Nitrox Stick Blend with Bauer Jr II v Safety

[mr_sav]

Hi,

I have a reasonably new Bauer Junior <12 hrs, shipped with Mineral Oil. Currently changing it over to synthetic oil. Hopefully a couple of flushes will not be an issue.

I have bought a Nitrox Blending Stik (Rigy Didge one). Can a Bauer Junior II handle (safely) continuous blending upto 40% or am I likely to blow myself up?

Unfortunately a few key safety people in Australia re: Dive Air Quality, and Bauer Distributor over here say no, do not do it.

Envirodive place a good case that it is safe,based on right tools, and the fact that they have been in business for over 10 years, not to mention DSAT/PADI publishing it as a recommended methodology.

The key point for me is the Bauer Junior II, Can it handle it?

I would like to hear comments, particuarly from BAUER JUNIOR II Owners who are Blending via a stik, if not already disintegrated themselves.

I appreciate input.

With gratitude in advance.

 

[pescador775]

A few years ago in Australia, there was an incident, widely reported on the net, of a filter canister exploding. The investigating body concluded that since the compressor had been overhauled, and that there could have been some residual oil left in the canister, that NITROX was being compressed at the time, an unsafe situation developed and that NITROX was the cause. Look, let's get real. These kind of safety panels, regardless of location in Aus, USA or elsewhere, excepting FAA crash investigators, are essentially committees of laymen, non specialists who have purview of a wide range of safety issues but are probably not expert in any. In the USA, following a couple of explosions of aluminum tanks it was concluded by an investigator that sustained load was the cause although any knowledgeable engineer could see the cause was cyclic loading of a defective alloy. Well, as a result of the report divers became convinced that any tank that was stored at full pressure was at risk which is nonsense. Australia seems to have a penchant for panicky and unrealistic assignment of cause and effect. For example, there is the requirement for yearly hydrostatic testing of SCUBA tanks. I mean, how careful does one have to be to be safe? There was the case of oil "fumes" in aircraft cockpits which kept a hundred people down under employed for years investigating and researching, and concluding nothing. This kind of stuff is exacerbated by the private contract structure of safety bodies in Australia. If they aren't finding new crap to worry about, and writing more restrictive rules, they don't collect a paycheck.

Pumping NITROX within the extremely simple and widely discussed precautions and guidelines is considered safe and that includes the Junior II. Briefly, this includes using a synthetic oil, maintaining filters, not running in excessive (above 35C) temps, and not exceeding inlet concentration of 40%.

 

[Surface Tension]

The Junior II can handle it.

Buy the Oxyhacker Companion. It has tons of great info.

I'll probably get in trouble for this but, look on thedecostop.com

There are a bunch of home blenders over there. Search the archives and you'll find tons of stuff.

How many tanks are you filling in a stretch? The Junior II is not continous rated, although I run it for a couple of hours straight with no problems. The hotter the ambient temp, the easier you should go with it. I would not try to fill a storage bottle with it though because you would be operating for so long at the high pressure.

Do you homework use common sense. It's a lot of fun.

Dave

 

[skippy31]

I'm not familiar with that blending stick, but as long as it's matched to the intake size of your compressor it should provide good mixing. The risk of using a stik too large for your compressor would be incomplete mixing of the O2 and air coming in.

Make sure to follow the guidelines already mentioned and you should not have any issues. I normally blend 32% exclusively to provide a little extra safety margin from the 40% threshold...

Mat.