Is it worth owning your own trimix analyser ?

[Superlyte27]

[QUOTE="michael-fisch, post: 8983955, member: 19521"You'll find that a few % more or less of Helium doesn't make a big difference, so precisely analysing the Helium % is nice to have but an unnecessary expense with no real advantage.

[/QUOTE]

I disagree. I was at a shop once that filled a lot of tanks. In all the confusion, two customers orders were mixed up. The oxygen contents were the same, but the helium was wrong. One customer asked for Nitrox, the other for Trimix. The oxygen analyzer read 30% on both, the Nitrox guy's tanks were filled wrong. Without a helium analyzer, he might not have ever known why he got bent. And yes, I'm one of the guys who still believes in a helium penalty.

 

[michael-fisch]

Hi Superlyte27,
What I posted was "You'll find that a few % more or less of Helium doesn't make a big difference, so precisely analysing the Helium % is nice to have but an unnecessary expense with no real advantage."
Don't try and change what I wrote to make it sound like something else in the old GI3 fashion.

Michael

 

[martincohn]

I'm more worried about CO than He.

IMO CO, O2, then He

 

[Celt]

Call me a pessimist but if you plan on mixing your going to need one, if you plan on leaving someone else mix for you, you’re definitely going to need one.

 

[michael-fisch]

Call me a pessimist but if you plan on mixing your going to need one, if you plan on leaving someone else mix for you, you’re definitely going to need one.

and how do you plan to calibrate a Divesoft analyser without 2.5 O2, 4.9 He and either 4.9 Ar or 4.9 N2?
Not every diver doing 2-3 trimix dives a year can afford to keep pure O2, Ar and He around all year, just so he can do a 3 point calibration on his Divesoft analyser. Sure if he has a trimix fillstation, then it becomes a very good idea, otherwise there are other things that are more important than spending US$999 on an Analyser + another US$1000 for your own Praxair He Ar and O2 tanks. Otherwise you are measuring with a micrometer, marking with chalk and cutting with an ax, while knowing that you have done everthing right.
Michael

 

[Celt]

and how do you plan to calibrate a Divesoft analyser without 2.5 O2, 4.9 He and either 4.9 Ar or 4.9 N2?
Not every diver doing 2-3 trimix dives a year can afford to keep pure O2, Ar and He around all year, just so he can do a 3 point calibration on his Divesoft analyser. Sure if he has a trimix fillstation, then it becomes a very good idea, otherwise there are other things that are more important than spending US$999 on an Analyser + another US$1000 for your own Praxair He Ar and O2 tanks. Otherwise you are measuring with a micrometer, marking with chalk and cutting with an ax, while knowing that you have done everthing right.
Michael

It’s his money he can spend it any way he likes, I manage fine with the ATA and Baltic Blender

 

[Superlyte27]

Hi Superlyte27,
What I posted was "You'll find that a few % more or less of Helium doesn't make a big difference, so precisely analysing the Helium % is nice to have but an unnecessary expense with no real advantage."
Don't try and change what I wrote to make it sound like something else in the old GI3 fashion.

Michael

Don't be a goober. There was no malice here. Perhaps I should have quoted just the last few words where you said an analyzer was an unnecessary expense with no real advantage. Again, and try to comprehend, I disagree, because of the scenario I posted. That's not even remotely close to what George used to pull.

 

[Superlyte27]

Fyi, you don't need to do a 3 point calibration. I had one for a year before I did a 2 point calibration.

Imagine getting to a dive site about to do a 300' dive. Somehow the tape with the mix has fallen off the tank. You think the tank had 14/58 in it (because the guy mixing it sucked at PP Blending) but those fills were done 3 weeks ago. Man, what was in the tank... No worries, pull out my handy analyzer, and voila, good to go. If that safety isn't worth $600 then maybe tech diving is the wrong sport for you.

 

[michael-fisch]

Been doing 3 point calibrations every spring and fall since I bought the Divesoft Blender Max 5+ years ago, also every time I change the O2 sensor.
Before that I had 2 Oxychek He/O2 analysers and got pretty good adjusting gain and span on their He sensors to properly calibrate them. Didn't take long to swap the O2 calibration pot on the C-squared/Oxychek O2 analyser for a precision 10 turn pot either.
O2 sensors, even if their temp compensation works properly, will become inaccurate over time and 5-6 months is as long as I'm willing to trust the validity of the last calibration.

Michael

 

[JMBL]

Well, why not consider the problem the other way around :

- if you dive trimix on a regular basis, using the service of a dive centre, if they don't provide an analyser for you to check your mix, change your dive centre. That's what I do.

- if you dive and mix on your own : get an analyser.