What is it with these darn wraps? I don't want all that adhesive all over my tanks. What does a wrap prove if the tanks have an O2 clean sticker? I don't get it.
Denied Air Fill Due to Not Safe Air Cert
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Randy43068
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the more and more this question comes up i have become more confused. i originally understood that any nitrox tank that contained over 40 or 50 percent required the wrap to tell shop owners nothing less than hyper filtered air can be put in these tanks as opposed to gradr d air. since <40 was to be treated like air, grade d air could be used in a nitrox tank but,, once used the wrap went away and the nitrox tank could not be filled >40% and you lost the o2 clean cert. for less than 40% it was not required to have one and that the vp sufficed. but then came pp blending and >40% rules then applied. i looked at psi's policy on o2 cleaning and they state that since any mix >23 could have been done by pp blending they require o2 cleaning of tank and valve. it is all starting to be be extreemly conservitive just in case rather than going by the regs. i am less sure what the regs now than before. and i dont know if instructor's taught the regs or policies of thier shop. certaiinly they taught the agencies legal position of just in case.
either way thats why i have my own compresser and fill equipment. no 2 shops the same. depending whether you use the baptist or the methodist tank filling service depends which set of commandments are used.
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32% (banked) is low risk, 36%: same, 40%: same. In fact, you'd be amazed at just how high that number was taken during testing. I'm not going to say exactly, because I don't want to promote sloppy and potentially dangerous procedures, but I will say that if you're cutting back from 40% as "extra safety margin," it's already been done at 40%.
Just think for a minute, how many NITROX fires/explosions do you know of? Can you think of one the did not involve contact with pure or almost pure oxygen?
Just think for a minute, how many NITROX fires/explosions do you know of? Can you think of one the did not involve contact with pure or almost pure oxygen?
Robert Phillips
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100% on the noodle doodle
i have mentioned this one before. regulators warn against using titaniun versions with i think > 70% o2. made me stop and think when i got my scubapromk25 and again when i got my atomic. looked up on the web and found that there is in fact a fire hazzard when titaniun is wxposed to o2 IF THE O2 IS 40,000 PSI and greater.
I know i dont want to be using one on my lp steel.
DeepSeaExplorer
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Wow, the response to my question certianly did bring some facinating information. For pwr2al4, I have been diving since 1972, I was been an instructor and manager of a dive store for a few years. My number of dives is more like 1200 and most of those were done in the 70s and 80s. It may seem hard to believe but in the 70s and 80s there wasn't very much recreational diving done with anything but 80/20 air. That being said some friends and I did experiment a little with some of our own mixtures in the early 80s to depths of 150 ft and deeper. I only recently took up EAN diving as a prelude to a CCR course.
As some of the other contributers to the thread pointed the diving industry over the last 30 years has taken the oppurtunity to bring a remote possibility of an incident into the fore front to breed fear so as to sell another piece of equpiment, another course, or a another service. In this case, some shops would say only their ANDI (or what ever agency, I am not picking on ANDI)cleaning standards and gas is suitable to be connected to their fill station and if the store learns air was introduced to or through your air delivery system (regulator/cylinder) by any other system than theirs then that equipment can't be used or filled by their system without a new cleaning (at an added cost). To make a statement 'I don't want to fill a tank filled by so n so diver store because it could blow up in my face" is carrying the threat of a fire due to a high 02 (they diver wanted a standard air fill) to an extreme. It is a shame to me that shops still use scare tactics and mud slinging on competing agencies and stores to increase their shops sales. I have seen have good divers and bad divers from all agencies. I have gotten "tasty" air in resort shops and great air in "hole in the wall" shops. The games like "you can't make the night dive with us because your yoke strobe is different than what we use and therefore unsafe, you have to buy one of ours" makes some suspcious about policies like who cleans our tanks.
Just my thoughts. By the way, the knowledge some of you have in this topic is impressive!
Doug
As some of the other contributers to the thread pointed the diving industry over the last 30 years has taken the oppurtunity to bring a remote possibility of an incident into the fore front to breed fear so as to sell another piece of equpiment, another course, or a another service. In this case, some shops would say only their ANDI (or what ever agency, I am not picking on ANDI)cleaning standards and gas is suitable to be connected to their fill station and if the store learns air was introduced to or through your air delivery system (regulator/cylinder) by any other system than theirs then that equipment can't be used or filled by their system without a new cleaning (at an added cost). To make a statement 'I don't want to fill a tank filled by so n so diver store because it could blow up in my face" is carrying the threat of a fire due to a high 02 (they diver wanted a standard air fill) to an extreme. It is a shame to me that shops still use scare tactics and mud slinging on competing agencies and stores to increase their shops sales. I have seen have good divers and bad divers from all agencies. I have gotten "tasty" air in resort shops and great air in "hole in the wall" shops. The games like "you can't make the night dive with us because your yoke strobe is different than what we use and therefore unsafe, you have to buy one of ours" makes some suspcious about policies like who cleans our tanks.
Just my thoughts. By the way, the knowledge some of you have in this topic is impressive!
Doug
Actually to be honest I do find it kinda hard to believe. Modern diving as we know it today, specifically the Scuba aspect of breathing underwater is actually a very very young idea. Mixed gas diving actually came first and preceded the original 'scuba' setups by a few years. And this wasn't just limited to the Military (although they are responsible along with a few other nations of nearly every practical understanding we have about diving).
By the late '30's, civilian divers were getting down to 3-400 fsw using heliox blends. I understand what you mean when you say that things like EANx seem foreign to you, because the same types of things often catch my father off guard as well, specifically like having to show your sea card before getting a fill or jumping into the water, since when my father began diving no one ever dreamed of an actually card in order to dive, you either learned what you were doing or you take your chances with death. That being said the reason I know that there was quite a bit of mixed gas diving back in the 70's and 80's is because those were just about the only dives my old man was making at the time.
Again I disagree, banning sports in gym class like dodgeball or tag is an example of an overexeration of a remote possibility of danger in order to push upon children whatever their specific agenda may be.
The fact of the matter is that Diving, especially diving that involves a more serious understanding of actual physics and physiology such as deep dives or Ean dives, Tech etc. is actually a really really really easy way to get dead, all things considered. Just the same as is involved in Aviation, or Motorcycles, or Track days, or mountain climbing. Theres old and theres bold, the expression is used exactly the same in every single dangerous hobby. The same reason people continue to maintain controlled flight right into the ground, or run out of fuel in the middle of nowhere is the exact same reason that people continue to die year in and out while underwater. in aviation its called a pre-flight and it needs to be done just as well the very first time you do it as the 20,000 time. In diving its called a buddy check. BWRAF. Aviation when someone pushes a bad position to the point that it kills them its often due to 'getthereitis' or not filing a proper flight plan or ignoring the weight restrictions of your aircraft. in diving its called forgetting to plan your dive and dive your plan, or getting into something over your scope of training, like and overhead or enclosed environment, aka IFR flight.
Diving is dangerous, and most of the old timers or most experieinced divers are almost always the ones with the least amount of bull**** hanging off their BC's, the simplest setups and the most redudant backups.
Honeslty though, if you think refusing to work in a confined space with a large store of compressed 100% O2 a metal tank that's under 3k pounds of pressure all cramped up in a tiny room with what would conservatably be about 6-10 realstic ignition sources all around you for a lousy 7 bucks, I guess I have nothing to tell you. That O2 is separated and compressed by a compressor which is relys on an ignition source of some kind to operate, There are outlets everywhere, metal tanks that fall onto metal tanks, we u/w strobe that burn out or burst etc. Theres a reason that o2 therapy requires an RX from a doc, and that as a FF and EMT we cant transport large tanks of O2 suppy ourselves nor can it travel by Air and it generally requires a hazmat plackard be displayed while underway on the road.
We can both agree that regular gas is pretty damn flammable right? and they let 16 year olds pump it, transport it and come in contact with it nearly every day, oxygen is still technically a prescribed drug or a hazardous material depending, its not a fear without merit
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