Liquivision Xen

[Tristan.ak]

Sold my Tec2G but hesitate to order Xen...

The water temperature here is around 4C(39F) degrees all year round. Does anyone have experience in continuous Xen usage under similar conditions? Just wondering about it's battery life in cold water diving.

Im thinking the same, how does it handle real cold water? Im going to Barrow Ak in the end of August for a few days of diving and seeing my parents, and my DC craps out with real cold water so I end up using a timer that is the Fred Myers special.

 

[PfcAJ]

I've got about 17-20 hours on each battery so far (which doesn't cut it). I'm experimenting with some color changes, and I'll report back with how many hours I get off this new battery.

Its a dream to dive, but the battery thing really grinds my gears. I'd be happy with 30ish.

Ahh, new technology

 

[Freezerbrn]

Fast and simple. I have had my Xen BT for a little over a month. I'm on my 2nd battery with only 10 dives and 8 hours of use (not including a few hours of simulation and familiarization) before it died. I am running SW v1.10 which I think is the most current version. I for the life of me can't get the PC down loader to work. Other then that, it I like it's easy to read OLED screen. Salt water dives mid 50's to lower 60's temps with medium brightness 10 sec sampling rate no stop watch, and normal refresh rate settings.

 

[vioch]

Did anyone try to conect XEN to PC through laptop integrated IrDa or USB-IrDa (not Liquivision one)?

 

[HenrikBP]

Did anyone try to conect XEN to PC through laptop integrated IrDa or USB-IrDa (not Liquivision one)?

I tried using a USB-IrDA adapter, but no luck. The Liquivision Software keeps saying that another software is controlling the adapter. In emails, Liquivision said that the com speed of the Xen is only a fraction of what an adapter is capable of, and that that might be the problem.

Haven't had time to look into it further.

I did suggest though that their next USB PC connection should be a direct plug-in and much smaller. That way you could just add an extension cable if you needed the distance.

Henrik

 

[Liquivision]

To clear some things up:

- A stock IrDA adapter will never manage to communicate with the Xen. The frequency is wrong and the protocol is wrong. We wanted stock adapters to work, but there were technical challenges which made it impossible.

- Whenever the Xen/Xeo is 'on', that counts towards battery life drainage. If you run 10 hours of sims, that's 10 hours of diving, there is no difference. Even if you are just changing settings in the menus, that also counts. Similarly, you are better off reducing all the timeouts. Once you surface from your dive, the dive summary is displayed. If you have this screen configured to stay on for half an hour, you wasted half an hour of life. Configure this screen to turn off after a couple of minutes at most.

- If you use the default settings (yellow/green) at medium brightness, put a fresh battery in, and run a very long simulation, the battery lasts 33-38 hours (of course much longer on low brightness). But you must also factor in tap detection drain when the unit is off, which gives the unit a shelf life of 5 months if you never take the battery out.

- If you are not going to use the unit for 3 weeks or more, you should take out the battery

- Compensating for off drainage, we created a new battery table to estimate your battery life here:
Liquivision : Scuba : Extras : Batteries for Xen and Xeo

Again this table means 'on' time, not just dive time.


Eric Fattah
Liquivision Products

 

[vioch]

5. Water Temperature

Diving in cold water (water temperature below 12°C / 54°F) shortens the life of your battery. We strongly recommend using conservative colors and brightness settings when diving in cold water to maximize your battery life.

How much does cold water (4C/39F) shorten the battery life, if most conservative settings are used?

 

[PfcAJ]

I've got about 17-20 hours on each battery so far (which doesn't cut it). I'm experimenting with some color changes, and I'll report back with how many hours I get off this new battery.

Its a dream to dive, but the battery thing really grinds my gears. I'd be happy with 30ish.

Ahh, new technology

Its about that time again. Another 18 hours of dive time, and the battery indicator went yellow. This is with the latest updates, lowest brightness, dark green for everything except max and avg depth (which are dark blue), normal layout, with the stopwatch deactivated, log period 10s.

Its great in the water, but the low battery life is pretty bothersome. I guess I just have to get used to spending 40-50 dollars per year on batteries that are only available from Liquivision.

 

[RTodd]

Its about that time again. Another 18 hours of dive time, and the battery indicator went yellow. This is with the latest updates, lowest brightness, dark green for everything except max and avg depth (which are dark blue), normal layout, with the stopwatch deactivated, log period 10s.

Its great in the water, but the low battery life is pretty bothersome. I guess I just have to get used to spending 40-50 dollars per year on batteries that are only available from Liquivision.

Learn your lesson and throw it away. This trinket may be cool but it is pretty useless for real diving. I remember similiar issues with Cochrane 20+ years ago because it was the cool new technology. I finally learned my lesson after wasting tons of money on these types of things.

 

[PfcAJ]

Nah, its actually pretty good to dive with. The battery thing sucks, but I'll deal with it.