Argon access?
- Thread starter FFMDiver
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FFM,
There is a really good argument about the efficacy of using argon in your suit. An awful lot of folks just use air. It is much easier, and almost as efficient. Do not use mixes with helium in them, however.
There is a really good argument about the efficacy of using argon in your suit. An awful lot of folks just use air. It is much easier, and almost as efficient. Do not use mixes with helium in them, however.
Argon can be purchased from any welding gas supplier and as such is easy to obtain.
Argon comes in a brown cylinder at about 2200 psi max. So unless you have a boost pump, you are limited to transfilling at ever lower pressures until you get down to about 1000 psi at which point you need a new bottle and a cascade arrangement to efficiently use the rest of the first bottle while still getting a decent fill topping off from the second bottle. So the cost of the adapters, whips and cascade hardware added to tank rental starts to make otherwise inexpensive argon pretty expensive.
In my experience, my 15 cu ft 2015 psi pony bottle was well matched to argon use and even a partial fill would get you through several dives. For obvious reasons 3000 psi ponies are less desireable unless you can boost the pressure of your argon.
However in my argon using days several things became obvious.
1. Argon is, at best, only about 1/3 more efficient than air.
2. To get the full effect of argon, you have to purge all the air out of the suit, which normally means filling the suit with argon and then purging and then repeating the process at least once and preferrably twice to get the percentage of air in the suit to a low level. A pee valve and staying in the suit all day cut down on argon costs.
3. In my real world experience, argon was not any warmer than air (something born out by a recent double blind study), especially once the placebo effect was lost when the truth began to dawn on me. There was an upside to continuing to at least claim to believe in Santa Claus for a few years after I learned the truth. I can't say the same about argon
4. If you dive HE mixes, you need a separate gas for dry suit inflation, but for all practical purposes air works just as well as argon.
5. In my opinion the money invested in argon transfill equipment would be much better spent on warmer under garments which will do a lot more to keep you warm than argon.
Argon comes in a brown cylinder at about 2200 psi max. So unless you have a boost pump, you are limited to transfilling at ever lower pressures until you get down to about 1000 psi at which point you need a new bottle and a cascade arrangement to efficiently use the rest of the first bottle while still getting a decent fill topping off from the second bottle. So the cost of the adapters, whips and cascade hardware added to tank rental starts to make otherwise inexpensive argon pretty expensive.
In my experience, my 15 cu ft 2015 psi pony bottle was well matched to argon use and even a partial fill would get you through several dives. For obvious reasons 3000 psi ponies are less desireable unless you can boost the pressure of your argon.
However in my argon using days several things became obvious.
1. Argon is, at best, only about 1/3 more efficient than air.
2. To get the full effect of argon, you have to purge all the air out of the suit, which normally means filling the suit with argon and then purging and then repeating the process at least once and preferrably twice to get the percentage of air in the suit to a low level. A pee valve and staying in the suit all day cut down on argon costs.
3. In my real world experience, argon was not any warmer than air (something born out by a recent double blind study), especially once the placebo effect was lost when the truth began to dawn on me. There was an upside to continuing to at least claim to believe in Santa Claus for a few years after I learned the truth. I can't say the same about argon
4. If you dive HE mixes, you need a separate gas for dry suit inflation, but for all practical purposes air works just as well as argon.
5. In my opinion the money invested in argon transfill equipment would be much better spent on warmer under garments which will do a lot more to keep you warm than argon.
Or maybe just ask Santa Claus for some. 
Alot of local gas companies and welding places when I lived in RI carreid it at 4500 psi. I sue to get my paintball co2 bank tanks filled their and saw some one get a pony bottle filled with argon for his dry suit. That is the first time I heard about it. IMO I would just use air, it is cheaper, easier to get and I never noticed a huge difference.
Argon never wored 4 me.
scott
scott
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Most of the people that I dive with that use drysuits use the air activated heat patches. One large one or a couple of smaller ones seem to make them very happy.
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