First Dives with Uwatec's Galileo Sol

I absolutely *love* the Galileo Sol. I have logged 80 dives on it over the past few years and have had no major issues, and I am just getting into underwater photography now (upgraded from Canon G7 to 7D and Nauticam housing, etc. recently!).

However, 2 minor drawbacks are:

1) It beeps all the time because the wireless pressure signal goes in and out, in and out, in and out... this would make me want to still have a analog pressure gauge because at times you'd be without knowing how much air you had for up to 1 min.

2) Make sure you read the manual ahead of time and know it and out when you dive. I had to place a 20 min phone call from a satellite phone to trouble shoot it and figure out how to get it to sync up when I first used it. I had skimmed the manual and tested it in a pool beforehand, but still... I forget exactly what the problem was but I remember I found it extremely obnoxious.

A third (almost) drawback is that the compass does not last long on its own before you have to punch the button to make it appear again, so you might want to consider getting a small manual compass attached to the analog pressure gauge as a backup on your BC.

I've just made my second battery change. Bought the Luna in mid-December 2010, details of use since then:

Total Time: 536 h

No. if Dives: 491

Power on (before changing battery) : 638h

So I get around 250 long dives off it, which is just OK. My old Uwatec SmartPro used to get me about 2 years use, so the nine months or so I get off the Luna is slightly disappointing.

The weird thing is that I'm still on the original batteries in my transmitter, so that's been going strong for nearly a year and a half full time.

Apart from that, I still have the original strap, face is still on, not bad for 500 dives in Lembeh. I lose my air data when I move my hand away from my body with my video housing, but it always comes back on.

We just had -once again- a client having issues with her wireless dive computer not recognizing tank pressure.

She got nervous, upset and ruined at least 2 days of diving with us for a unnecessary technical problem.

It is my believe that the approx. 100$ for a small, quality pressure gauge as backup is a big holiday saver and as some

divers would still dive/continue the dive with a missing/partly missing tank pressure signal it may save also your life.

Chris

I lose my air data when I move my hand away from my body with my video housing, but it always comes back on.

My Sol also loses the air signal in Lembeh, but not much anywhere else. Something to do with the sand?

Now I'm using the Mares Icon HD Net Ready. Great display. Especially on night dives. But you have to charge the battery every dive day. Goes into red after 6 or 7 dives.

Regards

Peter

I just got back from Lembeh, and this is the first outing with my Luna (basically the same thing as the sole, minus the chest strap, and some mixture options). It read fine. Except for when I got very low on air. Mine and my wife's started not reading after about 232 PSI.

I bought the Uwatec Luna, because I had issues with reliability with some other wireless computers. So far I love the computer. Having it not read after 232 PSI is fine with me. I do have a backup gauge. I should be on the surface at that pressure anyway!

Dustin

I have had a Luna for over a year now and the only issues I have with tank pressure are a momentary loss of tank pressure but it starts reading again within 30 seconds or less. The only time I have had any Uwatec computers, Smarttec or Smartpro or Luna,have trouble all the time reading the tank pressure is when the sender was positioned opposite the wrist unit. So it was trying to transmit through my body. I have noticed that it stops displaying my tank pressure around 250psi pretty regularly. Not often I breath a tank below that anyway.

1) It beeps all the time because the wireless pressure signal goes in and out, in and out, in and out... this would make me want to still have a analog pressure gauge because at times you'd be without knowing how much air you had for up to 1 min.

So I had exactly this same problem on my brand new Sol on it's first dive. It's since been sent back to Uwatec and I've just found out today that they're sending it back now supposedly redone although they could find no problem. They claim it may be related to my strobes. If this is the case than I'll have to return it and find another computer. My previous wireless computer was a 12 year old Cochran Nemesis and it had no such issues.

It lost the signal so frequently that I just began to ignore the alarm beeper and I frequently had no concept of what my tank pressure was. I was only diving in 20 feet of water so I continued, had I been going any deeper I would've aborted my dive immediately.

It seems like it's hit or miss weather you get one that works well with strobes or not.

Question, is your transmitter on the same side of your primary as your dive computer so there is a continuous line of sight between the two units?

I started with an Air Z, then a Smart Tec and now the Galileo Sol. All three would occasionally lose the transmitter signal for a few seconds. What I have found with the Galileo and Smart Tec is as the battery wares down, the frequency of losses increases and is easily corrected by replacing the battery. My strobes do not effect the transmitter signal, but a communication cable between Little Cayman and the Brac did. If I swan over the cable I would lose my signal until I passed over it.

Don't know what strobes you use, but mine are twin Ikelite 125's, and I have never had a problem in the five years I have dived and shot with the Sol. I really suspect the issue is the battery in the sending unit. I have had a couple of bad replacement batteries over the years, which caused reception issues. Cleared right up when I replaced it with a good battery.

Hope you get it sorted out. The Sol and accompanying software have been the best I have used.

Don't know what strobes you use, but mine are twin Ikelite 125's, and I have never had a problem in the five years I have dived and shot with the Sol. I really suspect the issue is the battery in the sending unit. I have had a couple of bad replacement batteries over the years, which caused reception issues. Cleared right up when I replaced it with a good battery.

 

Hope you get it sorted out. The Sol and accompanying software have been the best I have used.

One of my strobes is a DS51 (or equivalent, it's a few years old) and the other is a DS160 (or equivalent, also a few years old) using them wired with a housing on the G9.

I'm assuming everyone is talking about the transmitter battery, and yes transmitter is on my left side, and I wear the receiver on the left arm.

Yes, the transmitter battery. Change it and let us know how it works out.

So I finally got out to try it and it's the DS51 that's the issue. The DS125 is no problem I found that if I move the DS51 to the right side of the housing (I wear the Luna on my left wrist) then it worked just great. Bringing the DS51 near the Luna and I could see my pressure guage stop updating, followed 30 seconds later by the chirps and the disconnect. Turning off the DS51 or moving it further away allows the signal to comeback.

So the problem is sort of solved, but as a warning you can't use a Luna if you were diving with two DS51s!

You should contact uwatec/scubapro about your problem? It will be interesting to see if this is a problem with DS51 strobes.

You should contact uwatec/scubapro about your problem? It will be interesting to see if this is a problem with DS51 strobes.

Well I already had it in to them because of my initial failures, and they responded that some camera flashes cause this issue, it's even in the manual so I doubt they'll care too much that I know of one specific flash that causes the problem. For my point of view I'm just hoping the 160's don't cause the problem because I'd like to get a second larger strobe.

Strobes generate some sort of weak radio waves when firing, its normal to interfere with wireless air transmitter, if the frequency so happened to be close.

Anything that sparks high voltage to fire strobe will emit radio wave, even low voltage sparking will produce radio wave if you have the right tuner to home on the frequency.

Do a faraday cage thingy, it may help

http://en.wikipedia....ki/Faraday_cage

If DS51 seems to cut off wireless air transmission more often than other models, its shielding may not be as good as the other. Having small foot print and high power, its reasonable the EMI generated probably is higher from more advance power pack. Go to a radio shop and get his instruments to read the EMI of various strobes.

For those close to 200ish PSI and transmitter do not deliver air data, FYI, somewhere around 14 BAR the wireless transmitter will shut down because it consider that is the setting. Without this kind of setting, transmitter battery will be gone fast if someone set up a tank at night for next day diving, check pressure...say all good at 3000 psi and do not depressurize enough to zero PSI and goes to sleep. Also the wireless transmitter will be in sleep mode if there is an amount of 40 seconds where there is no pressure change ( no activity ), another battery saver mode for those scenario in a full service LOB , where the crews are so efficient, your new tank is rigged to your BCD as soon as u completed the dive and ready for use within the next 10 minutes.

NOTE:

- The Smart transmitter has a range

of approximately 1.5m/5ft.

- To maximize the life of the battery,

the transmitter turns itself off when

there is no pressure change for

more than 40 seconds. It also

turns itself off when the pressure is

14bar/200psi or less.

PAGE 15 of GALILEO SOL USER MANUAL

Don't u guys read the User Manual ???

Pairing a Galileo Sol for 1st time after battery change ( brand new is factory paired ) , the Computer must be very very close to the transmitter, touching it in fact. This is to make sure other diver's transmitter signal is not read by Galileo as demand for pairing because Galileo can handle up to 4 transmitter at the same time. So the computer only assume pairing is requested when the signal strength is strong ( hence computer and transmitter must be close, so very close ). Without this feature, if another diver uses a Galileo, his transmitter signal maybe received by ur Galileo and ur Galileo assumed the request for pairing........if this happens you wont be able to dive, but busy telling Galileo that u do not want ur girlfriend Galileo signal for pairing..he he he. There is no button on the transmitter to demand pairing mode, so signal strength of "X" amount is what Galileo reads as pairing demand.

The transmission is coded and also the transmission interval jumps out pf phase regularly, this prevent signal mix up ( coded ) or signal crash ( interval jump ) in event where plenty of other transmitters around your Galileo or 1 person using 4 transmitters option.

Dive safe.........

.

Just had to send my Luna back to Scubapro I've had it for the last 20 months, no real problems and over 600 dives. On a dive a week or so ago the display went blank. After the dive I could not get the display back on. The battery was not the problem, though I removed and replaced, to see if that would reset it.

I then found the computer was still working, as the back-light still worked, I could connect it to my PC via infrared and it would bleep when pushing buttons.

I contacted Scubapro Australia, and they were very helpful and suggested that I send it to them where they could fix it under warranty. Happy with the service, though getting it to and from Indonesia is always a challenge but, of course, a little disappointed that this has happened. Back to my trusty Uwatec Smart Pro for the meantime.

Hi Liquid,

Probably one of the wire to the display has problem. So LCD dead or its "video card" dead.

The Galileo is not using the LCD found on ur Smart Pro where it is a fix icon type LCD display, Galileo is a dot matrix type but low resolution , hence it can do upside down screen or low resolution owner's graphic, as there is no fix icon assigned to any of the pixels, its just like a super low resolution TV so to speak. I hope ur Galileo can do well. Mine since 2007, banged+dropped+abused & SS front plate lost to the abyss and it is still OK, as is my beloved old Alladin Pro grey color..........the insane robust dive computer and the only one brand/model of 20 years old I seen and many are still running .............. it just wont die. Technically the capacitors inside them should not last 20 years.

Modern dive comp as complex as Galileo, I would give 6-8 years as good life already, take it as a rental fee of US$150ish a year cost of ownership. Mine was US$1900 I think back in 2007.

.

What is it with the straps on the Galileos? I'm really careful with my gear but I have just broken the third strap - two in two dive trips. I'm now taking a spare strap on every dive trip!

Grrrrr.

Just as well it remains a cracking dive computer.

That is strange. I have about 1400 dives on mine and the strap is fine.

The straps are terrible, and I have replaced mine with bungee and it works really well...500 dives and counting on these bungees without a single problem. Also it allows the computer to be closer to my elbow, which I prefer, diving wet or dry.

1) Cut the straps to where they're basically just tubes around the pin

2) Remove pin, cut the tubes you made in step one short enough to make a channel for the bungee on each side, then replace them and the pin.

3) Use separate lengths of bungee to create a new, much improved mount.

4) Never worry about that stupid strap again