DIY pressure pot alternatives

[pjones]

Give it a try, but you may see leaking past the gasket if the cover deforms. You might be able to make a strong back or reinforce the lid in some way if this occures.

Of course, you could just go out into 200' water and drop it what you want to test on a line.

Why do you have to be so practical? It takes ALL the fun out of building a pressure device!

 

[Ed Palma]

Give it a try, but you may see leaking past the gasket if the cover deforms. You might be able to make a strong back or reinforce the lid in some way if this occures.

Of course, you could just go out into 200' water and drop it what you want to test on a line.

In terms of gasket pressure, the pot I have has the screw down lid, as opposed to the bayonet type with lugs Hopefully, if I screw it down tight enough, the freshened up gasket should work. If it does deform, well, it would've been a fun project.

Why drop it on a line when you can accompany it?

 

[Ed Palma]

Give it a try, but you may see leaking past the gasket if the cover deforms. You might be able to make a strong back or reinforce the lid in some way if this occures.

You were right.

I've shelved the pressure cooker as an option. Gilldiver called it correctly. Even with a new gasket, the lid would noticeably flex causing leaking . Most I ever got it to was about the equivalent of 15 feet (according to the depth gauge I tested).

So I scrounged around for another alternative and came up with this:

I call it my desktop pressure pot. I found some old water filter housings - some are rated up to 125 PSI, and attached a PSI gauge and a QD to attach to my small 13 CF tank. the housing cost all of 5 dollars. Its actually my mkII. I had another one but since I was using a modified o-ring (actually surgical tubing) I wasn't able to engage all the threads when screwing down the lid which led to 2 incidences of - uh... rapid decompression

This thing is small with limited things that can fit inside. I use a Gopro HD camera, so it fits nicely inside. So does my computer. So do my lights. I guess its just big enough for my needs I've tested my housing to the equivalent depth of 150ft. I've pressurized the pot up to 80psi with no leaks, but since I dont intend to dive up to 180 anytime soon, this is the limit I'll impose on the pot.

 

[pjones]

Thanks for the follow up, I was wondering how things were going. Glad to see you found something that works and It even looks nice!

 

[Pao]

Just made my own pressure pot trying to salvage my leaky Fantasea housing. I also used a water filter housing rated to 100 psi (one using 4.5" x 10" filters so it can fit my camera housing) with working pressure of up to 80 psi (not too sure about this but this is what is on the label). I am using a 1/2 inch shower/bidet hose attached to my shower pipe after removing the shower head. Believe it or not the water in my condo reaches 70 psi early in the morning and average pressure is 45-60 psi. The setup leaks a little but I found out that by adjusting the "leak rate" I can adjust pressure from 40 to 70 psi ( 90-160 fsw). You can get all the parts at handyman except for the pressure gauge which I got from Binondo at 150PHP. Downside is that the housing is opaque PET so I can't see what is happening inside. I also wont risk my dive computer in there as rapid decompression can occur which may damage the sensor. I was thinking of a flow restrictor in the future to avoid rapid pressure changes and a smaller but transparent polycarbonate housing (like Doc Ed's).

 

[Pao]

Update: My camera housing did not make it :depressed: . Tested it at 60 psi (~140 fsw) for 45 minutes.

 

[Ed Palma]

Have you tried marine epoxy on your housing? Not nice to look at, but it works

I've had my computer and my watch in the pot several times and rapidly decompressed them. Sure the alarms go off, but so far, they've managed pretty ok.

Oh, my watch is an Aqualand II. Here's a stock photo:

I've also found the the DIY pressure pot to be very useful when demo-ing some of the old regs I sell off:
[video=youtube;IJ_CrGLz7xI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ_CrGLz7xI[/video]

Oh, and I don't normally hold the pot when pressurizing. I was taking the video for someone who couldn't meet-up to buy the reg, so I wanted to show it in working form. As I've stated before, my mkI pressure pot "rapidly decompressed" twice because of user error.

 

[Ed Palma]

Hey Pao,

You can also try lining your camera housing with tissue paper first to see if its just the crack leaking or if the button o-rings are leaking as well. The wet parts will sorta localize the leaky bits.

Why do you have your pot in a bucket of water?

 

[Pao]

I used colored paper (easier to see). It is the o-ring groove. The screws holding the SS clasp is directly under the o-ring groove. There is a bump and several cracks over the screw. It was leaking. But it was a good thing. I found out that I can regulate the pressure with the leaks. When I fixed the leaks it was a;ways at max pressure.

 

[Ed Palma]

If you open the tap slowly, it might work. I initially used one of my extra regs and changed the IP down to around 80 PSI to prevent overpressurizing the pot. Then I just switched to one regularly tuned to 140 and just opened the tank very slowly til I got to my desired depth.