Making a homemade shallow water dive hookah

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Squirttle37

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I am planning on creating a hookah that can dive up to 3 meters (roughly 10 feet) deep. I know the compononets for the hookah except for the compressor, which for me sounds complicated.For safety reasons, the depth is only 3 meters (half the depth of SNUBA) and I am using an electric motor rather than gas. Another preassure condition faced at that depth, air emboilism is easily solved by these 3 things: Never Hold your breath, Ascend Slowly, and Breathe Normally. How does the compressor compress air? In order for to go 3 meters with that thing and be able to breathe, I must have the hose preassure at 19.1 psi (3 meters- 1.3 ATA x 14.7 surface psi = 19.1). Now what specific parts compress the air to a preassure higher than 1 atmosphere and how does the compression work? It's kind of complex
 
unfortunately it is probably much safer for you to buy a Brownies third lung or other commercially available hookah system, or just stay on scuba for that shallow of a depth. If you don't have a sound grasp of how the compressors work and the breathing requirements for compressed air, it is a very dangerous system. You still have to get electricity from somewhere, and it still requires quite a bit of filtration to produce breathable air at depth. At that shallow of a depth, you have approximately 1.5 hours on an AL80 that you can buy with a regulator and cheap BC on craigslist for approximately $200. Another $300 for a scuba class, and you're going to be in far cheaper than a hookah system, much more versatile, and quite a bit safer.

You could also get a 40' hose extension for the Brownies system that is about $150 and is designed for shallow diving from a kayak.
 
I just thought of it compressers squeeze air like pistons in a car into an apparatus. What about compression by the means of cenritfugal force (ie a fan designed to whip air) With my design, the amount of breathing preassure required at 10 feet vs sea level is actually not that much so a small amount of power to squeeze the air inside might be a good idea.
 
One problem is the way that regulators work. The way that traditional demand-regulators work (what we all know as scuba regs) is they take an input of around 140PSI (varies, from 120-150 for most regulators) and regulate it down to a breathable level based on ambient pressure. Custom-making a compressor is simply not feasible for most, and (no offense intended) you seem to not be as well-read as what it takes to make this attainable. If you're REALLY looking for some sort of surface-supplied air, and want to design it yourself, I'd figure out a way to float big bank bottles and attach them to traditional scuba gear and just put a big 10-30ft hose on the regulator.

Most compressors work exactly like a car piston.
 
I am sincerely afraid for you and anyone who might attempt to dive this rig.

This is not something to home cook with limited experience and knowledge. People can die, easily and quickly.

I am not one to say "it'll kill you" at the drop of the hat. I hope you reconsider this path.
 
You can just about use any shop type air compressor pumping unit provided it is cleaned internally beforehand and a suitable oil is used, abac type 2 stages are quite popular in my industry (pearl diving) and 16cfm is good for 2 divers to 25m plus. Where it gets complicated and expensive is the other parts you may not be aware of. Breathing air hose, tema fittings for the hose, relief valve, water seperator, filtration unit, some kind of reciever usually built into the frame if the unit is portable.
For many years clisby compressors were the first choice (in australia at least) but now days it works out cheaper to use chinese produced pump units and replace the whole thing when the rings go rather than rebuilding the more expensive units.
I have built and rebuilt many of these and can do it only slightly cheaper than buying a production model and thats reusing the filtration units.
As tbone suggested buying a commercially available unit is the way to go unless your really after the diy feeling.
 
This is an older post but I have seen the Hooka system before. I do have a question how do you inspect the steal air holding tank for rust and other bad things that you would take in. I seen (not smart things) on TV show gold diving or something like that where they take a reg air compressor and make a hooka system to it.

I dont want one was just thinking
 
Scuba tanks have industry-standards governing their inspection and testing procedures.
 
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most simple DIY hookah system!
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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