Suunto D9-initial thoughts

[Ian@1904]

My buddy for Saturday had purchased a Suunto D9 computer (to go with the Vyper and VR3)

It is a cool looking computer smaller than a Vytec/Vyper
The buttoms seem a little small. My buddy was using drygloves and found it very hard to press some of the buttons.
The compass is good, but the button pressing issue causes difficulty

Has anybody else any experience of this new offering from Suunto?

[kevFISH]

Originally Posted by Ian@1904

The buttoms seem a little small. My buddy was using drygloves and found it very hard to press some of the buttons.
The compass is good, but the button pressing issue causes difficulty

To be fair pressing anything in dry gloves aint easy

I've done about 30 dives with mine and haven't really noticed any difference in usability to my stinger. The compass is actually very good - quick and easy to read in any position. I like mine, but then I've always been a Suunto man.

Navigating around the menu, however, requires a seperate course

[CotoChris]

Have any of you downloaded using the new software? If so does it work well? (i.e temperature graph)

[glohmann]

Originally Posted by Chris Guimaraens

Have any of you downloaded using the new software? If so does it work well? (i.e temperature graph)

Yes and no. I've made 4 dives to ~20m with a D9 (+ cylinder pressure transmitter) since early February. I paired it with a Cobra. No problem transferring dive profiles to both Dive Manager 1.6 (Cobra only) and 2.1.3 (both Cobra and D9).

Until the most recent version of SDM 2, I did have problems importing old dives from 1.6. With 2.1.3 I can now import old Stinger and Cobra dive profiles and some lists (only locations, sites and boats).

Other problems with SDM 2 include SAC rate plotted as a constant (rather than changing) value with time for both Cobra and D9. Furthermore, Plotted SAC appears meaningful only for the Cobra, not the D9. SAC rate for the D9 plots as 0 even though average values calculated for the dive appear correct. Recorded cylinder pressures for the Cobra and D9 are comparable so it appears to be a SDM problem not a D9 problem.

I can't comment on water temperature yet, not until it warms up later this spring. Our water temperatures are still within 1deg of 0degC (within the resolution of the D9). At least it appears stable.

I also can't comment on the compass. All my D9 dives so far have been among structural steel and reinforced concrete.

Dive data I exported from SDM 2 as "copy to clipboard" have problems caused by truncating the sample times. I was able to extract what I needed directly from the raw "d9.mdb" file but that shouldn't be necessary. So far discrepancies between the D9 and Cobra plotted data seem related to a slight delay in their recording start times.

A problem that I hope lies within SDM and not with the D9 or Cobra is that Air Times SDM calculated at 9m, 24min into the dive with 80bar air remaining were 15min for the Cobra and 0min for the D9! I don't recall seeing that during the dive.

There is (was) a feature in SDM 2 for comparing dive profiles by stacking them on the same plot, but it seemed to work only in the earliest versions.

One cute feature of SDM 2 that I'm starting to like is that it allows attaching jpegs and other "multimedia" to dive location, site and gear lists.

I plan to dive the D9+Cobra again Friday. Let me know if you want me to try something out.