Anyone have a supplier for 'generic' VIS stickers ?

[rstofer]

rstofer, who is doing partial pressure blending in NorCal? What city? Curious minds want to know.

Dolphin Scuba - Stockton

Richard

 

[Web Monkey]

Here's my dilemma:

1) I own a bunch of tanks (16)

It's unlikely that you'll find many shops that accept a generic VIP sticker. I know that our shop won't.

Terry

 

[mike_s]

Here's the funny thing.... the PSI course is good and all... but I'm willing to bet most shops don't actually have a "formally trained" person doing visuals.

Usually the person doing fills on weekends is the "low man" at the shop. Someone else in the shop "showed" him how to do an inspection.


Perfect example: I was at a non-local shop once getting a fill and apparently the stickers had fallen off somehow. (not sure how). but anyway, they made me get a visual ($15 each) before they'd fill them. Their visual consisted of about 15 seconds each after they drained the tank.

it was simple

1.) drain tank.
2.) remove valve.
3.) shine light in tank for 5 seconds. ..... "ok, this one looks ok"
4.) re-install valve and slap on sticker.


and I paid $15 bucks EACH for THAT?

 

[rstofer]

Locally, an AL 80 NITROX fill is $ 12.00, and a HP 120 NITROX fill is $ 15.00...I can't imagine how you're getting a $ 6.00 NITROX fill, wanna show me the www site where a LDS is advertising a $ 6.00 NITROX fill ? Same thing about the 'vis', locally it's $ 14.

I don't need my tanks O2 clean.....my shop of choice has EAN32 banked.

I think the number is right. I could be wrong, of course. I do know that the cost of air/Nitrox is totally insignificant compared to the cost of gasoline to get anywhere to dive.

The viz around here used to be $7 and then it was raised to $10 some time last fall. I haven't had a tank done since then so I am not up to date on the current pricing. But, again, the cost is insignificant in the context of diving.

When we go to Monterey, the four of us will spend over $60 in gas alone. If we also spend $20 (or even $60) for Nitrox, so what? We also spend $10 for parking and $30 or so for fast food (breakfast and late lunch). When we get back to town, we may go out to dinner. We did that a couple of hours ago (no dive trip, just an early dinner after a pool session) and that came to $160 for 5 of us.

Diving is expensive! The cost Nitrox and viz just aren't important considerations.

Richard

 

[JBRES1]

I say take the tank inspection class, buy a compressor, bank bottles and be self contained.

Jim Breslin

 

[Thalassamania]

Take the PSI course, get a few tools, PSI is happy to supply stickers for a reasonable price.

 

[Peter_C]

Dolphin Scuba - Stockton

Richard

I thought Mike told me they were doing continues blending prior to the tank of any
mix you want? Rick wouldn't fill our single tanks but would fill the doubles sincewe didn't have nitrox bands. What sucks is I had called before making the two hour trek there and confirmed they would fill our non O2 cleaned tanks. I haven't been back since...

 

[redacted]

Take the PSI course, get a few tools, PSI is happy to supply stickers for a reasonable price.

Then all you have to do is find an LDS that is willing to accept your vis. Some may not.

 

[rstofer]

I thought Mike told me they were doing continues blending prior to the tank of any
mix you want? Rick wouldn't fill our single tanks but would fill the doubles sincewe didn't have nitrox bands. What sucks is I had called before making the two hour trek there and confirmed they would fill our non O2 cleaned tanks. I haven't been back since...

I haven't watched the fill process but they (Stockton) have a pure O2 whip and several 'Safe Air' whips. I'm almost 100% certain it is partial pressure blending. Sometimes the mix is off a bit and I wouldn't expect that with banked or continuous blended fills. Next time I'm over there, I'll ask. It could be the O2 whip is for 100% O2 tanks, I suppose.

As to the Sacramento store, I have no idea what they do but I do know that they blend tri-mix and I would expect that to be pp blended.

The lack of Nitrox bands would be immediately fixable. The fact that the tanks and valves are not O2 cleaned would take some time to overcome.

This whole O2 clean, not O2 clean, was O2 clean but now contaminated fiasco is making Nitrox more than I want to deal with. All of my tanks are O2 clean and most are Nitrox banded. Some of those tanks will never contain anything but air and, specifically, Safe Air. As a result, I am limited in where I can have them refilled. If we go out of town for a weekend, we end up renting tanks that can be refilled anywhere. So, what's the point of owning tanks? I need to think about this a little more before I get out of the Nitrox business altogether.

Richard

 

[oly5050user]

It's unlikely that you'll find many shops that accept a generic VIP sticker. I know that our shop won't.

Terry

Same here..Other LS ok ,no name generic stickers,nope.