After a few weeks out of the water, I would often forget how to calibrate it, how to set the bailout gases, change the screen orientation. No one can pick up a VR3 and use it immediately. Most VR3 users will tell me they find it intuitive but I think they just got used to it. I might not remember much from my MS-DOS days but it must have been conceived then. You see, the main issue I have with the VR3 is that it probably has the worse user interface I have ever seen. I think another reason though is that I knew it wouldn’t be my computer for long. You probably will ask why I never sent it back ? Well, it mostly worked … and the factory is back in the UK and charges quite a bit of money for an overhaul. But then again, for 20 hours of CCR diving in the Bahamas, it worked without any issue. It was a backup computer I had learnt to not count on which defeats the purpose. During the 10-15 hours of my CCR training, it performed beautifully but for the next 5 dives, it would shut off occasionally, complain about low battery or think it was underwater, missing stops, while I was driving to the dive site. The culprit was supposedly the AA battery I was using instead of a leaner but supposedly compatible european LR6. On my first Open Circuit deco dive, on the deck of the German U-Boat U853, the brand new VR3 suddenly shut off, its screen displaying no information, therefore engraining into my brain that backup tables compulsory. I want to say that the VR3 served me well over the year but that wouldn’t really be true. And that’s exactly what I did with it, ending up paying around $2000 for the whole getup. Its main selling point at the time is that you could upgrade it as needed going from Nitrox diving to Trimix, Open Circuit to CCR, Bullman to VPM. It feels and looks solid if somewhat antiquated. The Delta-P VR3 is a beast of a dive computer, looking more adept at breaking a lobster shell around a beach fire than being attached on a human wrist. The VR3 seemed wonderful with its expandability. As I was taking my Advanced Nitrox and Deco class years before, I had been co-erced into buying a deco-capable dive computer. I already owned a Delta-P VR3 which was compatible with this setup. When I was told about the possibility to add a third computer to the lot which would monitor a fourth cell as well as give me a redundant source of deco information, I jumped on it. Like any O2ptima rebreather diver, I have a primary on my left wrist that I can check for PO2 as well as a heads up display (the HUD is driven by the secondary handset, which is tucked away in a belt pouch) both of which read from three same oxygen sensor. I was taught to watch though and that means monitor my PPO2 (Oxygen Partial Pressure) frequently. As you may know by now, I dive an eCCR, a life support system which purported goal is to attempt to kill me when I won’t be watching.
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