ScubaPro HUD (new computer on the market)

[tridacna]

I'm adding Stuart's NERD 3 and Dr. Mike's NERD 4 and 5 to the New Product Ideas list. I'm not kidding. These are cool concepts.

While we're at it...can you add underwater navigation and an EPIRB to the Nerd Novo please! Must be smaller than existing one with 3-D display.

 

[doctormike]

You see, @Shearwater, this is your problem. When you insist on making great products and standing behind them with awesome technical support, you raise expectations. Eventually, we figure you can make anything you want, but you are just waiting for the optimal moment to release the new stuff from a marketing point of view.

So I would like some inert gas that doesn't form bubbles, some strobes that don't illuminate any particulate matter in the water, and maybe one of these...

 

[tridacna]

You see, @Shearwater, this is your problem. When you insist on making great products and standing behind them with awesome technical support, you raise expectations. Eventually, we figure you can make anything you want, but you are just waiting for the optimal moment to release the new stuff from a marketing point of view.

So I would like some inert gas that doesn't form bubbles, some strobes that don't illuminate any particulate matter in the water, and maybe one of these...

Mike- You know that this IS the SP HUD thread, right?

 

[doctormike]

Mike- You know that this IS the SP HUD thread, right?

Hey, you started it...!

 

[stuartv]

I volunteer Stuart for beta testing the Nerd 4...!

I’m game. I don’t know what that other kind of catheter is, but I bet it’s not as bad as a condom catheter...

 

[stuartv]

C'mon Stuart, you are a CCR diver now! You know that there is a big difference between the necessary check frequency for PO2 and SPGs. You shouldn't need to check your data on OC that often. I don't dive without my DSLR, I know what it's like to focus on camera equipment and not want to have to check your gauges frequently, but on OC I was never so occupied with the camera that I needed to check gas pressures during the course of a shot.

Compare that to CCR, where it's pretty much standard to have SOME sort of HUD. Maybe you don't need a NERD, but most CCR designers accept the fact that you have to check PO2 so frequently that a handset alone isn't enough.

If you are surfacing a non-responsive diver, you are either within NDLs and just ascending without worrying about your gauges, or you have a deco obligation and you are making a very hard choice. Hard to believe that tech rescue is the target market.

Right. On CC, I check my ppO2 very often and my SPG not very often at all. On, OC, I don't check my ppO2, but I check my SPG somewhat often. Depending on the dive, I check my depth and NDL pretty often.

Having it all on HUD means I can check any of those things at any time. Some dives, I'll be looking at one thing more often. Other dives, I'll look at other things more often. But, it would be nice if they were all right there.

The thing with surfacing a non-responsive diver is not about being able to see my SPG. It's about being able to monitor my depth and ascent rate - without having to see my wrist. I did my Rescue class in a low viz quarry. It was HARD to do a safe ascent. For that matter, it could be hard to tell if I was even ascending or descending. That is why I always wear a computer on my right wrist and why I try to keep it turned somewhat to the inside of my wrist. So that if I were holding a reg in another diver's mouth while ascending, I would have a prayer of being able to see that computer and read my depth.

 

[stuartv]

I'm adding Stuart's NERD 3 and Dr. Mike's NERD 4 and 5 to the New Product Ideas list. I'm not kidding. These are cool concepts.

Then let me be specific.

I want a wireless DiveCAN Monitor bus. The NERD3 would interface to it wirelessly. The NERD3 would also have a setting to control whether it reads cylinder pressures from the DiveCAN Monitor bus or reads them directly from wireless AI transmitters (as the NERD2 does now). The box (the DiveCAN Monitor wireless access point, if you will) itself would mount on my CCR and have a connection to the O2 sensors (whether it connects to a DiveCAN Monitor bus that already exists on the unit or whether it connects directly to the O2 sensors (a la the rEvo NERD2 monitor). It would have a battery and 2 hardwired connections to pressure transducers that would screw into the CCR's 1st stage regulators. Thus, the hard bits that actually attach to the 1st stages would be much smaller than the current PPS AI transmitters are (since they would not have internal batteries).

Alternatively, instead of wireless DiveCAN, the NERD3 could use a new type of connector and have a cable to connect it to the aforementioned black box. But, in that case, the connector and cable would be such that when the NERD3 is disconnected, there is no cable or pigtail left hanging (like the DiveCAN and Fischer NERD2's have). Thus allowing the NERD3 to easily move from a CCR to an OC setup (where it would read wireless AI transmitters and the DiveCAN interface would be turned off).

 

[doctormike]

Right. On CC, I check my ppO2 very often and my SPG not very often at all. On, OC, I don't check my ppO2, but I check my SPG somewhat often. Depending on the dive, I check my depth and NDL pretty often.

Having it all on HUD means I can check any of those things at any time. Some dives, I'll be looking at one thing more often. Other dives, I'll look at other things more often. But, it would be nice if they were all right there.

The thing with surfacing a non-responsive diver is not about being able to see my SPG. It's about being able to monitor my depth and ascent rate - without having to see my wrist. I did my Rescue class in a low viz quarry. It was HARD to do a safe ascent. For that matter, it could be hard to tell if I was even ascending or descending. That is why I always wear a computer on my right wrist and why I try to keep it turned somewhat to the inside of my wrist. So that if I were holding a reg in another diver's mouth while ascending, I would have a prayer of being able to see that computer and read my depth.

I guess my point was that there is a tradeoff of having a HUD if you don't also have a loop. I don't know how comfortable or easy the mask mount is (doesn't look so great, a big bulky thing on the mask), but mounting it on a standard LP hose and second stage isn't a great configuration in terms of comfort, torque, stability or gas sharing.

So with CCR you have very little downside (because of the loop mounting) and lots of upside (you need some sort of HUD anyway, why not one that gives you the other information?). With OC you have the downside of the mounting issues and as far as I can tell, very little upside.

You are sort of an unusual case, in that you go back and forth between OC and CCR, right? So maybe it makes more sense for you, since you would use the same mask for both.