Shearwater Transmitters Nitrox vs Air

[rsingler]

I stand corrected.
Nice sleuthing, @scubadada !

 

[scubadada]

I stand corrected.
Nice sleuthing, @scubadada !

Not that I would consider monitoring anyone else's gas supply Seems like it would be out of range much of the time.

 

[rsingler]

Here's an old one from a short surge'y dive in Santa Cruz. Yeah, intermittent.

Shearwater interpolates between the moments the signal is lost and regained.

 

[ATJ]

I assume this to mean that if the computer is scanning for a paired transmitter that is out or range, that the power consumption will be increased.

I'm not sure why you addressed me on this when I specifically said that power consumption WOULD NOT be increased when a paired transmitter goes out of range.

 

[scubadada]

I'm not sure why you addressed me on this when I specifically said that power consumption WOULD NOT be increased when a paired transmitter goes out of range.

Because, I think it does increase, see post #10. I emailed Shearwater for a definitive answer.

 

[Wibble]

Conjecture alert...

I would guess that the AI receiver radio receiver is turned on and off, plus the additional CPU code to process that info. Thus Shearwater's recommendation about turning off AI if it’s not used to preserve battery life.

/conjecture alert


I use two transmitters — one grey, one yellow — on my rebreather to monitor my oxygen and dilutent pressures using my NERD2 head-up display. No oxygen fires yet (and nobody to my knowledge has had one), so it’s all CYA from lawyers. I use two different colours of transmitters as they have different transmission delays and thus don’t clash.

 

[dmaziuk]

Conjecture alert...

I would guess that the AI receiver radio receiver is turned on and off, plus the additional CPU code to process that info. Thus Shearwater's recommendation about turning off AI if it’s not used to preserve battery life.

/conjecture alert

The receiver is on when AI is "on", that's one power sink. Then you poll the receiver looking for the transmitter reading, each polling cycle burns the CPU power. If there's no connection the polling rate goes up, burning more CPU cycles.

One thing the fine manual doesn't say is what happens if AI is on but there is no transmitter paired. I wouldn't be surprised if the only power drain in that case is the receiver "on" (i.e. no polling): from all I hear about them, Shearwater seems to employ competent programmers.

 

[scubadada]

@Newdiv @ATJ @rsingler

I assume this to mean that if the computer is scanning for a paired transmitter that is out or range, that the power consumption will be increased. Shearwater is very responsive to queries, you could email them for confirmation.

View attachment 650215

I heard back from Shearwater on this issue. I wrote:

Hi Shearwater.

Assume T1 is connected to my 1st stage and T2 is connected to my wife's 1st stage. When my wife's transmitter is out of range and being scanned for, will the battery consumption be increased, as per your user's manual?

Shearwater replied:

Thanks for getting in touch.
Yes, if T2 is programmed in, but out of range the Teric will see a lightly higher power draw.

I hope this helps,

Best regards,

 

[kelemvor]

Wait, so shearwater supports buddy tx feature? I've still got some crappy galileo computers for diving with my wife because they will do buddy tx simultaneously.

I just looked up the perdix ai mainual. Looks pretty attractive and configurable.

I get that some folks don't see value in it. Being able to see my buddie's pressure right on your own DC is a nice feature in my opinion. 3-5 feet is about how far apart my wife and I dive anyway. Range generally isn't a problem on the old scubapro tx, so I'd hope shearwater's wasn't worse.

I've currently got an Ratio iX3M for tech diving only (because it does NOT support buddy tx). I think it's time to sell that and the scubapro computers and get back on the shearwater bandwagon. $2500 for a pair, but I do have 3 dc's and 5 tx's to sell and offset that some.

 

[dmaziuk]

I've currently got an Ratio iX3M for tech diving only (because it does NOT support buddy tx).

You mean it can do multiple xmitters but can't show 2 at once? I mean "buddy" tx is no different from independent doubles w/ own tx each, it's only a matter of showing both at the same time in UI.