Huge Deco on Suunto Cobra

[JohnW]

Here is a weird one.... My Buddy Scott and I were Diving Lake Minniwanka Yesterday with another Buddy Marcel. Scott is Diving 26% Nitrox, Marcel and I are diving Air. We do a Multi Level Dive to 75 ffw(5 min Max at this depth) and arrive at our saftey stop. Scott is using a Suunto Cobra, Marcel is using a Suunto Mosquito and I am using a Uwatec Aladin Tec. Scott Computer (Cobra) is showing after our Saftey stop 23 min of Deco @ 10ft:11: . My Computer is showing 99 min of NDL and Marcel's is also fine. Scott still has 900 psi(AL80) so we wait another 5 Min and yes it's still counting down his Deco.

We decide to surface anyway, Scott's computer of course locks up and dispays "errr 7" and starts counting down from 48 hours(Scott's hunting for the manual right now).

I guess we could have waited it out as I still had 2000psi in Twin LP104's. But it was getting a little cold (43 Degrees).

We had 2 previous dives with the same gases both 20minutes to 90 and 85 ffw. with at least 1:30 between dives.

Anyone else had a simular malfuction with a Cobra?

 

[JeffG]

Anyone else had a simular malfuction with a Cobra?

We have seen dumb stuff by the Suunto's. A 90 min dive in Minni showed 12 min of deco on one of the Suunto's. We gave it the finger and got out of the water. (But I don't remember what the exact type was.)

 

[JohnW]

We gave it the finger and got out of the water. (But I don't remember what the exact type was.)

That's pretty well what Scott did, I think he was contemplating leaving the Suunto behind to do it's own deco .

 

[JeffG]

That's pretty well what Scott did, I think he was contemplating leaving the Suunto behind to do it's own deco .

Pull out the battery. LOL. I use a D3, its just a depth/timer so I don't have to worry about the nonsense these things get into. For our messed up suunto, I'm not even sure is she figured out what did it. Wrong Nitrox? Wrong Altitude? or something else?????

 

[lamont]

Did you go into deco or otherwise piss them off on the previous two dives? Suuntos tend to have a lot of random punishment factors in them. When you get out you'll see the "!" symbol inside a triangle if it is starting to punish you, and if you don't do 4+ hour surface intervals when the "!" symbol is showing it'll start to give you radically truncated NDL times (even at 70 fsw on nitrox).

This is why I dive gauge mode.

 

[mnj1233]

I had issues with my sunnto as well. I have since switched to Oceanic and am very happy/secure diving it.

 

[JohnW]

Did you go into deco or otherwise piss them off on the previous two dives?

We were all well within the NDL Limits, I remember 12 min NDL is the closest I got to Deco.

 

[S. starfish]

Did he by chance have it set to the max altitude setting? I met a guy once who kept complaining that his sunnto did the same thing, 30 seconds late my buddies and I determined that he had been diving with it set to the max altitude setting for two years and hadn't known it.

 

[Scared Silly]

I would advise the above as well as the personal preferences. We had this happen once ... and only once, when we forgot to change from the A1 level to A0. On the third dive of the second day of a trip our computers started balking. I think my wife got hit with an 18 minute deco. I managed to get with a 5 minute decco. But she gave it the finger and dove gauge the rest of the week.

 

[Jetwrench]

Never had that happen to me. I also carry a Vyper on my wrist and they read identicle on every dive. The few times I have entered into deco(briefly) a gradual ascent usually has me out of it by the time I reach the safety stop. Have Scott check his settings.

Jet