I bought a house in Lake City

[michael-fisch]

22 years after becoming a certified cave diver, I finally bought a house on a very quiet street in Lake City, Columbia County, Florida! 3 badrooms, livingroom, diningroom, kitchen, 2 baths, - w A/C, double garage and a quarter acre of yard.
So far I've had new shingles put on the roof, a split-lever Daikin A/C put in the garage with extra 220V and 110V outlets (for the dive gear n tools), the water oaks cut back so they no longer overhang the roof, 16" of insulation blown into the attic and replaced every 110V outlet with new.
Bought some furniture; leather couch set, diningroom table with 4 chairs, a new waterbed, washer n dryer and some odds and ends.
Now I'm back in Germany and will be busy retiring, arranging to ship all my dive gear and household goods to Florida and flying to my new home with "Kater", my 12 year old 17lb cat.
When I get back to Lake City in May, I'll need to buy a used minivan, replace my 220V household goods with 110V gear, buy some yard tools, a new shed for the yard and finish furnishing the house, after installing my mini mixed gas fillstation in the garage (Bauer Junior II, 10x 50L 300bar tanks full of Ar He and O2, multiple digital transfer hoses n fittings, Divesoft analyser, and VIP+ tester. Then buy a State Parks annual pass, and maybe pay Ginnie the $400 that they want for an annual pass. After I get a gas contract set up, I'll also need to buy a masterline electric O2 booster (anybody got a used one, O2 clean, for sale cheap?) so that I can continue to have and use 300Bar O2 with my rebreathers.
I'm a mile from Publix and DiveRite, on a quiet street with nice neighbors and I love it!

Michael

 

[tbone1004]

congratulations! finding a used masterline is going to be a bit difficult, they don't come up very often. Used haskel and a 80g shop compressor with good filter will easier and cheaper.
@LandonL may have a couple leads on cheap boosters in Florida. Are you moving there full time?

 

[rddvet]

Congrats. After searching for over a year for the right used masterline, I ended up buying new from masterline. Masterline cuts about 20% off the price for divers. Still expensive, but honestly all the used ones I found were only $1000-1500 cheaper than new. So new made sense for me.

 

[michael-fisch]

congratulations! finding a used masterline is going to be a bit difficult, they don't come up very often. Used haskel and a 80g shop compressor with good filter will easier and cheaper.
@LandonL may have a couple leads on cheap boosters in Florida. Are you moving there full time?

Yup, it's gonna be full time for me
as far as the Masterline goes, in the beginning I'll have around a year's supply of 300bar O2, so the electric booster won't become essential until summer of 21.

Michael

 

[tbone1004]

Yup, it's gonna be full time for me
as far as the Masterline goes, in the beginning I'll have around a year's supply of 300bar O2, so the electric booster won't become essential until summer of 21.

Michael

If you're stuck on a masterline, then you'll probably end up having to do what @rddvet did. If you're only filling CCR bottles though, I would recommend looking at the 3-phase version and purchasing a VFD. I can help you install it, but that way you can actually slow the booster down. A lot of people will put an O2 regulator on the supply bottle to slow the fill rate, but all it does is slow the CFM by increasing the compression ratio and subsequently the heat generated during boosting. I can't remember how big the motors are on them, but they're not terribly large so a VFD is going to be comparably priced to a good oxygen regulator for the bottle anyway.

 

[michael-fisch]

I think that Masterline specs the motors at 1 1/2 HP with either 110V or 220V standard with 3 phase available so using either a 1500W motor speed controller on 220 or a 3 phase VFD isn't gonna break the bank. Just how well do 1500W motor speed controllers do when used for hours on end (transfering bought Ts to my 50L 300Bar tanks) or should I use 220V to drive a 3 phase VFD?

Michael

 

[tbone1004]

I think that Masterline specs the motors at 1 1/2 HP with either 110V or 220V standard with 3 phase available so using either a 1500W motor speed controller on 220 or a 3 phase VFD isn't gonna break the bank. Just how well do 1500W motor speed controllers do when used for hours on end (transfering bought Ts to my 50L 300Bar tanks) or should I use 220V to drive a 3 phase VFD?

Michael

You're going to want a vfd for that.
The one I got for my rix is an Allen Bradley designed for 3hp with phase conversion from 220v 1p to 3p. Retail on them is around $600, but there are plenty of lower cost VFD's out there. They'll all have at least one analog switch capability as well to deal with a pressure switch.
Something like this at $200 will work. You could also change the pulleys on it, but if you're boosting into larger bottles, you may want to keep the ability to go full speed.
AC Drive, 2hp, 230V, Single Phase, 9.2A,

 

[michael-fisch]

OK, you've convinced me! Before I order a Masterline next year, I'll contact you in order to make sure that I don't screw up my order for the Masterline motor or the Fuji VFD. Mistakes can end up being quite expensive.

Thanks,

Michael

 

[rddvet]

I still don’t know much about vfd’s but wish I’d known anything about them before getting the masterline. The ability to slow the unit down would be nice. I love my unit. No big shop compressor or noise. Easy to use. It is a little fast for small bottles. I’m doing like masterline recommends and using the pressure regulator they recommend. It’s good for doin 2 small 3 liter ccr bottles, but like Tom said, the slower fill actually comes with more heat due to higher compression(something I was never warned about). Since I’m always filling more than one bottle it’s not a big deal, and I usually throw a 40 on the fill panel as well as an intermediary to slow it down. It’s not really necessary all the time though. If you’ve got all those banks it’s not going to matter unless you direct fill off of the booster. I currently don’t bank any gas other than a set of doubles I fill with trimix then top bailout with. I’d love to have some bank bottles but I just don’t have the room in the garage without moving a lot of stuff around

 

[michael-fisch]

Garages are for diving equipment and tools, cars are made to be parked elsewhere.
Can the Masterline be ordered with 2x 1/4"NPT-M inputs and 2x G5/8" F 200Bar DIN outputs or am I going to have to turn adapters?

Michael