Multiple tanks

[seawanderer]

Hi,
do you think to improve the ability to add multiple tanks (and all realtive settings) to a dive like deco bottle?

Thanks

[nick]

Hey,

Yes - support for multiple tanks is on the cards.

[Jean-Francois]

sorry to bring this up again, but since I'm doing most of my dives with a deco tank now, I would have loved to have more accurate SAC calculations for my tank and deco tank. So I just wanted to know where you were at with this ? how you were going to implement it etc.

Thank you

[nick]

How would you like it to be implemented?

[Jean-Francois]

How would you like it to be implemented?

UI wise, I haven't really thought of it.

I guess we could have a second scrolling menu to choose the 2nd tank and much like the menu we have now, we could put in the O2 and He mix. And for those really into tech diving, have a 3rd/4th etc menu. Or we could have a generic menu in which you would select the number of tanks/mixes and then you can enter each of them.
On the main display we could have 2/3/4 SAC column corresponding to each tank we previously entered or just display the main one and when you go into the detailed input window you see all the SACs next to their mixes.

Otherwise, the diving computer knows when you changed gas (mine does at least ) so the data is there. With this you can put a marker on the profile to show when you changed gas and thus you can know how long you breathed the first gas and how long for the second. You can have the average depth for both segments (if you used 2 gases) and with the pressure info you put in you can calculate the SAC.

I'm no programming expert, so I don't know it it's complicated to extract the data and use it. Plus, my english isn't good enough to explain how I see things I'm afraid.

My diving buddy has a PC and he uses Diving Log (http://www.divinglog.de) which allows multiple tanks and SACs and it's working pretty well. Maybe this could be of any help.

Thank you again and I hope that my babbling is understandable.

[nick]

Thanks for the comments.

This is a pretty highly requested feature, which I really need to get sorted out. I am trying to come up with a good way to display the information UI wise, so if anybody has any suggestions, I'm interested.

I am thinking of removing the concept of a tank as a piece of gear (or at least, not making use of it for SAC like it does now), and instead allowing multiple tanks and mixes to be added in a separate interface. But that would also need to be dispalyed, and of course edited.

[Jean-Francois]

What can be done UI wise is to have a separate scrolling menu with Tank sizes. For the input "mask" something like this:

Number of gases used : Scrolling menu with numbers from 1 to 10 (I don't think anyone uses more than 10 different bottles)

Then depending on the number selected from the menu above you will display 1,2,3 etc. line like the ones below.

Main Tank : Tank size (scrolling menu + the ability to enter any value), Starting pressure, End pressure
2nd Tank : Tank size (scrolling menu + the ability to enter any value), Starting pressure, End pressure
3rd Tank : Tank size (scrolling menu + the ability to enter any value), Starting pressure, End pressure
etc.

Displaying the SAC rate : Maybe have more than 1 column in the main display or have an * when you used more than one tank and then you can display each SAC rate on the summary page.

[davef]

I think you're onto the right track about separating the tanks used for SAC calculation from the gear item
It would make sense to have it on the same page as the air in/out is entered. If you're only using a single tank then just enter the size there. You could then have a button to select "Add Tank" that adds another set of In/Out/Size/O2/He boxes to add data. For each extra tank just click the button and add in the data. I don't know if you could take the mix data from the computer log or just get the data entered manually.
Cheers
Dave

[nick]

Some devices store the mixes as they changed, so it is easy to add a new tank (well, mix) automatically.

Along with the option to manually add a tank/mix or modify one.

I'm away on vacation soon, but I'm hoping to finally look at this once I return. I know you're all waiting very patiently, and I'll get to it ASAP.

[davef]

No worries Nick
The challenge will be keeping things neat - it might be easier to have it all on a separate 'page' in the info browser. You could group the tank data and computer data on one page. This would give you plenty of space for 3/4/5 mixes without crowding out other fields. It should be pretty easy to display a table of the mixes for that dive on the page
If it really takes off you could also store common mixes that can automatically populate the fields for each dive.
Any unused gas could be unticked or deleted for that dive. Gas not breathed but carried won't affect the SAC because the In/Out number will be the same.
At the moment the program seems to add the tank volumes together and then calculate the SAC from that much larger volume because it doesn't know that the pressures in each tank are different.

Enjoy you holiday!