Recording extreme dives, ceiling top option & other issues

Hi my name is Nacho from Argentina! I purchased a descent mk1 in late 2019 in Buenos Aires. During my first diving trip to Patagonia with the descent I experienced a huge problem with it. After 3 days and 6 single gas recreational dives I was drinking cofee during the afternoon when suddenly the diving mode started and recorded a 57 seconds dive at 97 meters!!!!!!! I was shocked, so the next day I called the distributor who sold me the descent, told them what had happened and that I would not dive with that particular computer again and a couple of days later they gave me another one. I asked them several times to send the malfunctioning computer to a official garmin service in order to get an answer regarding the problem but instead they shipped it back to Asia. I also phone called and sent emails to garmin, describing my problem and never got an answer,still waiting for one!!! Given that I´m a dive instructor I needed to continue using the computer for work (my old suunto was not working) so I decided to keep the descent although I am extremely dissatisfied with the product and the company. Anyone experienced a similar problem?

That said, I also used the descent for tec diving in Chile - february 2020. Overall I was happy with the perfomance of the descent, did several deco dives at around 50 meters with 3 different gases. But i was particular upset with the fact that you cannot set a ceiling top for planning decompression stops (shearwater has that option). So if you plan using O2 (1.6 PO2) during your last deco stop, the descent sets the ceiling at 3 meters when you can be doing it at 6 meters! I know that you can still do the stop at 6 meters, but then you are not following your dive plan by far. Also, doing a deco stop at 3 meters is way harder than doing it at 6 meters. As I mentioned, other diving computers have the options of setting a ceiling top and it would be a great add on for the current descent software.

To finish, I believe that the deco stop watch (during a deco dive, bottom left of the the screen) given in minutes and seconds, that updates if you ascend or descend, is really confusing. To illustrate, if according to your dive plan calculated with the descent you have to do deco stop at let say 15 meters (It does not use the ceiling top, just a theoretical stop at a given depth given your profile) the descent shows you a timer in minutes and seconds that is constantly updated, so you can do a shorter shallower stop or a deeper longer one. Other diving computers I used, specially the shearwater, just show you the minutes and the depth for a given stop, normally deeper than the descent, and this stop does not change if you ascend or descend a bit. So I think that garmin tried to used a more complex approach but in the end is more confusing. Please let me know your thoughts regarding this issues and if my description is not clear, after all english is my second language.

Best to all!!!

Nacho

0 atj777 over 4 years ago

Nacho Etche said:
During my first diving trip to Patagonia with the descent I experienced a huge problem with it. After 3 days and 6 single gas recreational dives I was drinking cofee during the afternoon when suddenly the diving mode started and recorded a 57 seconds dive at 97 meters!!!!!!! I was shocked, so the next day I called the distributor who sold me the descent, told them what had happened and that I would not dive with that particular computer again and a couple of days later they gave me another one. I asked them several times to send the malfunctioning computer to a official garmin service in order to get an answer regarding the problem but instead they shipped it back to Asia. I also phone called and sent emails to garmin, describing my problem and never got an answer,still waiting for one!!! Given that I´m a dive instructor I needed to continue using the computer for work (my old suunto was not working) so I decided to keep the descent although I am extremely dissatisfied with the product and the company. Anyone experienced a similar problem?

This sounds like a failed pressure sensor. I have seen a couple of reports of Mk1s with this issue. The distributer replacing it was the right thing to do.

I think I have seen reports of faulty pressure sensors from just about every brand of dive computer, including Shearwater. Things fail.

Nacho Etche said:
That said, I also used the descent for tec diving in Chile - february 2020. Overall I was happy with the perfomance of the descent, did several deco dives at around 50 meters with 3 different gases. But i was particular upset with the fact that you cannot set a ceiling top for planning decompression stops (shearwater has that option). So if you plan using O2 (1.6 PO2) during your last deco stop, the descent sets the ceiling at 3 meters when you can be doing it at 6 meters! I know that you can still do the stop at 6 meters, but then you are not following your dive plan by far. Also, doing a deco stop at 3 meters is way harder than doing it at 6 meters. As I mentioned, other diving computers have the options of setting a ceiling top and it would be a great add on for the current descent software.

I agree this is something that should be added to the Mk1 (and Mk2 models). Hopefully, Garmin will take that onboard.

Nacho Etche said:
To finish, I believe that the deco stop watch (during a deco dive, bottom left of the the screen) given in minutes and seconds, that updates if you ascend or descend, is really confusing. To illustrate, if according to your dive plan calculated with the descent you have to do deco stop at let say 15 meters (It does not use the ceiling top, just a theoretical stop at a given depth given your profile) the descent shows you a timer in minutes and seconds that is constantly updated, so you can do a shorter shallower stop or a deeper longer one. Other diving computers I used, specially the shearwater, just show you the minutes and the depth for a given stop, normally deeper than the descent, and this stop does not change if you ascend or descend a bit. So I think that garmin tried to used a more complex approach but in the end is more confusing.

I very much agree with you on this and have complained in this forum. It doesn't give you specific deco information like most other dive computers but simply "time to surface" which includes ascent time AND deco. It is very confusing.

By the way, your English is fine.

0 Nacho Etche over 4 years ago in reply to atj777

atj777 said:
I think I have seen reports of faulty pressure sensors from just about every brand of dive computer, including Shearwater. Things fail.

I can understand things fail (several people told me about malfunctioning pressure sensors in their diving computers), but dissmising the issue by sending the computer back to Asia without the proper analysis by proficient technicians and disregarding my emails and phone calls are not good costumer service habits. I expected a much hands-on service by Garmin.

Great you agreed on the ceiling top and the deco watch, hopefully Garmin takes note of this.

0 Nacho Etche over 4 years ago

I would like to add two additional questions I have regarding the descent I forgot to mention in the post above:

1) RMV (Respiratory Minute Volume): Other dive computers allow you to set your RMV which is extremely usefull for gas consumption calculations, specially for tec diving. I think you can manually calculate this metric by editing your dives in the garmin connect app. But I don´t know if you can then can use this metric in consumption calculations in your dive plan, which is not an option actually.

2) This following issue has been probably adressed many times! Is it possible to erase dives from the descent logbook (not garmin connect)?? I have recently been diving in a quarry with almost no visibilty, certifying OW, and after two days I recorded 30/40 shallow dives, many of them of less than 3 minutes. I did not forget to set the descent in pool mode, which I often use, as some of those quarry dives need to be logged. My point is that if every time I go to the quarry I log 40 dives, in couple of months I will be using a lot of the computer´s memory for logging.

Thanks

0 Mark_H20 over 4 years ago in reply to Nacho Etche

Use SubSurface instead of Garmin Connect, it allows you to group multiple dives into a single dive. It is possible to connect the Descent to SubSurface, though I use mine as a backup so I have only tested this once and use the data from my Shearwater.

0 atj777 over 4 years ago in reply to Nacho Etche

Nacho Etche said:
I can understand things fail (several people told me about malfunctioning pressure sensors in their diving computers), but dissmising the issue by sending the computer back to Asia without the proper analysis by proficient technicians and disregarding my emails and phone calls are not good costumer service habits. I expected a much hands-on service by Garmin.

Why do you think that sending the computer back to Asia is “dismissing the issue”? How do you know that sending the computer to Asia wasn't the process for analysis? Are you suggesting that proficient technicians don't exist in Asia?

What did you expect Garmin to do? They replaced the fault dive computer with a new one. All good manufacturers would do this.

Nacho Etche said:
1) RMV (Respiratory Minute Volume): Other dive computers allow you to set your RMV which is extremely usefull for gas consumption calculations, specially for tec diving. I think you can manually calculate this metric by editing your dives in the garmin connect app. But I don´t know if you can then can use this metric in consumption calculations in your dive plan, which is not an option actually.

I’m not sure I understand what you mean. Are you suggesting you tell the computer what your expected RMV before a dive and it will use that for gas consumption projections during the dive? I don't think I can even do this with my Shearwater and that is air integrated.

Further, I find that my RMV varies greatly from dive to dive based on various factors including temperature, current and surge. The average RMV for my last 6 dives varied from 11.2 to 14.2L/min.

Or do you just mean calculate the RMV after the dive? Yeah, Garmin Connect won't do that for you, but then Shearwater Desktop won't either.

SAC and RMV are easy to calculate especially if you use metric units. Third party dive logging software, such as Mac Dive and Subsurface, will calculate RMV for you. Both of these support the Mk1. Note that Subsurface calculates RMV more accurately based on the fact that air does not compress linearly. This will give you lower values than a manual calculation or from other software

Nacho Etche said:
2) This following issue has been probably adressed many times! Is it possible to erase dives from the descent logbook (not garmin connect)??

Yes. Connect the Mk1 to your computer using the supplied USB cable. All the activities recorded on the Mk1 are in the Garmin/Activity directory. They are named based on the date and start time of the activity. You can delete the ones you don’t want.

Nacho Etche said:
My point is that if every time I go to the quarry I log 40 dives, in couple of months I will be using a lot of the computer´s memory for logging.

My Mk1 has well over 200 activities (dives, runs, etc.) and that takes up 18MB of storage. Each dive is 100-200kb (my dives are 90-120 minutes). I have over 11GB of storage remaining. If I assume 200kb per dive, I have space for over 50,000 more dives!

0 Nacho Etche over 4 years ago in reply to atj777

atj777 said:
Why do you think that sending the computer back to Asia is “dismissing the issue”? How do you know that sending the computer to Asia wasn't the process for analysis?

First and most important of all, take it easy man. Try to be more polite when you answer back. Yes, I am absolutely sure that by sending the computer to Asia they are dismissing the issue. Why I think that? Because they actually told me so, in the first of the only two emails product support sent me after the problem, they clearly expressed that they cannot know what happened to the computer because it was shipped to Taiwan for replacement. In the second email, they asked me for my access to garmin connect, which I agreed, but the weird dive was never uploaded to the app. After that they never answser back, dismissed my phone calls and emails, even the distributer tried to reach them and never got an answer. So yeah, I think they don´t give a *** about what happened and I have solid arguments to support my point of view.

atj777 said:
Are you suggesting that proficient technicians don't exist in Asia?

Again, take it easy man, never suggested that.

atj777 said:
What did you expect Garmin to do? They replaced the fault dive computer with a new one. All good manufacturers would do this.

Garmin had nothing to do with the replacement, it was the distributer. What I expect from garmin after paying more than USD 1000 for a dive computer? A much more serious and active product support service, just for starters.

atj777 said:
I’m not sure I understand what you mean. Are you suggesting you tell the computer what your expected RMV before a dive and it will use that for gas consumption projections during the dive? I don't think I can even do this with my Shearwater and that is air integrated.

In the shearwater perdix, I'am sure you can set an RMV (you can calculate it using the SAC from AI in previous dives) and calculate your theoretical gas consumption given your dive plan (bottoom time, deco, gases). Is very useful as you can compare that to the amount of gas you are carrying, easy checking. What I´m suggesting is that garmin adds a similar feature.

atj777 said:
Further, I find that my RMV varies greatly from dive to dive based on various factors including temperature, current and surge. The average RMV for my last 6 dives varied from 11.2 to 14.2L/min.

Of course it changes, but if you dive in the same location, almost every day with similar conditions, setting an average RMV is useful, as I described above. Either way, is an input that can be changed according to conditions.

atj777 said:
Or do you just mean calculate the RMV after the dive? Yeah, Garmin Connect won't do that for you, but then Shearwater Desktop won't either.

Shaerwater gives you average SAC after your dives, then yo can calculate the RMV to use in theoretical gas consumption calculations. Furthermore, other apps can do it fot you as you mentioned below.

atj777 said:
SAC and RMV are easy to calculate especially if you use metric units. Third party dive logging software, such as Mac Dive and Subsurface, will calculate RMV for you. Both of these support the Mk1. Note that Subsurface calculates RMV more accurately based on the fact that air does not compress linearly. This will give you lower values than a manual calculation or from other software

The first thing that I agree with you, most things in diving (at least to my level) are easy to calculate, its not advanced mathematics. But we use computers to do the different calculations for us. Isn´t that the point of a dive computer?? If not we would still use dive tables.

atj777 said:
Yes. Connect the Mk1 to your computer using the supplied USB cable. All the activities recorded on the Mk1 are in the Garmin/Activity directory. They are named based on the date and start time of the activity. You can delete the ones you don’t want.

Great! will try, thanks.

atj777 said:
My Mk1 has well over 200 activities (dives, runs, etc.) and that takes up 18MB of storage. Each dive is 100-200kb (my dives are 90-120 minutes). I have over 11GB of storage remaining. If I assume 200kb per dive, I have space for over 50,000 more dives!

Agreed, logging dives is not the problem I thought it was. Thanks.

0 Mark_H20 over 4 years ago in reply to atj777

I doubt Garmin ever determines the exact failures to the component level, the cost of doing so it quite high and they can pretty accurately determine it was the depth sensor with a quick test. Tearing down the Descent is probably not cost-effective in most cases, cheaper to just replace it and scrap the failed unit. The reality is most consumer electronics are not designed to be repaired, or in a lot of cases even dismantled.

0 Nacho Etche over 4 years ago in reply to Mark_H20

Tried but could not sync it! I will keep trying as I cannot use the garmin connect mobile app as my phone (motorola) does not support it.

atj777 said:
Yes. Connect the Mk1 to your computer using the supplied USB cable. All the activities recorded on the Mk1 are in the Garmin/Activity directory. They are named based on the date and start time of the activity. You can delete the ones you don’t want.

This works great.