Dear All,
I thought I'd let you know about a little tussle I had with my equipment the other day, 2 weeks before I am due to go to Mexico and dive. For the second time since I got it - and rather sooner than I thought it ought to - My Bridge II battery went flat, and this time there was NO CHANCE of getting it back to Dive Rite in time for the trip (MANY THANKS to Rick Devan and Brent for helping out last time I had this problem). So, fix it thyself, I sez.....
First thing you need (it turns out) is a sharp Phillips screwdriver to take the plastic back off. But then the really heavy defences appear - you need a tiny tiny "Torx" screwdriver to get into the metal back that's under the plastic back. These are handy in a big town like Leeds though, and I got one from an engineering bits place that's quite close to me. So off comes the back, to reveal the largest lithium coin cell I've ever seen (type CR 3032). It seems no such battery can be ordered anywhere in the UK that I could find, so I made do with the much more common CR 2032 kind that, as its name hints, is about 2/3 the size (and I guess about 1/2 the life expectancy). Fortunately the strong spring inside the case will hold this battery even though it's smaller than the one I'm supposed to put in. I took the precaution of partly wrapping the battery in cling film so if it did slip out of place, the chances of a short circuit are less. But I don't think it'll happen- that spring is really strong!
Finally you switch it on and it goes straight into "sulk mode" because according to the rubbish it found in its (volatile!!) memory at powerup, you exceeded your tissue loadings on the last dive by about 5,000,000 percent. I suspect there's a couple of contacts one could connect and restore the memory to something sensible, but I don't know which...
But at last you dive with it and Praise the Lord - it works!! So, off I go to Mexico with a spare 2032 and a tiny torx screwdriver just in case...
***************anyone know a supplier for CR3032 lithium coin cells??
- cheers
Charles.