New DPV - Dive Xtras

[stuartv]

Good question. Thinking of how I build gear up and dive, there can be several hours between build and dive. Hopefully not 4 hours, that would be a bad day or a really long boat ride. Is there a way to put a watt meter between the batteries and the controller? Even if just for bench testing.

in NC, I can easily leave where I’m staying by 6 and not actually be on site to dive until 9:30 or 10. Some of the boat rides ARE long.

And if my last dive isn’t until, say, 2 (e.g. a 3 tank day out to the Meg tooth fossil ledge), how much battery will I have lost to all the time that day where I was not diving?

 

[rjack321]

in NC, I can easily leave where I’m staying by 6 and not actually be on site to dive until 9:30 or 10. Some of the boat rides ARE long.

And if my last dive isn’t until, say, 2 (e.g. a 3 tank day out to the Meg tooth fossil ledge), how much battery will I have lost to all the time that day where I was not diving?

At least on the sierra, the electronics draw like ~8% a day
The electronics cant be <that> much more or less efficient, but your battery is larger so i'd guess at most a few percent in 4 hrs. Dont worry about it on the way out, but definitely disconnect when you are done

 

[NothingClever]

After 16 hours in two airplanes, I came home to these two boxes in the entryway. I’m hopeful the Nanuk 960 and BlackTip will go together like peanut butter and chocolate.

Chris from Deep 6 Gear has cats on clearance so I picked up one of those, too.

Bombproof packaging. I was rather impressed how Dive Xtras used re-purposable boxes on the top and bottom to create the internal blocking and bracing materials.

 

[stuartv]

After 16 hours in two airplanes, I came home to these two boxes in the entryway. I’m hopeful the Nanuk 960 and BlackTip will go together like peanut butter and chocolate.

Chris from Deep 6 Gear has cats on clearance so I picked up one of those, too.

View attachment 573745

View attachment 573746

The checklist on my box was the same. Any idea what "x5 Stickers" means?

There were no stickers in my box. Is that referring to the instructional stickers that are already stuck to the inside and outside of the scooter?

 

[stuartv]

After 16 hours in two airplanes, I came home to these two boxes in the entryway. I’m hopeful the Nanuk 960 and BlackTip will go together like peanut butter and chocolate.

Chris from Deep 6 Gear has cats on clearance so I picked up one of those, too.

Did he finally run out of goats??

 

[NothingClever]

The checklist on my box was the same. Any idea what "x5 Stickers" means?

There were no stickers in my box. Is that referring to the instructional stickers that are already stuck to the inside and outside of the scooter?

That was my deduction, too.

EDIT: Stuart, I went back and counted the stickers and confirmed they're the instructional and warning stickers. I was really glad they put that warning one on the shroud...I would have totally missed the rotating propeller otherwise.

 

[NothingClever]

Did he finally run out of goats??

Yeah, fresh out. Chris offered the cat at a clearance price as consolation but I think I’m going to have to send it back already for repair. It sleeps 21 hours a day rather than the 20 hours specified in the user manual, farts really bad after eating tuna paté and thinks mice are fellow pets.

 

[NothingClever]

OK, so here's my effort to customize the Nanuk 960's segmented sheets of foam for the BlackTip I bought from Chris and Dr. Lasseter at Deep 6 Gear.

I'm pretty certain someone with more skill and experience will come along with a better solution but I thought I'd throw mine out there as a soup-starter.

First, you have to put on the right music and I chose Maná's 2015 album Cama Incendiada.

Second, break down the DPV into its three components.

This is your start point. The base layer of foam (not segmented) is not very thick but thick enough.

The first segmented layer of foam needs a simple square for the shroud. You can pluck the foam apart no problem. However, a bread knife used in a sawing motion makes clean work of the foam. The foam Nanuk provides is really good - it cuts nicely but doesn't come apart too easily, either.

The next segmented layer needs the same cutout for the shroud but with an annex for the handle.

This next layer I cut to fit over the top of the shroud. The narrow channels are for the structural braces of the shroud.

The large cutout to the right is for the PTB fuselage of the DPV.

That's it. Close the lid and be amazed at how light the whole package is.

 

[rng]

Ahh - nice fit - mine worked out like this...

Was heading to Bonaire in a couple weeks but the world shut down

 

[stuartv]

I got mine in the water today. The first dive was total chaos. Driving a scooter is harder than I expected! I was worn out after about 20 minutes and got out. The 2nd dive was a lot better. That was also after making some changes on the tow cord. The 3rd dive finally felt like I could drive it comfortably, without death-gripping the handle.

FUN!!!

But, I have to say, the way it really wants to be pointing straight up all the time is really annoying and seemed like it was a lot to do with how hard it was to get the hang of. When I would try to turn, I would rotate the unit to have the handle in the direction I want to go. As soon as I would rotate the handle away from top dead center, it would feel like I had to torque the unit with my hand to keep the nose from pointing up. Today's experience really left me wanting to demo a scooter that trims out flat. It seems like it would be SO much easier to drive (and, especially, make turns).

I seriously hope Dive-X comes out with a replacement tube that is longer and will let it trim out to be flat. And holds 2 more battery packs, if they're making it longer anyway. This scooter, if it would stay flat, and hold 2 more battery packs would be truly AWESOME.

My total dive time was 107 minutes for the day. I was generally on the trigger pretty much the whole time I was in the water. I ran it on 3 most of the time, but 4 and sometimes 5 were also common and all the way up to 8 a couple of times. I also did a couple of stints of towing. I got the DeWalt 12Ah batteries. At the end of the day, the BT's meter still showed 2 bars. I was very impressed. One of my buddies also had the 12Ah batteries and he was with me the whole time I was diving plus he stayed in 20+ minutes longer than I did on the 1st dive. So, I believe he got over 120 minutes on his, also with a fair bit of running at higher than 3 and 5 or 10 minutes of towing my fat a$$ (just for practice). We were both in drysuits. I had my CCR with one AL40 BO cylinder. He had double steel 120s.

So, even though I am impressed and pleased with how long a pair of 12Ah batteries lasted, if I could get a longer tube that would trim flat and hold 2 more batteries, I would order it and 2 more 12Ah batteries tomorrow.

I want to say thank you again to @DA Aquamaster! He came out to meet us at the lake and did 2 dives with us. He was super nice and a wealth of knowledge on these scooters. Thank you so much for the great mentoring and helping us all learn how to drive these things!!

Oh, and, a couple of other things that occured to me to wish worked differently.

- when I double click the throttle to start it, it seems like the delay between the double click and starting to really pull could be about half as long. It's just long enough to make you sometimes think you didn't double-click correctly and start to do it again just as it was starting to come on.

- I think the feature where the speed setting gradually drops (1 every 5 seconds) when you stop is cool. But, if the current speed is below 3 and I stop, when I resume, I think it should stay on 1 or 2. In other words, I think it should never start up at a FASTER speed than what I was using when I stopped. I say this based on a specific experience I had today. I went into and through a plane they had on the bottom. An old Cessna, so it was small. I started in on speed 1. I got into the middle of the plane and stopped for a second. When I started up again, it came on at speed 3 and that was a major hassle. It was just too fast for where I was.

- I thought it would be nice if I could (accidentally, say) let off the throttle for just a second or two and be able to resume by just pressing the throttle again (rather than having to double-click it). In other words, if my thumb slips off the throttle for a second, or if I am changing which hand I'm driving with and I accidentally let go of the throttle for a second, it would be nice if I could just go back to holding the throttle button down and have it resume going whatever speed it was going, instead of having to double-click. If I stay off the throttle for more than, say, 2 seconds, then it requires a double-click to get going again.

Of course, today was my first time ever with a scooter, so take my thoughts with a big, fat grain of salt. I could be totally talking out of my butt right now and just too scooter-ignorant to know it.