Analyzing your own nitrox tanks

[jadairiii]

Buy an analyzer and make it a habit of analyzing your mix when setting up your tank on the boat or beach (or dive site). Then with a sharpie, mark the tank on a sticker or duct tape. Attach regulator and dive. That avoids virtually all issues.

 

[tstormdiver]

I will either analyze my own cylinders (I have 2 analysers) or I will personally witness the analysis, watching the calibration procedure of the analayzer & looking at the reading personally. If I have any misgivings about the analysis, I will either do another or get another analyzer & re- analyze the contents. I teach my students to do the same. I am amazed at how many lazy divers will just take the word of the dive shop or its employees on the analysis. There is just too much at stake not to analyze.

 

[chillyinCanada]

Do any of you have experience with the Nuvair analyzer? Please share with me. TIA

 

[uncfnp]

...//...
It seems like many of the "rules" I've been taught in scuba courses tend to be more "guidelines" when I get out in the real world. Is this one of them? What are people's practices as far as analyzing your own tanks?

Always analyze, either watch it done or do it yourself. Whether you purchase one or use the shop's will depend on you and your circumstances. I once picked up my tanks for a dive planed to 80 feet. One tank tested at 69%, roughly 2.4 PPO2. The shop does partial pressure blending.

The only exception is Eric (my partner) and I will analyze for each other if we are not picking up the tanks together.

 

[redacted]

I teach my students to do the same. I am amazed at how many lazy divers will just take the word of the dive shop or its employees on the analysis. There is just too much at stake not to analyze.

Do you take the word of a shop that an "air" tank is just air? What do you teach your students?

 

[tstormdiver]

Do you take the word of a shop that an "air" tank is just air? What do you teach your students?

Our cylinders, unless marked as Nitrox or Trimix are air. I teach them to read a label. Pretty simple. No need to split hairs. Other shops They need to ask....

 

[Splitlip]

I will either analyze my own cylinders (I have 2 analysers) or I will personally witness the analysis, watching the calibration procedure of the analayzer & looking at the reading personally. If I have any misgivings about the analysis, I will either do another or get another analyzer & re- analyze the contents. I teach my students to do the same. I am amazed at how many lazy divers will just take the word of the dive shop or its employees on the analysis. There is just too much at stake not to analyze.

True that Tammy. I just don't get it. Only thing I can come up with (here I go again. Get off my lawn.) maybe the nitrox students never learned theory or ramifications. I guess you can get a nitrox ticket on line these days.

 

[Synonymous]

I think it happens because you learn lots of rules in your training, then you get in a boat and find that nobody is following them. You assume the people there are more experienced than you and know what they are doing, so you go with the flow. I'm. not defending that behavior but it is tough for a newly-certified student to make that stand. I think I've been on enough dives now to see that this is a real problem.


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[tstormdiver]

I think it happens because you learn lots of rules in your training, then you get in a boat and find that nobody is following them. You assume the people there are more experienced than you and know what they are doing, so you go with the flow. I'm. not defending that behavior but it is tough for a newly-certified student to make that stand. I think I've been on enough dives now to see that this is a real problem.


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For a beginner student, I can see that,... most of the divers I've seen that do not analyze are not beginners by any stretch of the imagination. In fact I witnessed 1 lady who told the shop employee, when asked if she wanted to analyze her cylinders, "No,... That's OK. I'm sure your reading is fine" & casually walked out of the shop. When we boarded the boat, I offered my analyzer to those who wanted to check or recheck (most of the divers in our group). Seeing this, she thought twice & analyzed her cylinders. Sure,.. they were fine,.... but who knows, the employees are human & mistakes can be made. I teach my Nitrox students that the only way to know for sure is to analyze,... until then, you don't know what is in the cylinder, but the choice to do it is on them. There was a fairly recent accident where a diver thought a stage cylinder had air in it, but rather had 100% O2 & was marked on the cylinder O2. He had convinced himself that he had drained it of O2 & filled with air, so there was no need to analyze it,... Even when questioned by his team about it. Instead he got angry & defensive about it. needless to say what happened when he went on the bottle 400 ft back in a 90- 100 ft cave.

 

[DiveNav]

....... so just because you can fiddle with the calibration knob and get 21% in air and then get something sensible from the tank, doesn't mean it's truly what you'll be breathing. ......

Our Nitroxbuddy Oxygen analyzer does not have a knob..... it uses a digital calibration and you can even set the "validity ranges" to prevent calibrating with the wrong gas mix (or warning you that something happened to the O2 sensor)

......Most analyzers don't even give you millivolts, which could at least help you validate the %s they're spitting out.

Our analyzer does provide both O2% and mV readings ... and stores them for future references.