help!

 

[Study Joe]

Thanks for the rapid response. I emailed you this evening. I am sending in my Cobalt to Atomic for evaluation.