Recently a Bunny contacted us to explain that they had purchased a new computer - or rather a second hand one that was in great condition - nothing wrong with that!
A new battery and o-ring later and it was time for action. The chosen site for initiation was in the rather inviting waters off Gozo; first dive a gentle float down to a small cavern at around 14m. All good and the ‘new’ computer behaved itself very well.
Second dive was to another cavern that was at 30m and that’s when the beeps started. Bunny in question said:
"It seemed to constantly beep at me - I was getting beeped at for going down, beeped at for going up and at one point it sounded like a computer game or something was going on with weird melodies. It was like something out of Space Invaders!"
We spent a few minutes reminiscing about Space Invaders (and Star Wars if we’re honest) but then turned to the matter in hand...or more specifically, we turned to Phil and said, 'Fix’.
Check the settings
Nothing had appeared odd with the screen and the information in question made complete sense to the bunny looking at it - which is when Phil dived into the settings.
“It’s a great little computer and a real bargain as it looks like it’s hardly been used but the previous owner has clearly devoted his or her time to devouring every last letter of the instruction manual. This thing has an alarm set for every conceivable event."
To be precise: a depth limit that appeared to be completely arbitrary, time limit, NDL approaching, NDL exceeded, ascent rate and anything else that you could possibly conceive of. Phil was even convinced that one related to the servicing interval on the owner's car!
So was the computer OK and good to go?
Phil continued: “Yes, it’s a really good computer and as I said, a great bargain. It just needed its brain resetting as diving with it would have driven you to distraction.
"Alarms are just that, alarms and something that should cause you to stop and take action. This had been set to beep at everything, meaning presumably, that most of the alarms were just cancelled and ignored.”
Perhaps this was a case of a diver wanting everyone to know that they had a shiny new piece of equipment? And wanting to ensure that everyone was continually reminded of this throughout the dive?!
Top bunny tip
When you get your hands on a second hand dive computer, jump on the Internet, download the instruction manual and reset!
Want to read more, here's another article on dive computers.
