Changing modes on your dive computer
October 23rd, 2007 Filed Under Tips
If your computer supports air, nitrox and gauge mode, there are some behaviors it may have when attempting to switch modes that you’ll want to keep in mind. If you change from air mode to either gauge or nitrox mode, you cannot switch it out of those modes for 48 hours or so. In nitrox mode, the computer is tracking your oxygen loading, and on m computer (Suunto Cobra) this O2 tracking does not carry over to air mode. As far as the computer is concerned it cannot accurately calculate your remaining bottom time if you switch modes since you are not coming in to the new mode “clean.” Being clean requires about 48 hours for everything to work its way out of your system. You can still dive air within the 48 hour window; with my computer I just leave it in nitrox mode and set the O2 percentage to 21%.
A similar case is true when switching to gauge mode. Once in gauge mode, the computer doesn’t know what you are doing…you could be in a swimming pool or doing a multilevel decompression dive. When you try to switch back to air or nitrox mode in less than 48 hours from a dive, the computer does not know where you are in terms of nitrogen loading. So if you intend to switch your computer to gauge mode to use in the pool, think first about when is the next time you want to use it in air or nitrox mode for a dive. If that is less than 48 hours away, then do something else (either leave it in air mode if it is a console computer, or leave it in your dive bag if it is a quick disconnect or wrist mount computer).
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