Can this be done?
- Thread starter domino22
- Start date
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Why?
The manifold is designed rugged to prevent it from being a failure point. If the manifold fails, you are gass and SOL. Flexable hose (and it's connections) would be far to prone to failure.
Also, how would you mount an isolation valve?
This has bad idea written all over it.
The manifold is designed rugged to prevent it from being a failure point. If the manifold fails, you are gass and SOL. Flexable hose (and it's connections) would be far to prone to failure.
Also, how would you mount an isolation valve?
This has bad idea written all over it.
The plan was to mount two 6 cuft ponys on each side of back plate forward of bladder. Plumb them together and have backup reg come off the one on the right side with second stage coming over right shoulder. Why I want to do this is for boat diving. Some boat tank racks would require removal of a pony if mounted on your main tank. Right know I use a 13 cuft mounted upside down on the front side of back plate under my right arm. Causes a little roll to the right in the water and more weight on left side is not working real good. But with the 6 cuft ponys mounted on each side with SS adell clamps I would have balance and only lose 1 cuft of air. Follow me?
Yep, I agree. Either configure them as independent doubles or configure them as dual post manifolded doubles (there are pros and cons to the isolator valve, but my feeling is isolators are a good thing.)
In the relatively early days cross bars were designed to enable the speedy conversion of separate tanks to a twin configuration. nThese utilized a yokie connection one ither end of a bar with a valve and post in the middle. The whole thing fit between to normal K-valves and was normally secured using a wrench. But these connections were prone to leaks if the tanks were not aligned just right, the wrong bands were used, odd sized tanks were encountered, any flexing between tanks occurred, etc, etc, etc. Lenght was the critical issue and to work properly, you needed matched tanks, bands and valves all from the same company and designed to work with the crossbar. You can still frequently find these on e-bay for not much money.
Another earlier option that avoided the cross bar lenght and flex issues was a cross bar involving a semi-flexible pig tail shaped metal high pressure line between one of the yokes and the central post. This avoided problems due to flexing, but was not very rugged or reliable and was discontinued in favor of the stronger cross bar (and all its other probolems.
With a flexible hose connected to each valve (with a din or yoke connection I assume) you would have only one reg in the center and it would not be solidly supported and could potentially stress the hose. To do it any differently would involve machining the valves. The hose itself would need a fairly large internal diameter and a normal HP hose would not work as they are designed with very small air passages and relatively little air. A flexible hose capable of passing enough gas would be fairly large in diameter and would not be all that flexible, especialy when pressurized. By the time you got done with either the valves or the custom hose, post and connections, you'd have more invested in it than in a proper manifold or a set of travel bands.
In the relatively early days cross bars were designed to enable the speedy conversion of separate tanks to a twin configuration. nThese utilized a yokie connection one ither end of a bar with a valve and post in the middle. The whole thing fit between to normal K-valves and was normally secured using a wrench. But these connections were prone to leaks if the tanks were not aligned just right, the wrong bands were used, odd sized tanks were encountered, any flexing between tanks occurred, etc, etc, etc. Lenght was the critical issue and to work properly, you needed matched tanks, bands and valves all from the same company and designed to work with the crossbar. You can still frequently find these on e-bay for not much money.
Another earlier option that avoided the cross bar lenght and flex issues was a cross bar involving a semi-flexible pig tail shaped metal high pressure line between one of the yokes and the central post. This avoided problems due to flexing, but was not very rugged or reliable and was discontinued in favor of the stronger cross bar (and all its other probolems.
With a flexible hose connected to each valve (with a din or yoke connection I assume) you would have only one reg in the center and it would not be solidly supported and could potentially stress the hose. To do it any differently would involve machining the valves. The hose itself would need a fairly large internal diameter and a normal HP hose would not work as they are designed with very small air passages and relatively little air. A flexible hose capable of passing enough gas would be fairly large in diameter and would not be all that flexible, especialy when pressurized. By the time you got done with either the valves or the custom hose, post and connections, you'd have more invested in it than in a proper manifold or a set of travel bands.
domino22:
Got yea. I thought you were talking primary tank.
Even with the 6cf pony, you are probably better off with a reg on each. And it is probably cheaper. Since this is a backup, an inexpensive unbalance piston should do the job. You could mount them like an argon bottle to the back plate.
Personally I got tired of the balance of a pony, and switch to slinging it. It works much better, can't get entangle, and I take it off and stow it under the seat out of the way.
Just a thought.
V.
The setup I was thinking of would be like a double setup. But with no islolator,din valves and I would plug the left hand valve and hook the reg to the r/h valve. And still use a HP flex hose to connect them. Ya it could be a little $$,but some one should make a HP hose with a larger I/D than the normal size used on a console. Ok how about this could I use two first stages and plumb the low pressure sides together and use only one second stage. That way I could turn each pony on or off and breath off one at a time or with both open use both at the same time.
Actually, that almost sounds like it would work, but is not redundant. With the two tanks on, one will always drain first. You simply can't get the IPs close enought to get the valves to open together. The tank with the lower IP will drain, then the other. I'm not sure what the WOB would be like, and I'm not sure how the first will like back preasure. Could cause the HP seat to fail, and that is always bad.
I would still be inclinded to just connect two second stages.
I would still be inclinded to just connect two second stages.
check out the halcyon RB80 setup, they have done something similar to what you are describing by the sound of it
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