The settings you reference to "personalize" probably aren't best described as used to "personalize" it.
The settings you can change are there to allow you to adjust for different diving scenarios.
The computer categorizes the changeable options into four categories (really three). Time settings you can pick between a 12 hour or 24 hour display, and obviously set the date and time.
The remaining are FO2, Alarms, and Utilities.
FO2 settings allows you to set the FO2 of your Nitrox gas mix if you are diving with Nitrox. The computer will then make it’s nitrogen, oxygen, and depth limits based on your specific gas mix. This is pretty straightforward if you use Nitrox.
FO2 Default on or off – left on, is only used for Nitrox diving it puts your FO2 setting to 50% after your first dive which is a very conservative FO2 which would limit your depth on your following dive. This is a safety feature that forces you to program the actual FO2 of your tank before the dive. If you are diving tanks with varied FO2’s than you probably want to kept his on. If you are diving tanks with the same FO2, then you can just turn it off, and it will default to whatever your last FO2 setting was for the next dive.
The remaining two categories really depend on your dive plan.
Here is a quick outline of the alarms and why you might want to change them:
Audible Alarm – Turn on if you want to hear alerts, off if you don’t. I rather get an audible notification if the computer is telling me something I need to know. However, I have found that the audible alarm is very difficult to hear underwater, and pretty much impossible with a neoprene hood on.
Max Depth Alarm – In case you want to only dive to a certain depth to stick to a certain dive plan, you can set a max depth. I usually just leave this at the default 330 ft, and just stay aware of my depth myself.
Elapsed Dive Time – If you have a time limit you need to stick to, sometimes vacation dive operations give you a 30 min time limit or something, you can set this to give you an alarm. Again, I typically keep this at the default and monitor my own time.
Max Tissue Bar Graph – gives you an alarm once you have reached a certain nitrogen loading. For example if you want to avoid decompression, you can set an alarm for bar 7. Bar 8 is decompression diving. Personally, I just leave it at the default 8 (if I go into decompression, I just make sure I do my required stops).
Dive Time Remaining – If you are using the VT3 with the tank pressure transmitter you can set an alarm to let you know you are getting close to the end of your dive by telling you that you have only X amount of dive time left (due to no decompression or air time remaining). I think the default is 5 min, which works fine for me.
Turn Pressure – You can set this alarm if you are diving a plan where you have to turn back around and go to your exit point (such as cave diving) once you hit a certain tank pressure. If you are just diving open water, often you won’t need to set this unless you are diving a specific plan that calls for you to return to a specific point to ascend.
End Pressure – This is how much pressure you want in your tank when you end the dive. Default is usually 500 psi left, which is what I usually use.
Max PO2 – If you are diving with Nitrox you can set what you want your Max PO2 to be. Recreational limits are usually 1.4, with a 1.6 contingency. The VT3 automatically gives you an alarm if you get within .2 of your PO2 setting.
Free Dive mode also gives you several depth alarms if you wanted to know when you reached certain depths while free diving.
Here is a quick outline of the Utilities and why you might want to change them:
Wet Activation – default is on, automatically puts your computer in dive mode when you descend. If you put this off, you have to hit a button to activate dive mode. Since I want my computer in dive mode when I descend, I keep this on.
Units of Measure is self explanatory – English or metric.
Safety Stop time and depth – allows you to set a depth and the amount of time you want to hang for a safety stop. The computer uses this in your dive time calculations so when it gives you dive time remaining, it knows you want to hang at 15 feet for 5 minutes as an example (if you set it for that). So when your computer says you have 0 time left, you really have enough time to safely ascend and also make your 5 min safety stop. When this is set, it also gives you a count down once you hit your safety stop depth, which is nice so you don’t need a separate clock to monitor.
Conservative Mode on or off – if you put it to on, the computer calculates as if you were diving at one altitude level higher which would put more conservative limits on your dive. Up to you on this – I just leave it off (which is the default).
Back Light Duration just sets how long your back light stays on after you hit the illuminate button.
Dive Sample Rate sets how often the dive data is recorded. This is used primarily for downloading your dive data to a PC. For example if you set it to 15 seconds, this means every 15 seconds, the computer records a “snap shot in time” of your current depth, tank pressure, nitrogen loading, etc. The shorter you set this, the more memory is used up and the computer can’t hold as many dives in its memory. The longer you set this, the less accurate your captured dive data, but more dives can be stored in its memory. Personally, I use 15 sec intervals. Your options are 2 sec, 15 sec, 30 sec, and 60 sec.
The
Transmitter settings allow you to program the serial number of transmitters that your computer will monitor for air data. You can enter up to three and designate if they are yours or your buddy’s (if you have a buddy with a transmitter you want to monitor his air).
This is a pretty comprehensive list of all the settable options. As you can see, what you set is mostly determined by what kind of dive you are planning. It just provides features to better suit itself to what you want to do.
Best of luck with the computer, I like mine.
One bit of advice, if you want to get a jump on learning your computer, download the manual
HERE and start reading. You should really understand your computer fully since you will be relying on it for your safety!
