I had recently replaced my battery in my Petrel with a normal AA battery. Nothing special, no fancy models. I needed one in a pinch and it worked. It was new, so had full power. It was a Duracel plain model, nothing generic for this dive computer!
I did a few dives on it, and once it got to about 1/2 power (on the battery meter) it would no longer sync.
I thought nothing of the power/voltage at the time as it had "plenty of power to dive with" so everything else should work. or so I thought. I never got a low battery warning and it always displayed between 3/4 and 1/2 power left on the battery meter.
A few dives later I had all my gear in my bin and before I went diving, I noticed my computer was "on" I know it couldn't have possibly gotten bumped on, so I picked it up and it said the battery had just been changed. Odd. I turned it back off and went on a dive or two over the next couple weeks. I noticed twice more between this time it stated "Battery Changed" between dives and figured maybe something was starting to go wrong with it.
I decided to upload my latest dives in case I needed to wipe it or send it in. I for the life of me could NOT get it to sync and upload the dive logs!
After fighting with the BT Dongle, drivers, many reboots, looking up info on issues. I spent a few hours messing with it. I gave up. I know the BT Dongle worked as it saw my phone (I didn't sync it, I just checked to see if I could see it).
Fast forward to today. I decided to try to pull my logs off before a big dive I have this weekend and still had the same issues. The Shearwater Desktop software stated it was connecting, then looking for, then failed to see the dive computer during the dive log upload. The dive computer itself just had the countdown continuing on as if nothing was happening each time.
I noticed a Firmware update on Shearwater's website (I had v11, v12 was now available) and it stated there was a BT drive update for the device itself. I thought this sounded good. I tried a firmware update. Interestingly enough, it connected and the screen on the dive computer switched over to show it was receiving the update. After a few seconds the desktop software timed out and stated it couldn't connect and failed. (error 502? I don't remember, I cleared it and didn't write it down). The dive computer finally reset and stated the firmware update failed in big scary letters.
I decided to open the battery compartment up and pull the battery out, checking for any water leaks. It was dry and the o-ring looked ok. I decided to go ahead and change battery since the old one was running low anyway.
I got a nice fresh energizer lithium battery installed and turned the computer back on.
I tried the sync again, and immediately it worked!
I then did the firmware upgrade and it worked successfully on the first try!
Very strange. I guess either the battery I had was bad, or the voltage being reported was incorrect or causing issues with the computer's ability to function. Never did it show it was too low, or display a warning. It always said I had about 1/2 power left.
Anyhow... I just wanted to tell this story in case anyone else has any weird issues like this... try a battery change and see if your issues go away.
Shearwater, if you have any questions, let me know and I can give you more info. I absolutely love my Petrel and sing it's praises to everyone.
I did a few dives on it, and once it got to about 1/2 power (on the battery meter) it would no longer sync.
I thought nothing of the power/voltage at the time as it had "plenty of power to dive with" so everything else should work. or so I thought. I never got a low battery warning and it always displayed between 3/4 and 1/2 power left on the battery meter.
A few dives later I had all my gear in my bin and before I went diving, I noticed my computer was "on" I know it couldn't have possibly gotten bumped on, so I picked it up and it said the battery had just been changed. Odd. I turned it back off and went on a dive or two over the next couple weeks. I noticed twice more between this time it stated "Battery Changed" between dives and figured maybe something was starting to go wrong with it.
I decided to upload my latest dives in case I needed to wipe it or send it in. I for the life of me could NOT get it to sync and upload the dive logs!
After fighting with the BT Dongle, drivers, many reboots, looking up info on issues. I spent a few hours messing with it. I gave up. I know the BT Dongle worked as it saw my phone (I didn't sync it, I just checked to see if I could see it).
Fast forward to today. I decided to try to pull my logs off before a big dive I have this weekend and still had the same issues. The Shearwater Desktop software stated it was connecting, then looking for, then failed to see the dive computer during the dive log upload. The dive computer itself just had the countdown continuing on as if nothing was happening each time.
I noticed a Firmware update on Shearwater's website (I had v11, v12 was now available) and it stated there was a BT drive update for the device itself. I thought this sounded good. I tried a firmware update. Interestingly enough, it connected and the screen on the dive computer switched over to show it was receiving the update. After a few seconds the desktop software timed out and stated it couldn't connect and failed. (error 502? I don't remember, I cleared it and didn't write it down). The dive computer finally reset and stated the firmware update failed in big scary letters.
I decided to open the battery compartment up and pull the battery out, checking for any water leaks. It was dry and the o-ring looked ok. I decided to go ahead and change battery since the old one was running low anyway.
I got a nice fresh energizer lithium battery installed and turned the computer back on.
I tried the sync again, and immediately it worked!
I then did the firmware upgrade and it worked successfully on the first try!
Very strange. I guess either the battery I had was bad, or the voltage being reported was incorrect or causing issues with the computer's ability to function. Never did it show it was too low, or display a warning. It always said I had about 1/2 power left.
Anyhow... I just wanted to tell this story in case anyone else has any weird issues like this... try a battery change and see if your issues go away.
Shearwater, if you have any questions, let me know and I can give you more info. I absolutely love my Petrel and sing it's praises to everyone.
