[from reddit and gearpstrol] the dive watch deconstructed

MiCr0

http://gearpatrol.com/2011/07/20/timekeeping-the-dive-watch-deconstructed/

fishguy

Great Read! Thanks Micro. I have to tell that I knew that helium can blow off the crystal under some circumstances, but I had now idea how and when... Now I know.

goose banker

This is a good BBC documentary if you you are interested in seeing what sat. divers do and what a typical shift is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3BWSMrgi3I

Mredsnapper

goose banker wrote: »

This is a good BBC documentary if you you are interested in seeing what sat. divers do and what a typical shift is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3BWSMrgi3I

Out of curiosity. When did dive computers replace watches for timing dives?

goose banker

When I started diving in 1994/95 computers were in use but most people from what I remember at the time still used either a mechanical depth gauge and a watch combined with dive tables, or else a digital depth gauge* combined with dive tables - and a watch as backup. Don't know when the first computers were actually used but it was from this time onwards that they became more prolific. A bit like hand held GPS units or the Garmin you have for your car. They've been around a long time but to begin with they were very expensive but gradually they came down in price to a level that most could afford. Dive computers were the same. As I say, I only started in '95 so can't comment before then but at the time the dive magazines had plenty of adverts for them, if I had to guess I'd say they came into the mainstream late 80's early 90's.

*Digital depth gauge - measured actual depth, recorded max. depth and also timed the dive by automatcally triggering the timer on submersion. No decompression calculations were made by the unit. Computers basically combined what a digital depth gauge did and combined this data with the decompression and gas absorbtion mathematics used to comstruct "paper" dive tables to make an all in one package.

Mredsnapper

goose banker wrote: »

When I started diving in 1994/95 computers were in use but most people from what I remember at the time still used either a mechanical depth gauge and a watch combined with dive tables, or else a digital depth gauge* combined with dive tables - and a watch as backup. Don't know when the first computers were actually used but it was from this time onwards that they became more prolific. A bit like hand held GPS units or the Garmin you have for your car. They've been around a long time but to begin with they were very expensive but gradually they came down in price to a level that most could afford. Dive computers were the same. As I say, I only started in '95 so can't comment before then but at the time the dive magazines had plenty of adverts for them, if I had to guess I'd say they came into the mainstream late 80's early 90's.

*Digital depth gauge - measured actual depth, recorded max. depth and also timed the dive by automatcally triggering the timer on submersion. No decompression calculations were made by the unit. Computers basically combined what a digital depth gauge did and combined this data with the decompression and gas absorbtion mathematics used to comstruct "paper" dive tables to make an all in one package.

Thanks for the informative reply. It's a question that I've been meaning to ask for a while.