Does Nitrox kill brain cells?

[DaleC]

Paragraph one was directed to you, paragraph two was not (sorry for the confusion).

The term "reinventing the wheel" is just a figure of speech and I think I've explained it enough. Don't take it as a criticism. There's nothing wrong with wanting to calculate MOD's via formulas. Performing the calculation is (to me) an unneccisary step because it has already been performed. If I have the chart right in front of my eyes when I'm analyzing the tank why would I choose to ignore it in order to calculate my own values?

Having said that, I think different people think in different ways and place different values on different processes. Most of my professional life has involved problem solving of various biological/mechanical systems and flora/fauna ID. Formula memorization serves me no useful purpose so I place little value in it. YMMV (always wanted to type that).

 

[miketsp]

Practically speaking, I would think that the vast majority of recreational divers certified to dive Nitrox, simply test (or rely on the shop's testing) their fill to determine the O2 mix then program that number into their computers and trust the MOD it displays.
..snip..

I must admit I do this with my SUUNTO. I check it's set to the max PPO2 I want and then it automatically gives me the MOD when I adjust the Nitrox setting. Although since I dive metric, it's very easy to do a sanity check mentally.

..snip..
Should they know the formulas? Sure, but if you consider that most recreational divers rarely dive sites that are deeper than the MOD would permit and almost never hit a NDL, I doubt many ever manually calculate the mix to determine the MOD.

Since I do a lot of diving in the range 30 - 46m I find the use of the word "most' strange for both statements.
"Most" divers I go out with ask for a mix on the limit and since the source is not banked, there's often quite a tolerance so MOD will be away from the bottom.
"Most" divers I go out with are hitting NDL with 1/2 tank remaining.

..snip..
As for practices around the world, I have dived with nitrox in quite a few places, and I have seen a very wide range of practices. In a large percentage of the dives I have done in resort areas, divers tested their tanks while setting up my gear and preparing to enter the water, and no one slaps a tag on the tank at that point.
..snip..

Agree, "most" times I check the mix on the run out, while setting up - but we still label. It's a good habit. We also normally do a consistency check of the measurement. Quite often, with the boat bouncing around, one person will measure while the others watch and check that he labelled correctly and then after completing the lot he will re-measure the first one he did in the lot. If the reading matches you know there was no drift. If it doesn't you need to find out why.

 

[muddiver]

Because tissue loading takes a huge spike at 1.5, and then again at 1.6

Can you cite a reference for that, I am interested in the reason/information.

 

[BHB ScubaTroll]

Can you cite a reference for that, I am interested in the reason/information.

I guess the most known would be NOAA since all dive related classes have there roots there

You can see the spike at 1.5 is not drastic, unless compared to the increases before, but the increase at 1.6 is off the scale