Atomic Aquatics Cobalt Dive Computer

[Michael Anthony]

The neodymium magnets are very susceptible to corrosion if they get wet, they should have been sealed and glued into the keypad in a way that prevents water entry. They should not be rusting and are not consumables, but there were some keypads that were assembled with a less than adequate sealant coating on the magnets. Well sealed ones have held up.

Ron,

Thank-you for this. I did swap buttons around to get some basic functionality. I borrow the buttons from the other Cobalt at the end of our dive trip.

Michael.

 

[Spittmonkey]

THANK YOU for your post, i had an issue where the Cobalt wouldn't start up but it would set off my computer as something connected. I followed the below and WALA! Time and date set screen came up and Im back in business. I will say though that I probably would not buy the Cobalt again if I had a second chance. While I LOVE its user friendlyness and ease to use for both deep stops and deco, I have had too many issues with the thing. First it was the recall issue (my computer experienced a partial burst during a dive). Then this connection issue second. Too many problems from an important piece of gear. I still hold Atomic as one of the top producers of great Regs, but I think they should have spent a bit more time at the table when it came to the computer. All that said, now that I have it, I will still use it, but never w/o not only my backup guages but a backup computer as well. Which is a good practice anyway.

The first thing the firmware update program does is to delete the previous program in the Cobalt. If it doesn't complete the process, or isn't pointed to the correct file on your local hard drive, it won't have a new program to install, and it won't come back up. But nothing fundamental has been harmed, it's just a matter of getting the correct firmware loaded into the Cobalt. This should be pretty simple:

1) Connect the USB side of the adapter to the Cobalt, and plug the USB cable into both your PC and the Cobalt adapter. Since the unit is dead, you won't see a "connected" message.

2) In the PC updater/ dive log program, select "flash the DC" from the File menu, then click the button on the top of the main screen that says "Locate Flash". Using the window that comes up, locate the flash file that you downloaded and unzipped from the Atomic site, wherever you have placed it on your local hard drive. It will be called "Cobalt_110_EndUser_4.hex" If it is any other file, or if it still has a .zip extension, the update will fail. There is a picture on the Atomic Aquatics Cobalt Updates web page that shows what this should look like. Select Open in the window, and this file name will be placed in the field opposite the "Locate Flash" button. If it's not there, stop, go back, and find the file.

3) Click the Start button just under the "Locate Flash" button. You should start to see little balls floating from the computer picture to the Cobalt picture, and an occasional update of the data read. After something under two minutes, the process should complete, "connection closed" will appear on the PC screen, and your Cobalt should come up to the set time/ date screen a few seconds later. If you see "connection closed" immediately after starting the update, then the program did not find the right file on your PC.

This will work even if the Cobalt has been previously killed by a failed upload attempt. If you have any problem with this PM me and I will help you work through it. Rest assured, there is nothing you can do in attempting to update the firmware that will actually damage the Cobalt.

Mac users can do almost the same thing, but they need to find the file inside the window that comes up when they click the "start update" button, and if they are starting with a "dead" Cobalt, they need to unplug and replug in the Cobalt USB adapter AFTER they both click the start update button AND locate the Cobalt_110_EndUser_4.hex file and select OPEN, i.e. after starting the update process.

 

[RonR]

THANK YOU for your post, i had an issue where the Cobalt wouldn't start up but it would set off my computer as something connected. I followed the below and WALA! Time and date set screen came up and Im back in business. <snip>....

Glad that worked for you. By far the most common issue we have dealt with is updating the firmware from PC's. There are very many potential driver problems and many different system configuration issues that can cause problems with updating. It's nothing that can actually damage the Cobalt, but it can be frustrating for users- and us as well. I think this is pretty generally a problem for embedded devices that can be updated from PC's. We even had one user who had lightning strike in the middle of updating his Cobalt firmware, taking his power out. Following the same procedure got him back up as well.

We seem to be stable now with the current version of the Windows firmware updater working well on almost all systems, and we have an updater that works very well on all recent Mac OS versions- 10.6 and later- which should be up on the Atomic site now. If it's not yet, and someone needs it to update their Cobalt firmware on a Mac Lion or Mountian Lion system, you can download the updater here: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/71299384/AtomicUpdater.app.zip

The recall found very few Cobalts with problems, but it was important to locate those.

Ron

 

[bractime]

Ron,
I thought I read on an earlier post that a new version of the Cobalt Firmware was going to be releasing soon. Do you have anything that you could share?

 

[RonR]

Ron,
I thought I read on an earlier post that a new version of the Cobalt Firmware was going to be releasing soon. Do you have anything that you could share?

I had expected a new version to be up by now. I know Atomic staff have been very busy post DEMA. I'll check again to see when we might be able to get it up on the website.

Ron

 

[Dan Dickey]

No, the SELECT button should always wake it unless the battery is dead. If you dunk the nose of the Cobalt in water does it wake up to the dive screen? If so, there is the possibility you have one of the button keypads that has rusted. Here are some instructions for removing the cover to check. https://dl.dropbox.com/u/71299384/Cover removal.pdf
If you see rust, Atomic or your dealer can get you a new keypad, it's very simple to replace.

If it doesn't wake with water contact, we will want to rule out any leakage, particularly in the battery compartment. PM me and I will send you instructions on how to check the battery (it's easy), or you can of course go directly to Atomic.

Ron

Hi Ron,

We returned from our trip and it took a while for me to get back to this issue. Removed cover and buttons look ok (no rust). Connecting via USB causes the computer to give the USB sound that says something was connected. Device manager shows:

libusb(WIN-USB) devices->Atomics-Cobalt

but still cannot wake up the Cobalt. Our other Cobalt works fine and I was able to upload dives to the same computer. What now?

Thanks,
Dan

 

[RonR]

Hi Ron,

We returned from our trip and it took a while for me to get back to this issue. Removed cover and buttons look ok (no rust). Connecting via USB causes the computer to give the USB sound that says something was connected. Device manager shows:

libusb(WIN-USB) devices->Atomics-Cobalt

but still cannot wake up the Cobalt. Our other Cobalt works fine and I was able to upload dives to the same computer. What now?

Thanks,
Dan

Dan,

The fact that it won't wake with wet contacts means that either it has had a component failure, is not getting power (bad battery, leakage or corrosion in the battery compartment), or that it has gotten stuck somehow in boot code. The latter could have happened if the battery ran down entirely, and the Cobalt was connected to USB to charge rather than to the wall charter- USB doesn't give it a reset, but will charge the battery and prevent the wall charger from generating a reset. But as I recall, you said you battery was pretty full when the Cobalt stopped responding, and it was on a wall charger.

I'm sending the instructions for removing and resetting the battery in a PM. You could check and see if there is any obvious damage and see if the computer resets with a battery reset. Or you could return it to Atomic to be checked out. That would be be the best course, as this is definitely not normal behavior. The fact that this happened while connected to the wall charger makes me a bit concerned about a component failure- possibly that something got fried because of a bad charger. I'd really recommend that Atomic check it out.

Ron

 

[amlai]

I recently did a dive in the pool with my Cobalt to test out some gear. By the time I got into the pool, the Cobalt had turned itself back off and for some reason, the wet sensor didn't activate it. I turned the computer on manually, but it wouldn't go into dive mode or detect a depth. Luckily, it did detect an air pressure correctly though. My local dive shop sent it into Atomic to have it checked out. They couldn't find anything wrong with it and both the wet sensor and the depth sensor are working. Is there some way to do a reset / reboot to try if this happens again?

I'm leaving for a trip soon and Atomic's making sure that I get it back before my trip. It was a pretty tough turnaround and I can't say enough about the customer service!

 

[RonR]

I recently did a dive in the pool with my Cobalt to test out some gear. By the time I got into the pool, the Cobalt had turned itself back off and for some reason, the wet sensor didn't activate it. I turned the computer on manually, but it wouldn't go into dive mode or detect a depth. Luckily, it did detect an air pressure correctly though. My local dive shop sent it into Atomic to have it checked out. They couldn't find anything wrong with it and both the wet sensor and the depth sensor are working. Is there some way to do a reset / reboot to try if this happens again?

I'm leaving for a trip soon and Atomic's making sure that I get it back before my trip. It was a pretty tough turnaround and I can't say enough about the customer service!

My best guess is that this was caused by the water contacts being oily or having something on them that prevented the Cobalt from sensing water. I've seen this happen when some water resistant sunscreen got on the pins, but anything that increased the resistance enough or kept the pins from getting good water contact could cause what you saw. If it doesn't detect water it won't start a dive- though it should still detect depth. Cleaning the pins in the recess at the front of the Cobalt with some soap & water could help. Fresh water is less conductive than salt, so it needs better contact in a pool than in the ocean. Hope this helps.

Ron

 

[ericinmich]

New to scubaboard, question about new Cobalt computer. We bought 2 for wife and I, and on the second dive her's started acting up. About 15min into the dive, did a pressure check and noticed it read 3000psi. It had read just over that on the start of the dive, we knew something was amiss. She buddied with the DM and kept going for a few minutes checking the readout. It actually started going up, then bouncing around. We were only at 20-30 ft so she ended up surfacing early. Looking at the log you can see it starting to act up going as high as 4500psi or so... then bouncing up and down. Maybe at the end it had a good readout...

Anyway, she did the next dive without her DC and used a set of pressure gauges they had on board. It will be going back to the LDS once we get back from St. John (for warranty fix I assume). Kind of bummed but I work on automotive electronics and understand infant mortality issues can pop up. Hope it all turns out well!