Original Dytter Manual

[joemami 0]

I can buy an original Dytter for $25. Has no manual and I can't find one. I have read how to set it but have other questions...like auto-shutoff time ect?? Any help? Thanks

[skydiverek 63]

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I can buy an original Dytter for $25. Has no manual and I can't find one. I have read how to set it but have other questions...like auto-shutoff time ect?? Any help? Thanks

No auto-shut off on the original Dytter (not Pro-Dytter) All of the instruction you need is ON the Dytter itself. It is mechanical only device.

[joemami 0]

Thanks. Yup, I see the instructions on the front and read some posts too. Okay then, so you have to take the batteries out everytime or is it just not using power when not buzzing? It would have to draw some power I think? I'm still a little lost. I can't find any lit on it either. Thanks again

[Remster 30]

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It is mechanical only device.

mmm.. No?

The Dytter (and even that old Paralert) has some electric/electronic components to, at the very least, activate a speaker and generate the electricity to drive it.

Remster

[pchapman 280]

Just leave the batteries in.

Internally there's an aneroid capsule and it depends on making electrical contact with the electronics. But I'm guessing the electronics are always powered, so it has a sense of sequence and can interpret a series of events (e.g., Being set on the ground, then passing the set altitude going up, and then going down through that altitude, with the aneroid making or breaking contact at those points).

So the Dytter should be like some modern device that stays in a sleep mode all the time (some iPods).

A better analogy is probably a watch with an alarm.

Perhaps someone with more experience with them will recall how long the 4 little watch batteries lasted. Seemed to me it must have been at least a season? Can't recall.

(Attached is a poor quality photo of the insides.)

[ruthers 0]

I don't know about the actual design except that I have one and have also opened it before.

The aneroid capsule is the corrugated disc on the left of the picture. In fact it's a thin, sealed metal tin, evacuated inside.

The dial that you turn on the outside of the device just screws a contact closer or further away from the bar which is pushed against the tin.

It could be that when the dytter is below the set actuation height, there is no contact between the bar and some other contact point. When the device goes up through activation height, the tin expands enough that contact is made, and the beeper is activated. The device probably stays in standby until the device goes back down through activation altitude, whereupon the contact gets unmade again. Some capacitor in the dytter circuitry could supply power for the device to make the beeps as the contact gets opened. While the device is below activation height, there may be no contact and zero current drain.

But better to hear it from L&B. This is just my guess at how it might be working.

[skydiverek 63]

You should also calibrate it before each jump, or a least on each jump day (just like you do with yuour analog visual altimeter). The air pressure changes during the day. So, whenever you have to calibrate your analog visual altimeter (NOT Altitrack or Viso, which calibrate automatically), calibrate a Dytter too.