BSAC avoids annual VIP

[Sam Miller III]

It all began in Kalifornia in 1967...will reply later

I have met Bill on several occasions amd will reserve comments

SDM

 

[W W Meixner]

Hey Sam...

William L. (Bill) High...President of PSI...Professional Scuba Inspectors had his ''ZERO EXPLOSIONS'' philosophy...I have one of his original course manuals...it's very comprehensive...18 serious incidents...some involving fatalities were cited which occurred between 1990 and 2000...some of your own family members may have been involved with these early standards as well...

The concept was developed that it seemed like a good idea to periodically look at all these HP bombs that divers had strapped to their backs...

Plus 9 degrees C in Central Ontario today...a veritable heat wave...good day for a December dive...I I looked at my rebreather...and I'm sure I could hear it whispering back to me...saying...not only no...but...hell no!...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Warren
If you believe Bill was the originator of the VIP process your probably believe in Santa Claus

Bill created his program 20 years after the original VIP was created

When time permits I will post the history

Sunny about 70 actually 67 -- just waked Lucky my dog- who has a sweater on !
all is well

Sam

Sam...

What do you mean you don't believe in Santa Claus...who do you think builds all the rebreathers...it takes tiny elf fingers to drill all those minute flow orifice holes...I've seen their drills...believe me...they're small...

Looking forward to reading your Legacy notes on VIP history...the only information I have is what I received during training...and was told ''Bill'' was ''the Legend''...there are sooo many legends...

Best...

Warren

 

[Pavao]

Pavao...

I've serviced hundreds of tanks...albeit in Canada...fresh water exposure...and have never seen corrosion/salt intrusion like this...
Different experience for me, those are just the ones I have pictures, but I see it more often than I’d like to, and that is from the ones I inspect, and I’d say I’m inspecting way less than 10% of all tanks I fill, doesn’t give you a warm fuzzy feeling filling tanks!
These tanks look as though they've been strapped to cradles on ocean going dive boats and left there...indefinitely...with their valves open...
Obviously they are being used in the ocean, but you couldn’t be more wrong about the rest, not left at any boat at all, certainly not indefinitely, see the part I said we inspected them last year? They get salt in from people who breath them down to nothing, this isn’t necessarily running out of air and having emergency, I can share a story or 2 with you on that.
This is serious neglect...plain and simple...I can only imagine the state of the rest of this persons gear...
Remember these pictures represent individual tanks, every single picture is from a different tank. Can’t say about the ones with salt inside, but the bottom 3 pics I have their gear here I just sercived, an it was in great condition, did not have to replace a single part outside the service kits.
You didn't have to take the valve off to fail these cylinders...
Like I said, all different tanks, the ones with salt inside were just fine in the outside, had I not looked inside (not sure what kind of VIP doesn’t do that anyway) I’d have no reason to fail them. The ones with pitting outside is just the opposite, they were pristine, shining clean inside.
As well as failing the cylinder you should be drilling a half inch diameter hole through the serial number...
I wish I could, but I don’t think I have the legal authority to do so.
In closing...don't get your frillies in a flutter...this reduced inspection protocol is not going to happen in North America...
I don’t think it will either, it just bothers me with all the “experts” going on about VIP being just a money grab from shops
Just keep doing things as you were trained...

Best...
same to you!
Warren...

 

[Pavao]

Just to add context...

I've just looked it up, we did 952 VIPs in 2015, 802 in 2016, 899 in 2017 and the count now says 1702 for this year so far, but i think something is off that number.

Not sure how many rentals we have, lets say 250 tanks, that does not get ringed up, so add that number to the above numbers...

 

[W W Meixner]

Pavao...

You're doing the right thing...stay true to your training...your customers...and yourself...

If's it outside of spec...even the slightest...fail it...let the alligator come back and bite someone else...remembering your control of the tank is lost when it leaves your possession...

There's nothing written anywhere on any service training certificate that allows you to step outside of established minimum standards...

Best...

Warren...

 

[TrimixToo]

People seem to think that steel cylinders are coated or galvanized on the inside. With the exception of some old steel 72's I don't believe this is true.

They used to come bare, epoxy-coated, and plastic-coated. I was taught that the coated ones cannot be inspected unless the coating is removed. That's possible, I suppose, but it's easier to find another LP72 and probably cheaper. I had an externally plastic-coated tank, but I removed the coating (much easier when it's on the outside!) and coated it with cold galvanizing compound after inspecting it and finding no pits under the plastic.

The internally uncoated ones are much more common today. I've no idea what the percentage might have been in, say, the 1970's.

 

[Diving Dubai]

And yeah, as some have pointed out, so much misinformation here

What people use as "evidence" is the number of reported catastrophic failures.

No-one records details of cylinders failing vis or hydro, so there are no true numbers.

Hence my disgust at teh fight in the UK with the standards, as it's not based on any empirical data

 

[Pavao]

What people use as "evidence" is the number of reported catastrophic failures.

No-one records details of cylinders failing vis or hydro, so there are no true numbers.

Hence my disgust at teh fight in the UK with the standards, as it's not based on any empirical data

Right, same here, I was asking for the details on their study and how they came to that conclusion.
As far as I know the visuals have been done on a yearly basis, catching all the problems BEFORE it becomes a catastrophic failure, so, how can one say it has no added safety benefit?

You can sample test all my ~30 tanks, VIP them in 10 year intervals if you wish, I promise you they won't fail, my test sample would conclude it's safe to adopt visual inspections on a 10 year interval?

 

[NAM001]

Unless you are getting air from someone who fractionally distills it from the atmosphere, I rather doubt that you can find any with a -200F dew point. My compressor's DP is -70F on the latest test report.

I believe that. depending on the brand or type of of desicant you can improve that and increasing dwell time and use of multiple filtering stages can get it below -100.

 

[NAM001]

So under what circumstances are you observing all these shops doing their visual inspections? You make it seem as if you have watched while dozens of shops do that work. I must have had a really deprived scuba life, because I have only observed visual inspections in two shops, and in each case I was the one doing it. Please explain how it is that you get to see all of this.

So let's say that you are right and have indeed watched dozens of different shops doing their work. What percentage of all shops would you estimate that would be?

I would say based on what i see i would say probably north of 80% easiily. Observation of vis's You walk in and they are being done in the customer areas not in the restricted shop areas.