HI gang. I have been reading and this has been the most productive forum so far that I can find on the issue and in search of some answers. I hope you don't mind me coming into your world to ask these questions.
My dept had sent in 8 bottles to be checked and all 8 come back condemned for sustained-load cracking ( SLC ).This bottles are made of 6351 alloy and have has been known to develop cracking in the threads.After the bottles were returned I sent in 4 of my newer bottles and they also come back condemned for SLC failures. Now these bottles are made of 6061 alloy and have no known problems for SLC.
As most fire departments would of done I moved on and notified my city council due to this problem and what this cost this would do to my very small budget. I could not accept that 10 bottles from our dept were bad. So begin asking local departments and 2 of our mutual aid departments has had same problem this year for same reasons.I then went to a popular fire forum and again another dept from Western Iowa had posted same issue with SLC as had a few other states as well. I contacted this Chief and found out that they had used same vendor and had claimed same reason for failure.
My next step was to talk to Luxfer and in detail he reassured me that 6061 alloy bottles should not have been condemned and that it was highly unlikely that ours and the other Dept's bottles would have had condemned bottles as the have done many test on 6351 bottles. Luxfer is stating 3 things
1) person doing test does not know what he is doing 2) That they were using outdated software to perform test or 3) just trying to sell new bottles.
Luxfer did say that they discovered a flaw in old version of software that was giving false positives and for the tech this would be one reason for condemning bottles per DOT,but that tech has other ways to double check for this before placing out of service. Luxfer also noted that they have never seen a bottle with 12 cracks as one of our is to have and along with 4 with 5 cracks and several with just 2 cracks. They said out of 1000 bottles tested the might find 1 with just one crack in threads.
Luxfer recommended taking bad bottles in for a 3rd party test.Which is were they are now at a scuba shop in des moines.When I dropped them off this tech stated that there is no way other vendor could of have done test as dirty as the threads were and spent 5 minutes cleaning one bottle that had 12 cracks in the threads as reported from other vendor.When he was done his white rag looked like he had just changed his motor oil. He could not perform test as his probe had been broken and he awaits new probe.
So while waiting for results it was eating at me that possibly it was the software so I called Visual Plus and again they also stated that there is no way 10 out of 12 bottles could have SLC failure and again said what Luxfer had told me about use of outdated software and that a updated version had been released, and that no way 6061 bottles would have SLC failures let along this many Dept's in Iowa . Visual Plus said they would like to see my SCBA bottle files from the vendor as I have no why of knowing what version they were using.
So I call vendor and ask directly for the tech.Tech claims they changed testing due to a new DOT requirement using visual eddy current.
Tech also claims they update software in January and July and my tests were done in May.The other known Dept's also had testing done earlier this year.
I asked for my SCBA bottles files and yet have received them.
Now we have two issue's here 6351 bottles and 6061 alloy bottles.
Luxfer states in the FAQ section of the website that 6061 should not be failing for SLC and this is what vendor is claiming this is what is wrong with bottles.So why is vendor failing bottles when manufacturer said they should not be ? I also need to point out that our 6061 bottles were still under warranty but had to wait 2 months for replacement bottles then charged a $15.00 shipping charge.
Luxfer also states in FAQ page "On Luxfer 6061-alloy cylinders, eddy-current devices sometimes show harmless "indications" that lead to "false-positive" readings for SLC. Well it's may not be harmless to them but our Dept and comsumers need not have to pay for devices mistakes by buying repalcement bottles.
6351 bottles have a low failure rate per Luxfer but has no warranty as Luxfer discontinued use of 6351 alloy in June 1988.
If these 6351 were actually good they are not now due to dot #'s being stamped out and can never be refilled giving us no choice but to buy replacement bottles.
I think that the problem is in the software and that vendor had not kept up with updates thus creating 100's of bottles being placed out of service for SLC within our state with no reimbursement or credit.
If this is the case we would have many departments with no bottles or funds to purchase new bottles ($450.00) each thus creating a safety issue.
So who is right on this issue ?
Is vendor just trying to sell bottles ?
Luxfer covering their butt ?
Software company having a known flawed product.
All the above ?
If this is happening here what is happening across America at fire departments and scuba divers expense.
Can anyone advice when the Current Software Version: 3.7.3.1 for visual plus 3 went into affect ?
Please Advice
