From Medel Silvosa (who gets to dive with all-Halcyon gear, inggit lang): A Bakers dozen: Problems with Diving with Computers 1. Dive computers tend to induce significant levels of diver dependence & undermine the awareness essential to all diving, but particularly essential to divers just beginning decompression diving. 2. Dive computers prohibit proper planning; the discourage divers from studying the impact of various mixtures & decompression choices. 3. Dive computers are of little educational benefit because they promote neither questioning nor proper planning discussions. 4. Dive computers often use algorithms that heavily pad decompression time; this sometimes results in odd & ridiculous levels of conservatism. 5. Dive computers are expensive, and prevent divers with limited resources from purchasing truly useful equipment. 6. Dive computers significantly limit the likelihood that divers will track their residual nitrogen groups, leaving them less informed in the event of computer failure. 7. Dive computers do not allow for diving helium in any format but the bulkiest and most questionable. It is very likely that new helium based decompression computers will be inordinately conservative & suffer from all the limitations of air & Nitrox dive computers. 8. Dive computers often generate longer decompressions than an astute, well-educated, experienced diver generates. 9. Dive computers often confuse matters by providing the diver with too much useless information, sometimes even obscuring depth & time in favor of blinking CNS and/or decompression limitations. 10. Some dive computers become very difficult to use if a decompression stop has been violated. Some computers will lock up completely, while others will just beep or generate erroneous and distracting information. 11. Dive computers do not allow the educated diver to properly modify his/her decompression profile to account for advances in knowledge, e.g., the use of deeper stops in a decompression profile. 12. Dive computers do not offer divers much flexibility to generate profiles with varying conservatism. For example, the right mix would allow 100 minutes at 60 ft rather than 60 minutes at 60 ft, but a diver might prefer to do one or the other or a hybrid of the two. Computers confuse this issue by not providing divers with the proper information. 13. Dive computer users often ignore table proficiency and therefore do not learn to read tables properly. When faced with a situation where they can’t dive a computer (e.g., failure or loss) these divers are seriously handicapped. Doing-it-Right: Fundamentals of better diving by Jarrod Jablonsky, Global Underwater Explorers
Posted on: Thu, 17 Oct 2013 06:36:36 +0000
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