Any Advice on my Continuous Blending System Design?

[mikecotrone]

HI Mike,
Nice system you have as I've seen some pictures from another post. With the Tri hunter system you will need none of the following items from the O2 bottle. The regulator,solenoid valve, check valve, needle valve and pressure gauge can go. This is do to the the Tri hunter will come with new regulators for O2 and HE. The solenoid vlave and needle valve are built into the control unit. The tri hunter will watch the O2 and shut the O2 off if you run more than 39 percent. It also wires into the compressor and turns the O2 off it the compressor quits. You don't need the down stream O2 prssure gauge as the control until is reading the nitrox mix live and you adjust your mix with the built in needle valve. This would be the same for the HE if you use it. I do run a down stream analizer myself to double check the control box.
Here's a couple pictures of my system I build.

---------- Post added at 12:47 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:19 AM ----------

Mike another thing I see is you have a check valve going into the bank. How are you going to get the air from the bank back out to the manifold. This is why I ran two manifolds. The lines from the compressor in the air system are checked going into my four air banks. Also my fill manifold has check valves in them as I have air, nitrox and HE all on one manifold. My four nitrox banks on the fill side I removed the check valves. This is so I can open all the bank and let them equalize. By doing this I can keep the mix the same in all banks. [/QOUTE]

Awesome catch I am waiting on my new manifold so I can come out the other side as I suspect you are doing. I just have gotten busy at work so my bank still is not commissioned. I also need to secure it as I am still waiting on my floor rack to ship.

Also if you look above my bank bottles I have shut off valves there. It does two thing. If a line broke I could shut down many bottles in a quick turn of the valve. It also is an extra shut off I use when running the compressor. So if I make air there are two nitrox valve shut off. This is a second back up to the first valve so air might not leak by. With the extra shut off I can run from the compressor straight thru to the front fill line. Great for running tri-mix fills.
The alumium box under the fill panel is a water box I made. I had the inside line-x inside. It can hold two set of doubles at a time. As for fill wip I have made a custom proable mainifold station that can fill 8 bottles at a tine. I just clip one of my fill line into it and I'm ready.

Thank you very much for the tips as your system was the model I was going after. Super clean, functional, and done properly. Thank you!!!

 

[aHeavyD]

Couple more things. On the fill manifold, move the check valve to between the manifold and the shut of valve like the above picture. The way you have it your going to see line pressure and not tank pressure. After you shut off the valve your still going to see your line prssure. When the tanks cool down you tanks are going to be lower than the gauge. Also install a air dump at your manifold. This lets me change gases and do line bleed downs. After the valve you can see my muffler that make no noise when draining. I use it to also drain scube tanks and I hook my analizer to the manifold drain to check my nitrox.
Do as Pete said. drop all the fancy digital gauges. The only time you really need it is to see exact pressure is at the scuba tank itself. Gauges are cheap. Most all my gauges are a non liguid type gauge that I got for 20 dollars each (withing 100psi accurate). On the fill mainfold I upped to a 30 dollar liquid gauge. It's withing 50 psi accurate.. Use the money for the HP regulator. Man you don't know how nice it is to set the gauge and fill your tanks while talking to your buddies or doing other task. You can do nice slow fills and don't have to stand there. Best bang for the buck for me as I'm always doing other things like boosting and filling.
Next you need a bleed valve after the filter stack before the check valve. this is so you can drain your air to the filters.
Next, MM#1 and MM2, you only need one and mount it after the OPV. What happens before the filters I don't care. That the job of the filters. What I check it the air before going into the banks. Also it's Nice to have the Nevair CO monitor as I have one. Unless your in garage where you park your care the chance of CO are not that high. That's what MM1 is for. I do spot check my air for CO but I use my CO gauge for vacations. I'm more worried about what I breathe else where as I have my air checked every 4 month anyway.
I think Pete said something about the OPV before the bank. Yes drop it as you bottles have burst disk.
Also instead of all the digital gauges get two anailzers. as you can see I have two mounted side by side using velco to stick them to the wall. (velcro lets me move it to the up fill manifold when doing nitrox) with two analizers it might be over kill to some people but knowing the exact gas in the tank is more impotant to me. You just never know when the O2 sensor could be dying. Plus the gas is getting double checked

---------- Post added at 08:54 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:30 AM ----------

Yes I run a two manifold system. you can see from the pictures I posted.
As for mounting bottles. If you can mount to a wall. I used e-track that goes into car trailers. Then got the clip in D-rings. I can move thing around and reclip to the wall. Got the straps from Home Depot. E-track and D-ring I got from Mac's tie downs Mac's E-Track, Aluminum track, and connectors including O-rings and D-rings

 

[Peter_C]

aHeavyD, A couple questions and thoughts if I could please. You have an awesome setup.

Above your compressor there is a box, is that your blending controller? Is your blending system tied directly into the netbook, or is the netbook just for reference material?

Are you a professional diver? Or just a well equipped fun diver? Do you sell fills?

Maybe because I live in California where the earth is known to move violently, but two straps on the banks would be my way. I used 2 chains to hold the banks, with hooks screwed into the wall studs. Total cost was probably around $10, for my small 7 bank system.

Which Nuvair CO meter do you have?

CO should be monitored continuously when pumping breathing gas as it is cheap to monitor for the return in safety. Having been on a liveaboard where 14 people got some form or another of CO poisoning, it is something I am concerned with now. The Captain and crew of the boat were on the satellite phone with the compressor manufacturer trying to figure out why the membrane system was supposedly pushing in 37% O2 yet only getting 32% out. They changed the filters, then figured out the new filters were melting so they shut everything down and stopped all diving. Hmmm...can you say detonation? The compressors were rebuilt and CO monitors added.

 

[aHeavyD]

aHeavyD, A couple questions and thoughts if I could please. You have an awesome setup.

Above your compressor there is a box, is that your blending controller? Is your blending system tied directly into the netbook, or is the netbook just for reference material?

Yes the box above, is the tri hunter controller. I can mix both nitrox and HE thru the compressor, It has the meter valves built in and has the compressor saftey shut of soleniod inside. You wire it to the compressor.
No it's not tied into the net book. I use the net book to figure out the mix pressures needed. I bank 39% O2, HE, Air and O2. I can plan any type of gas I need for the dive. Enter in the gas I might have into the tanks allready and it will do the math. I use 3 different programs depending on what I might make up.

Are you a professional diver? Or just a well equipped fun diver? Do you sell fills?

Note a professional diver but am Tech diver. Cave, Ocean and such. It's nice to make the mix match the depth I might be diving. I don't sell air as I built it for me and some of my friends. Back in 2009 when my retirement savings was going down due to the market. I started buying stuff. It took about 8 months to find everything and build. Stuff was popping up on Ebay everywhere and nobody was buying except me I guess. I got great deals from a lot of places wanting to unload stuff. The booster is a 12,000 boost. I got it from a hospital switching over to an oxygen generator and it was a new backup that was setting on the shelf for 4 years.I paid 4000 it. The biggest thing was to be in no rush and wait for the deal to happen. I have a search on boosters for over a year before this happened. At the time a lot of fire departments were also upgrade to 6000 psi system. I scored the compressor for 4000 with only 250 ours on it. The filtration system alone is worth 2500.
I still have searches out there and nothing pops up a lot now a days. I just can across 20 4500's but they want 400 each for them. They are new with a 2008 born on date. To much for me. I got most mine for about 175 each. I got 6 3500's for 75 dollars each. But now I find them for 200 each.

Maybe because I live in California where the earth is known to move violently, but two straps on the banks would be my way. I used 2 chains to hold the banks, with hooks screwed into the wall studs. Total cost was probably around $10, for my small 7 bank system.

If I lived in CA I would have one big chain on them. The strap holds them real tight to the wall (there's no play between any of the tanks). The e-track is screwed into every stud in the wall the whole length of the wall.

Which Nuvair CO meter do you have?

It's not really a Nuvair but a Analox EIICO portable. I love it and will give me a piece of mind when I travel and doing liveaboards
I got mine from Randy at Piranaha Analox EII-CO Carbon Monoxide Analyzer "Free Shipping*", Piranha Dive Manufacturing

CO should be monitored continuously when pumping breathing gas as it is cheap to monitor for the return in safety. Having been on a liveaboard where 14 people got some form or another of CO poisoning, it is something I am concerned with now. The Captain and crew of the boat were on the satellite phone with the compressor manufacturer trying to figure out why the membrane system was supposedly pushing in 37% O2 yet only getting 32% out. They changed the filters, then figured out the new filters were melting so they shut everything down and stopped all diving. Hmmm...can you say detonation? The compressors were rebuilt and CO monitors added.

I do have a Visual Indicator like this and check it all the time. BAUER Compressors genuine parts and full service with August Industries - August Industries Inc.
Since My compressor is not around a engine I think it would be alittle hard to get the CO. I have heard stores about electric motors making it but haven't seen the hard facts. I do test my air every quarter for E grade and Oxygen compatible test.
I have the portable one and have checked my banks many times. Since I built a big bank I don't have to run my compressor all the time. That the nice thing about having a lot of bottles. I run my compressor about once a month unless pumping tri-mix dives. If I would go with a full time monitor I want to get this one. CO Clear Carbon Monoxide Alarm: Analox - Looking after the air you breathe.
As for people getting poisoned most every time it has been outside the USA, Where compressors are on boats in the engine rooms or near gas generators. This is where I fear the most. The portable works for me and I can even test my banked air and everybody elses that I might get gas from. Since I don't run all the time I can just do a test at the end on all the banks.