Info ALWAYS analyze your gas!!!

[tbone1004]

Friendly reminder after an exciting analysis today for everyone to check their gas.
I have a large quantity of AL80's for bailout, deco, stage, etc. I'm heading down to Ft. Lauderdale to dive with @LandonL @jlouder and my mother for the weekend and just grabbed the first stage bottle out of the rack which is pretty normal when I'm diving single tanks since I don't use DIR style rigging with the handle. Bottle has a MOD120 sticker on it but no analysis sticker so I'm thinking it's full of EAN32, like one would. It feels a touch light so I hook it up to the fill station and it's got 2400psi in it so I figure I'll top it off. Hand J the analyzer as it's coming off the whip and she looks a bit bug-eyed and says "uhhh it says 77..... you check it*. I checked it, 77. This is not a normal failure mode for an O2 sensor, and it shouldn't have been that high. I knew the bank wasn't full of O2 because the other two bottles came off normal so I grab my analyzer from the truck and lo and behold, 77%. I wouldn't have knowingly put O2 in a bottle with a MOD120 sticker on there, but my bottles get borrowed by people pretty regularly and who knows when this was last dove. Stuff happens, but ALWAYS analyze your tanks because sometimes it can save your life.

 

[Joneill]

Friendly reminder after an exciting analysis today for everyone to check their gas.
I have a large quantity of AL80's for bailout, deco, stage, etc. I'm heading down to Ft. Lauderdale to dive with @LandonL @jlouder and my mother for the weekend and just grabbed the first stage bottle out of the rack which is pretty normal when I'm diving single tanks since I don't use DIR style rigging with the handle. Bottle has a MOD120 sticker on it but no analysis sticker so I'm thinking it's full of EAN32, like one would. It feels a touch light so I hook it up to the fill station and it's got 2400psi in it so I figure I'll top it off. Hand J the analyzer as it's coming off the whip and she looks a bit bug-eyed and says "uhhh it says 77..... you check it*. I checked it, 77. This is not a normal failure mode for an O2 sensor, and it shouldn't have been that high. I knew the bank wasn't full of O2 because the other two bottles came off normal so I grab my analyzer from the truck and lo and behold, 77%. I wouldn't have knowingly put O2 in a bottle with a MOD120 sticker on there, but my bottles get borrowed by people pretty regularly and who knows when this was last dove. Stuff happens, but ALWAYS analyze your tanks because sometimes it can save your life.

Good example - thanks for sharing!

 

[johndiver999]

Better title than: "I Killed my Mother".

 

[Alaskan Scuba Dude]

Friendly reminder after an exciting analysis today for everyone to check their gas.
I have a large quantity of AL80's for bailout, deco, stage, etc. I'm heading down to Ft. Lauderdale to dive with @LandonL @jlouder and my mother for the weekend and just grabbed the first stage bottle out of the rack which is pretty normal when I'm diving single tanks since I don't use DIR style rigging with the handle. Bottle has a MOD120 sticker on it but no analysis sticker so I'm thinking it's full of EAN32, like one would. It feels a touch light so I hook it up to the fill station and it's got 2400psi in it so I figure I'll top it off. Hand J the analyzer as it's coming off the whip and she looks a bit bug-eyed and says "uhhh it says 77..... you check it*. I checked it, 77. This is not a normal failure mode for an O2 sensor, and it shouldn't have been that high. I knew the bank wasn't full of O2 because the other two bottles came off normal so I grab my analyzer from the truck and lo and behold, 77%. I wouldn't have knowingly put O2 in a bottle with a MOD120 sticker on there, but my bottles get borrowed by people pretty regularly and who knows when this was last dove. Stuff happens, but ALWAYS analyze your tanks because sometimes it can save your life.

Analyze and apply a fresh signed label and the O%2/He.

 

[jlouder]

On seeing that I was thinking, how the heck did I **** up analyzing this tank? TBone, double check me

 

[Vicko]

The first year I worked as a DM at the end of the season the whole crew went for a 70m plane wreck that some of us never dove before.
The planed bottom gas was trimix 21/00, otherwise know as air. Now yes, that's dumb and I acknowledge it, read on it's not the dumbest thing I did. The tank of choice for me at that time was a 18l steel pumped up to 250 bars with a H-valve. We had 5 of them in the dive centre, and I took the last one that we were all sure was filled with nitrox 32% at 245 bars, so sure we even properly labelled it by putting as little masking tape as possible over the valve.

Now, as I was in a big hurry to get back to my rapidly warming beer I analyse the tank but don't flush the analyser or calibrate it. 21%
Happy with getting the reading I hoped for, not the one I expected I got back to that beer and connected the tank to the compressor, adjusted the pressure stop to 260 and started it. A sip later the compressor stops, pressure gauge reads 250, huh the tank must have been overfilled already.
I assemble all the gear, load it up and go to bed.

20 minutes after hitting the pillow I get the call from one of the guys in the DC asking me to drop by as soon as possible.
Luckily not all of us were idiots and he connected the dots and analysed my tank properly, potentially saving my life as I'm fairly certain that a pO2 of 2.5 or so would have killed even me.
I prefer to do things slowly and properly analyse my tanks from then on.

 

[michael-fisch]

God, the B17 around the point from Rukavac is a beautiful dive, and deco'ing on the wall into the Rukovac swimming area is also a lot of fun.

Michael

 

[RyanT]

Stuff happens, but ALWAYS analyze your tanks because sometimes it can save your life.

My standard practice is to analyze at the shop (point of fill), using one analyzer, and then do a second analysis with my own analyzer. I then have my buddy verify the 2nd analysis. We then verify that we are putting the right dedicated deco reg on the appropriate bottle.

Great reminder @tbone1004, thanks!

 

[Tigerpaw]

Friendly reminder after an exciting analysis today for everyone to check their gas.
I have a large quantity of AL80's for bailout, deco, stage, etc. I'm heading down to Ft. Lauderdale to dive with @LandonL @jlouder and my mother for the weekend and just grabbed the first stage bottle out of the rack which is pretty normal when I'm diving single tanks since I don't use DIR style rigging with the handle. Bottle has a MOD120 sticker on it but no analysis sticker so I'm thinking it's full of EAN32, like one would. It feels a touch light so I hook it up to the fill station and it's got 2400psi in it so I figure I'll top it off. Hand J the analyzer as it's coming off the whip and she looks a bit bug-eyed and says "uhhh it says 77..... you check it*. I checked it, 77. This is not a normal failure mode for an O2 sensor, and it shouldn't have been that high. I knew the bank wasn't full of O2 because the other two bottles came off normal so I grab my analyzer from the truck and lo and behold, 77%. I wouldn't have knowingly put O2 in a bottle with a MOD120 sticker on there, but my bottles get borrowed by people pretty regularly and who knows when this was last dove. Stuff happens, but ALWAYS analyze your tanks because sometimes it can save your life.

Do you have any recommendations for a good analyzer?

 

[Doby45]

Do you have any recommendations for a good analyzer?

Divesoft is pretty much the gold standard analyzer. You can get them in a few varieties, Tri-Mix or just O2. There are others and some of them are cheaper and some are not as cheap. But, Divesoft has a great name in the analyzer field.