Wrote the PADI Nitrox exam today ...

[Landau]

I learned the most valuable lesson on my first Nitrox dive. Here was the sequence of events.

1) At shop pick up tanks, analyze ans label them 31% and my initials
2) At shop Set computer (Zoop) to 31%
3) Load gear, drive to boat (30 minutes), load gear onto boat.
4) Gear up on boat - making sure I have my labeled & initialed tank and computer still set to 31% - during cruise to diesite
5) Do a giant stride of boat

6) in mid air computer goes "BEEP"

7) Check computer it has reset to AIR 21%!

8) Since the max depth at the site will be below 1.4 PPO (I did the calculation ahead of time) continue dive while cursing computer. Buttons too small to adjust while wearing gloves

9) Get back home and read in the depths of the Zoop manual "Manually entered values for oxygen percentage are retained for about two hours after the setting if a dive series has not started."

The lesson to always set my percentage just before the dive has stuck!

 

[Manatee Diver]

Regular Zoop or the Novo?

 

[rongoodman]

Of all the things I have seen computers do to screw up inattentive divers on liveaboards, the most common has been this craziness of them resetting the mix behind the diver's back. Why are they even programmed to do such a thing?

 

[Divectionist]

Many people dive nitrox on air profiles for added safety margins, that is not really an issue as long as you know your MOD, which you should anyway without relying on computer warnings.

 

[TMHeimer]

I found the PADI Nitrox e-learning a bit painful because they repeat everything twice. I am not kidding: almost every point is put in a slide then repeated in either a short video or a slide with a voice over.

It takes definitely more than a hour to read the material if you let the video/slides play itself rather than skipping them.

The questions are very easy and straightforward (I always like this in the PADI materials, no ridiculous trick questions, only checking that you understood the material correctly)

About the dives tables, I wonder if they should start teaching using a dive planner instead ? Maybe it is too complicated, because every dive computer and software would have a different GUI

PADI was "wordy" before the advent of e learning. Lots of explanations of stuff you may think of as just logical. But, better that way than the other.
I re-read daily a page of a manual(s) from all my PADI courses and skip over all the obvious stuff.
Fill me in-- Can you not just watch the obvious stuff once then go to stuff you don't understand and replay that at your convenience? Sorry for my ignorance.

 

[JackD342]

Of all the things I have seen computers do to screw up inattentive divers on liveaboards, the most common has been this craziness of them resetting the mix behind the diver's back. Why are they even programmed to do such a thing?

There is a wide variety of protocols in dive computers for handling gas mix after an EAN dive, and none of them are "the right way" to do it, they are all personal preference. But I think understanding how your dive computer handles post dive gas mix is second in importance only to knowing how to set it in the first place.

• Some will assume you are using the same mix. Convenient for liveaboards and dependable mixes on your fills.
• Some will assume you should always set a new mix on each dive. And some of those will default to an "impossible mix" of 79% nitrogen and 50% oxygen, to be sure that either limit is observed if you forget to enter a new mix. And some of that subset will allow the user to configure how the computer behaves after an EAN dive.
• Some others will reset to air only after 24 hours of no diving.
• Still some others will stick on the last setting, no matter how long it has been.

I probably missed a few, but yeah, understanding how your own computer works after an EAN dive is pretty important. Also why I much prefer that a student taking an EAN class has the computer they will be diving available, so we can work through that together.

 

[JackD342]

PADI was "wordy" before the advent of e learning. Lots of explanations of stuff you may think of as just logical. But, better that way than the other.
I re-read daily a page of a manual(s) from all my PADI courses and skip over all the obvious stuff.
Fill me in-- Can you not just watch the obvious stuff once then go to stuff you don't understand and replay that at your convenience? Sorry for my ignorance.

The eLearning courses are not intended for jumping around and learning ala carte. They are intended to be consumed from beginning to end, in order, and in totality. Yes, learning is best achieved when reinforced via repetition rather than covered just once. And even better when delivered so the student reads it, hears it, and sees it. The repetition in the courses is very much by design intended to deliver the best results possible.

It took a while, but I eventually noticed the pattern in which of my eLearning divers were prepared and knowledgeable, and easily passed the in store quiz, versus which divers struggle with the in store quiz and the material in general.
When a student figures out how to pencil whip the course - blowing through the videos - and ignoring the built-in remediation on incorrect answers to online quizzes and tests - focusing on minimum passing grades rather than mastery of the material - that is a student that is far more likely to be one of my problem children down the road.

 

[Landau]

Regular Zoop or the Novo?

Regular. I don't know if the Novo does this. And oce you have started a nitrox dive it keeps the setting until the NOFLY icon is no longer displayed.

 

[Manatee Diver]

Regular. I don't know if the Novo does this. And oce you have started a nitrox dive it keeps the setting until the NOFLY icon is no longer displayed.

I don't think I've seen that behavior on the Novo, but I can't remember a time where I set the mix and waited more than two hours to dive. But I can say for certain that it saves the previous mix. I spent a week diving EAN32, and all I had to do on my computer is check that it stayed on 32%.

I now dive a Teric and it pretty much expects me to do the proper thing every time.

 

[gcarter]

I don't think I've seen that behavior on the Novo, but I can't remember a time where I set the mix and waited more than two hours to dive. But I can say for certain that it saves the previous mix. I spent a week diving EAN32, and all I had to do on my computer is check that it stayed on 32%.

I now dive a Teric and it pretty much expects me to do the proper thing every time.

More importantly it lets you do a gas switch once the dive is started. Jumping in the water with many dive computers locks in the mix and you can't correct it on the fly.