JJ and the new Poseidon solid state cells?

andreas rosland

andreas rosland

New Member
Hi, I'm considering joining the dark side and get a rebreather. JJ seems like the best choice for me as I'm already GUE T2 trained and I'm considering the GUE CCR course for a good number of reasons.

One of my reasons so far to not use a rebreather is cell reliability. Putting my life in the hands of whats really just three quite unreliable batteries have been one of the major reasons.(along with the lack of a CO2 monitoring system). Although I know most of you is quite happy with your galvanic cells, it have always made me a bit uneasy. I do love the theory behind the new SS cells, and having cells with different designs seems like a very good idea. And I think it looks like a game changer.

So to my question:
1. Is there any chance of replacing two of the galvanic cells with two of the new solid state cells on a JJ or will that be a major undertaking best done by professionals?

2. Is there any information regarding if Poseidon is working on using the same kind of laser technology to detect Co2? And is there any obvious problems with using this kind of cell design to detect Co2 as well?
 
I'd suggest diving a RB with almost wornout scrubber, untill you start feeling an increase of your breathing rate. Then either immediatly swtch to your OC Bailout or quickly ascend 20M and spend a minute or 2 to see if your scrubber has now become breathable. I find that my body is a better CO2 detector that the sensors, and I detect a higher CO2 level long before it becomes dangerous. I won't waste my money on CO2 sensors and don't want to get involved in the false sense of security that they can give.

Michael
 
The poseiden cell is proprietary and their whole (digital) design is incompatible with the JJ electronics which are expecting an analog signal.

Just get the JJ, get trained on it, and be diligent with your cells. I'm pretty sure you won't be pursuing some sort adaptation to provide a space and signal for poseiden's new cell (I'm not sure its even actually available for purchase today anyway).
 
The only way to use a SSS on any rebreather even a Poseidon at the moment is with a CPOD and M28 dive computer and you wont get much change from 3000 pounds
 
@diverjoe mentioned the easy way of getting it "now" where you add a t-piece with the sensor and a m28, but it won't run your solenoid since it is an independent electronics bus from the JJ which is running the DiveCAN. They're going to eventually get it rolled out but it will probably be 2 years before it is ready. Poseidon is focusing on getting the cpods out as an easy way for any ccr to use them, then going to roll out upgrades to the se7en's and rightly so considering they invested in it, then only when all that is done will it come out to the masses and it will be up to the rebreather and electronics manufacturers to decide if they're going to incorporate it.
For the modern eCCR units that means replacing the O2 board with something that can handle both the digital and analog signals from the cells *for interchangeability*, and how to interpret them. Lots of code writing for the eCCR's and their voting logic when those come into play. For the older analog eCCR's you're going to have an interesting time as the sensors are powered and that digital signal has to be translated into an analog signal for the handsets to read since they want mV's. mCCR's will have it easiest as you'll essentially be able to drop a M28 in place of whatever handset you have now and have it directly connected to the cells.
 
If Poseidon was REALLY interested in an "easy" way for any CCR to use them, they'd throw a DAC on the PCB and a slot for a button cell battery on the sensor itself and then any analog monitor could use them. They could easily fit it in the same form factor as current galvanic cells considering the sensor itself is smaller than the standard form factor already on the market.

Not nearly as much money in that as selling dedicated additional hardware though. Only difference is you'd sell one to every CCR owner, as opposed to only the ones willing to fork over major bucks for the CPOD and the M28...
 
michael_fisch said:
I'd suggest diving a RB with almost wornout scrubber, untill you start feeling an increase of your breathing rate. Then either immediatly swtch to your OC Bailout or quickly ascend 20M and spend a minute or 2 to see if your scrubber has now become breathable. I find that my body is a better CO2 detector that the sensors, and I detect a higher CO2 level long before it becomes dangerous. I won't waste my money on CO2 sensors and don't want to get involved in the false sense of security that they can give.

Michael
Click to expand...

Did the OP bang your sister or something, Michael, that you want him dead? Or are you just troll-ol-oling?

o_O
 
JohnnyC said:
If Poseidon was REALLY interested in an "easy" way for any CCR to use them, they'd throw a DAC on the PCB and a slot for a button cell battery on the sensor itself and then any analog monitor could use them. They could easily fit it in the same form factor as current galvanic cells considering the sensor itself is smaller than the standard form factor already on the market.

Not nearly as much money in that as selling dedicated additional hardware though. Only difference is you'd sell one to every CCR owner, as opposed to only the ones willing to fork over major bucks for the CPOD and the M28...
Click to expand...

but then the cells would have to be more expensive to recoup the cost of development. Right now they can spread that engineering cost over the computer and the cells as well as use the cell as a selling point to go to their computer and their rebreather. nothing wrong with that. it'd be nice to just put them out to the masses as a "you're welcome" gesture, but they are a business, and they made a considerable investment in development, so they deserve to recoup that the best way they can. for now that means selling it with the M28, then using it as a selling point on the Se7en, then they'll be able to put it out to the rest of the manufacturers
 
Packhorse said:
You cant possibly be serious! Thats got to be the stupidest thing I have read all week!
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What, are you among the small group of fools that has never deliberately dove with worn out scrubber in order to see what it's like in a controlled setting?
If you don't know how your body responds, there is something missing in your diving education.
Try it, so you get a chance to learn how soon you can / your body can detect what is starting to happen. If you're like me you will notice it long before the danger point.
On the other hand, if you traditionally leave your brains on the boat while doing a dive, you need all the help you can get, and eventually 6 friends to carry the coffin.

Michael
 
tbone1004 said:
but then the cells would have to be more expensive to recoup the cost of development. Right now they can spread that engineering cost over the computer and the cells as well as use the cell as a selling point to go to their computer and their rebreather. nothing wrong with that. it'd be nice to just put them out to the masses as a "you're welcome" gesture, but they are a business, and they made a considerable investment in development, so they deserve to recoup that the best way they can. for now that means selling it with the M28, then using it as a selling point on the Se7en, then they'll be able to put it out to the rest of the manufacturers
Click to expand...

Fart in the wind. Much cheaper to go straight to TI and buy any number of their available, off-the-shelf DAC's, cram it in there and slap a battery on it than developing an entire computer and external hardware solution that only a handful of people are going to buy.

Just another stupid decision when it comes to Poseidon's rebreather division.
 
JohnnyC said:
Fart in the wind. Much cheaper to go straight to TI and buy any number of their available, off-the-shelf DAC's, cram it in there and slap a battery on it than developing an entire computer and external hardware solution that only a handful of people are going to buy.

Just another stupid decision when it comes to Poseidon's rebreather division.
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do you actually have any idea how the electronics in modern rebreathers work, or how to recoup money in innovative design? Your comment above clearly says you don't. You also seem to think that Poseidon is a charity, not a for-profit company....

What your suggesting is taking a digital signal, converting it to analog, then converting it back to digital for basically every eCCR made today, including Poseidon. There is literally 0 point in doing that as it increases risk of failure and greatly increases complication in the design.
You would have to have a waterproof on/off switch on each of the cells so they could be turned off when not in use as well as making a waterproof compartment for the coin cells. That sounds so much more simple than just plugging it into the computer system and letting it power and control the cells...
If you want to use these cells with an mCCR, just rip the old electronics out, and put these cells and an M28 computer in.
Don't like the M28, then dive galvanic cells or build your own DAC and battery compartment. Want to convert your analog eCCR to these cells? Then you do the same thing, but it's a terrible business decision for Poseidon to do that for you.

Poseidon is committed to digital eCCR's, as are basically every other manufacturer out there right now, Shearwater, IQ-Sub, DiveSoft, APD, etc etc. It's cheaper, easier, and much more robust to leave these cells as digital than going back and forth.

Poseidon has used their own electronics for a while, why not build a modern computer to go with these new cells? Lord knows they needed something other than the PoS paddles that they had, so it only makes sense they'd design it around their cells.
 
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tbone1004 said:
do you actually have any idea how the electronics in modern rebreathers work, or how to recoup money in innovative design? Your comment above clearly says you don't. You also seem to think that Poseidon is a charity, not a for-profit company....

What your suggesting is taking a digital signal, converting it to analog, then converting it back to digital for basically every eCCR made today, including Poseidon. There is literally 0 point in doing that as it increases risk of failure and greatly increases complication in the design.
You would have to have a waterproof on/off switch on each of the cells so they could be turned off when not in use as well as making a waterproof compartment for the coin cells. That sounds so much more simple than just plugging it into the computer system and letting it power and control the cells...
If you want to use these cells with an mCCR, just rip the old electronics out, and put these cells and an M28 computer in.
Don't like the M28, then dive galvanic cells or build your own DAC and battery compartment. Want to convert your analog eCCR to these cells? Then you do the same thing, but it's a terrible business decision for Poseidon to do that for you.

Poseidon is committed to digital eCCR's, as are basically every other manufacturer out there right now, Shearwater, IQ-Sub, DiveSoft, APD, etc etc. It's cheaper, easier, and much more robust to leave these cells as digital than going back and forth.

Poseidon has used their own electronics for a while, why not build a modern computer to go with these new cells? Lord knows they needed something other than the PoS paddles that they had, so it only makes sense they'd design it around their cells.
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Well, considering my information comes directly from a couple of rebreather diving Texas Instruments engineers, including one VP of design, I'd say my source has a much better understanding of the issues than a textile engineer..... In fact, they're waiting to source the cells individually to do exactly that.

I'm well aware that Poseidon is not a charity, however their decisions regarding their rebreathers make it pretty clear that they're out of touch with the actual rebreather market.

Poseidon is hedging their bets that divers will fork over another $3k to run their stuff, or even more to move to their rebreather. That's just not happening. The economics of it in the fickle rebreather market don't support the long term viability of that solution, and they'll continue to piece meal sell their rebreathers and their computers. And just like their current offerings, there will be meager sales to a tiny portion of the rebreather market.

Or, they could have cornered every rebreather diver on the market by offering them a foolproof O2 sensor at half the cost and sold one to every guy on a loop.

Do you actually own a rebreather? How many units do you own, have experience with, and are certified on? Maybe turn some of that attitude around.
 
JohnnyC said:
Well, considering my information comes directly from a couple of rebreather diving Texas Instruments engineers, including one VP of design, I'd say my source has a much better understanding of the issues than a textile engineer..... In fact, they're waiting to source the cells individually to do exactly that.

I'm well aware that Poseidon is not a charity, however their decisions regarding their rebreathers make it pretty clear that they're out of touch with the actual rebreather market.

Poseidon is hedging their bets that divers will fork over another $3k to run their stuff, or even more to move to their rebreather. That's just not happening. The economics of it in the fickle rebreather market don't support the long term viability of that solution, and they'll continue to piece meal sell their rebreathers and their computers. And just like their current offerings, there will be meager sales to a tiny portion of the rebreather market.

Or, they could have cornered every rebreather diver on the market by offering them a foolproof O2 sensor at half the cost and sold one to every guy on a loop.

Do you actually own a rebreather? How many units do you own, have experience with, and are certified on? Maybe turn some of that attitude around.
Click to expand...

I own two actually, but that has no bearing on this discussion. I also have quite a bit of experience with canbus controls design on the machinery that I work on, and that knowledge translates directly over. Your VP design buddy should be well aware of how superior a canbus board for these cells is instead of digital-analog-digital conversions.

If you read my whole post, the DAC idea is great for retrofitting old rebreathers. That said, it is 100% the worst way to implement the cells into modern digital rebreathers as it add excessive complication and failure points into the design and it is also not a sound business decision. Since the whole market is moving or has already gone to digital eCCR and no serious manufacturer is still making an analog eCCR anymore, there is no point in making a DAC cell for those units.

So please explain to me how what you're proposing
Digital cell, independently powered, with a DAC, that sends an analog signal to an O2 board, that then converts it back to a digital signal to send to the main computer
is better than
the o2 board reading the digital signal from the cell and sending it to the main computer?

please explain how that is better because that adds complication, cost, and failure points at each cell. it's one thing for mccr or an old analog eCCR to convert, but if your VP buddy really believes that what you proposed is superior than a direct digital signal, please have him come in and tell me why, because it makes no sense at all
 
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So both of your rebreathers are digital? And everyone else besides me own digital rebreathers? Huh, don't I feel silly! I probably shouldn't admit that I drive a manual transmission. Every rebreather on the market is set up to read analog cells. Right now. Every single one, including Poseidon's, including every CANbus rebreather. Literally every single rebreather on the market would benefit from a drop-in cell design, and it literally only requires a DAC and a small power source. There are a lot of Megs, Inspo's, and KISS's out there that must be headed for the scrap heap since everyone is going digital and I'm not seeing them for sale.... And the fact is, until Poseidon actually lets manufacturers into their bubble, it's a moot point anyway.

So let's address all those words you seem to think I said.....

EVERY REBREATHER IS ALREADY READING AN ANALOG SIGNAL FROM THE GALVANIC SENSORS IN USE TODAY. You're description of multiple conversions back causing excessive complication and failure points is the same tired argument about people saying that transmitters are gonna get you killed on a 15m reef dive, even though an SPG has more inherent mechanical failure points. You want to talk failure points? How about adding at least 2 more potential water ingress points into the loop? Floods are bad. Not to mention you're locked in to their unproven computer and ancillary hardware. But hey, you've got apps! DAC's aren't anything knew, you act like the mere thought of signal conversion is going to cause one to stroke out. You're already doing one conversion on the digital rebreathers, so the idea of doing one conversion for the analogs is silly. Doing another conversion to actually let the digital rebreathers use their cells being "too complicated" is laughable. Then again if Poseidon engineers can't crack that nut, why should anyone trust their stuff in the first place.

You seem to think that Poseidon is going to magically open-source this stuff and everyone is going to be able to pop it in and play nice with their Shearwaters and their Dreams and their Hammerheads, and that's not the case. It's already going to require modification to any rebreather that's not Poseidon's own ($$$), and it's all contingent on other manufacturers willing to modify their units in the first place. You want to talk about added cost, complication, and failure points? Tell me how that's not adding cost, complication, and failure points? "Dear Rebreather Manufacturer, please modify your stuff to work with our stuff." That already offers more complications than a simple on-cell solution considering foolproof DAC's have been around since Christ was a corporal.... If they were that scary, that $7+ billion investment that TI made in Burr-Brown must have ruined them!!! Wait.....

Now to address the idea that I am in some way against Poseidon using the cells as-is (of which I didn't actually make any indication, so...reading comprehension?), I think it's great what they have. If they want to sell them to everybody, they'll have to give up the goods to every rebreather manufacturer who is using CANbus. I think they should, it would make it easier for those manufacturers to integrate the sensor technology. It would actually get what promises to be a safer cell into the hands of the masses, old, yet perfectly viable rebreathers be damned! That doesn't mean doing it on the backend after dumping money into something they'll never recoup the cost on is in any way a smart move.

Poseidon spent a ton of money on a bet that everyone would jump on their nuts, and it's just not happening. They could have cornered the entire market but they went the other way. That's not better, that's stupid. You're trying to twist my (lack of) words so you can win an argument that I'm not even making. The fact is, Poseidon would sell more product (by an order of magnitude) if they had a product that was actually useful to the entire rebreather diving audience, it would be a much simpler product to produce, and they'd be able to work on something rebreather related that doesn't suck.
 
@JohnnyC the plan was never to restrict the cells to the M28.
The plan is and always has been to rollout the cells with the C-Pod first. That gets it into any rebreather on the market using their M28 computer.
Once that is out, make an upgrade path for the Se7en rebreathers so they replace the galvanic cells, again with the M28.

After that, which is when they will have the most opportunity to make their investment back, then they will allow the other manufacturers to implement them. The codes will be open so they can develop the bus boards to handle both galvanic and the optical cells, and for the mCCR's, you will be able to use the M28, which while unproven and expensive, is the easiest way to implement the cells on mCCR's. This will likely be the upgrade path that I choose to use the cells. the old analog rebreathers will have the most difficult time as they will have to integrate with the controllers, but ISC is no longer supporting the older designs, and good luck getting JMI to do anything with 21st century technology, so that's going to have to be homebrewed DAC's, or encourage the upgrade to a digital head. Thankfully most all of the analog eCCR's have that upgrade path to Shearwaters DiveCAN

this information directly from poseidon btw
 
michael_fisch said:
I'd suggest diving a RB with almost wornout scrubber, untill you start feeling an increase of your breathing rate. Then either immediatly swtch to your OC Bailout or quickly ascend 20M and spend a minute or 2 to see if your scrubber has now become breathable. I find that my body is a better CO2 detector that the sensors, and I detect a higher CO2 level long before it becomes dangerous. I won't waste my money on CO2 sensors and don't want to get involved in the false sense of security that they can give.

Michael
Click to expand...


Did you write this while conducting a couch based hypoxia drill?
 
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