BSAC avoids annual VIP

[NAM001]

I don't know either. It was an assumption on my part - I could be easy wrong. I'd certainly be interested to know

some older tanks had a (lack of better terms ) coating o the inside to prevent rusting. other tanks now have a very thin paint spray type coating on them. ie faber.

 

[NAM001]

Not knowing the actual history, but knowing something about Bill High, I checked the PSI-PCI website, where they have his biography as it relates to scuba tank inspection. It is masterfully worded. They must have worked on it very, very carefully. It very strongly implies that Bill invented scuba tank inspection without actually saying that.

I would say that he gathered the requirents on how an inspection is to be done per fed regs. Personally I think he has gone too far n some areas but there you go. The course is not designed so much on how to do a proper one for quality work it is about dong one that will pass litigation attempts. The primis appears to be that if you do it good enough to not be sued you are also doing it good enough functionally.

 

[NAM001]

I like the range of opiniions on when / how often tanks should be inspected. service conditions makes all the difference. One person says tanks go to crap in one year while another says every ten years is good for his tanks. I dont think we would ever want to go to 10 year intervals. that schedule would work is ll tanks were personal ones and was filled with the best of fill systems and we only fill them perhaps a dozen times a year and the non use times are 100 psi or less. Thep problem with that is that it does not take much to have a bunch of bad tanks made or in my case a filter plumbed backwards. I have 2 lp95's that got rist inside but were dry. in a filter you put the air into it on the bottol and take the air out on the top so that any fluids are not passed along. during a down time for a main compressor a backup was used and the filter was plumbed backwards or mounted upside down. The filters were those old bullet looking ones about 14" tall. it was installed such that the poolo of water in the botttom was passed to teh tank being filled which were mine. one year leater the inside of the tank looked bad. It got fixed as well as could be expected and i use it today. It only takes once to have something like that happen in any shop and the extensive wait to vis the inside can really take a toll. That is why I would be in favor of annual pull valve look and replace valve and at a longer interval do the full blown inspection with straight edges and scopes etc. the abreviated annual would identify use of a bad fill system in the pasts year and the full blown inspection done if there was an abreviated inspection issue or every x years. There are too many variables and you have to plan for the worst case. Ises of tanks blowing is really prety rare and you also have to cosider what countries these events are happening in. I wont mention the name but most traveled divers know him or of him. donated a bunch of failed tanks to a legit foreign organization. That organization then passed those tanks to I believe CUBA where their standards were such that the tanks were acceptable to use. Now after say 3-5 years one of those tanks goes south and a shop is demolished itw not because of the US standards but more the standards of the foreign entity. I say tihis because we should not be increasing our hesitating to review our standards based on incidents from others that have lower standards or no enforcement of those standards. Here is an example. When driving a 1050's car highway curves often say curve 45 mph. Now we are in the 2000's and cars have better suspensions adn much less weight and in reality the 45 mph is now over cautious and perhaps 55 or 65 mph wold be appropriate for todays vehicles and technology.

 

[dead dog]

Yeah, only way to get water inside a tank is through the compressor....

You can also get water in an empty tank with your regulator.

 

[Pavao]

I like the range of opiniions on when / how often tanks should be inspected. service conditions makes all the difference. One person says tanks go to crap in one year while another says every ten years is good for his tanks. I dont think we would ever want to go to 10 year intervals.

I think the same person said both things (me lol) and what was said is not what you’re saying was said

 

[Pavao]

You can also get water in an empty tank with your regulator.

I wasn’t agreeing with the comments earlier that said only way to get water inside the tank was through compressor, what you quoted was said with sarcasm, that’s why I used the pictures with salt inside the tanks, that’s a definitive proof for me that water got in there while these tanks were being used, like you said, water got there through the reg, by being breathed empty, or however low on gas it needs to be to let water in

 

[NAM001]

I think the same person said both things (me lol) and what was said is not what you’re saying was said

could very well be but the primis is still true. I could possibly go 10 years wit out a vis and it wold pass. but my tank is do not have the exposure that say rentals or tanks refilled at sea go through. and then my tank took one fill who knows when it happened on a fauly system and it was changed forever. for those that may question how i know that. I OWN THAT SYSTEM NOW FROM A CLOSED SHOP,,,,, because of that you wold not want to wait a long time between say casual modified inspectoin of the tank contents if nothing else. I used your ( as it turns out) comments to try to say both positions are correct for what that or those tanks have / has been through. But would not be the one rule fits all approach.

 

[Magnus Lundstedt]

.
As far as I know the visuals have been done on a yearly basis, catching all the problems BEFORE it becomes a catastrophic failure, so, how can one say it has no added safety benefit?

No, that is the missunderstanding.

The suggestion was to start doing them on a yearly basis.

Where I live we do visual every 5 years together with hydro.

 

[MichaelMc]

They get salt in from people who breath them down to nothing, this isn’t necessarily running out of air and having emergency, I can share a story or 2 with you on that.

On water intrusion into breathed dry tanks, how common was water intrusion in the golden pre-SPG age of CESA when your tank runs dry? I understand the o-rings release without pressure. Is it that every little descent forces water around the neck o-ring, while every ascent vents as the o-ring is not tight? And that now days people running their tank dry are then swimming around for a bit on the buddy/guide's tank, instead of an expeditious CESA?

 

[KenGordon]

Right, same here, I was asking for the details on their study and how they came to that conclusion.
As far as I know the visuals have been done on a yearly basis, catching all the problems BEFORE it becomes a catastrophic failure, so, how can one say it has no added safety benefit?

You can sample test all my ~30 tanks, VIP them in 10 year intervals if you wish, I promise you they won't fail, my test sample would conclude it's safe to adopt visual inspections on a 10 year interval?

They are not changing. It was 30 months before and it remains 30 months now. This is the U.K.