Nitrox VIP Sticker not good enough?

[Genesis]

The fact remains that the "screaming Nitrox bands" do nothing.

Indeed, I bet there are dozens of mistakes made every year, and that dozens of air divers end up with nitrox of some composition in their tanks. It is a CERTAINTY without analysis and contents labels.

Now, why aren't people dying? Think about it folks. A 32% mix is perfectly breathable down to at least 120', and will likely not hurt you to 130'. How many people dive deeper than that as "sport divers" to start with?

So what are the odds that getting a tank full of Nitrox wold be noticed by an air diver? Nearly zero, right?

There 'ya go.

 

[chrpai]

The fact remains that the "screaming Nitrox bands" do nothing.

Don't confuse your opinion with fact. Thats half the damn problem around here.

 

[Genesis]

Don't confuse your opinion with fact. Thats half the damn problem around here.

Don't confuse yourself with facts and you can take any position and rationalize anything you'd like.

The facts are that the average sport diver who rents a tank of "air" that happens to have 32% Nitrox in it will not know the difference, PADI voodoo notwithstanding.

He/she will almost certainly dive that tank to less than 130', and be none the worse for wear as a consequence. Indeed, absent an O2 analyzer that diver will have no idea that it happened in the first place.

To argue that such bands "make people safer" when the facts are that there are likely dozens or even hundreds of times that Nitrox ends up in an "air" tank every single year without incident is to stick one's head in the sand and ignore the facts.

 

[MikeS]

The fact remains that the "screaming Nitrox bands" do nothing.

I don’t see how even you can make this statement. Of course they do something. They alert divers to the fact that there is potentially something other than air in the tank. Although there may be better ways to do so, this is the “industry excepted” way of doing so that has worked well for many years.

Mike

 

[chrpai]

The facts are that the average sport diver who rents a tank of "air" that happens to have 32% Nitrox in it will not know the difference, PADI voodoo notwithstanding.

He/she will almost certainly dive that tank to less than 130', and be none the worse for wear as a consequence. Indeed, absent an O2 analyzer that diver will have no idea that it happened in the first place.

To argue that such bands "make people safer" when the facts are that there are likely dozens or even hundreds of times that Nitrox ends up in an "air" tank every single year without incident is to stick one's head in the sand and ignore the facts.

The only way that would happen is because people like you use duct tape and your own compressors. In the normal world there wouldn't be any EAN in there in the first place because the tank is labeled for Nitrox service.

 

[chrpai]

I don’t see how even you can make this statement. Of course they do something. They alert divers to the fact that there is potentially something other than air in the tank. Although there may be better ways to do so, this is the “industry excepted” way of doing so that has worked well for many years.

Mike

He can make that statement, because there is a disturbing trend around here. There is a group of divers that have been told the agencies are stupid and dangerous. Sure some things could be improved, but the situation is not nearly as wrong and dangerous as they would think.

This group of divers is now an a Holier-then-though crusade to wrecklessly argue almost everything that the scuba industry teaches. Right or Wrong they will change every procedure, every gear configuration and proclaim their way correct, and the way that everyone else was taught wrong.

And the scary thing is this isn't being done by just scuba veterans of decades of experience. Its being done by newbies with sometimes only months and dozens of dives experience.

And its contagious because insecure people want to be with the in-crowd.

 

[Genesis]

I don’t see how even you can make this statement. Of course they do something. They alert divers to the fact that there is potentially something other than air in the tank. Although there may be better ways to do so, this is the “industry excepted” way of doing so that has worked well for many years.

Mike

But they don't alert the diver that the "air tank" he grabs might have something other than air in there! And there indeed might be!

Purporting to provide someone with security against something when you in fact don't provide that security is worse than doing nothing at all.

It tends, over time, to make people complacent. Complacency is what kills people.

There is a reason why OSHA requires that you LOCK OUT machinery that is not operating properly - not just put a sign on it, but physically lock the power to the unit in the OFF position.

The reason is that without POSITIVE steps to insure that the claimed "protection" is effective it is worse than not being there at all.

The one place that "Nitrox bands" make sense is on a rental tank fleet, in that they serve to permit INSTANTANEOUS identification of tanks that must be treated differently during the filling process. This is particularly true if you're PP filling those Nitrox tanks. There, I can understand the benefit.

 

[pt40fathoms]

Hey PT, yes I have worked with OW students, (But not 30:1 ratio, that's bad).

You're right, I never dove in MB.

But I LOVE poking fun at Winter-peg! It was fun in the summer (2 days of bad skiing), but beyond that, it certainly wasn't my cup of tea.

Single 80 to 365.........I usually use my 50cf for that depth, but I put the BS bands on it for those dives.

You have already been given wisdom by the likes of MHK etc. You aren't open to this wisdom, and as such, I can't help you.

As always, you are more than welcome to do whatever you want, the scuba police aren't gonna stop you, and I wouldn't begin to try either.

Regards.

First you assume that we dive in a shallow quarry, Bzzzt Wrong. Now you assume the student/instructor ratio is 30:1, Bzzzzt wrong again.

Your not doing very good, may I suggest you stick to facts.

As for MHK, I have no intention of bad mouthing him in any fashion what so ever. For the record Einstein was wrong on some matters, and I am free to disagree on "some" points that MHK, JJ, and GI have promoted. When I do so, it is with complete respect for them and their accomplishments. I'm sure they themselves have "updated" what they teach from time to time. I doubt very much they have achieved the status they have by forming an opinion and sticking to it till the bitter end when shown a better way. The big band that denotes a tank is nitrox is not for my benefit, but rather for the benefit of others. Most people do not live in a bubble, isolated from others, they interact and in that interaction they often share not only company but also material goods. If I am at a dive site and a buddy needs to borrow a tank for a dive, I am well certain that if he or she is in a rush to get ready, they will not mistake my Nitrox filled tanks for regular air. *I* would know which are EANx or not if I put a contents label on them and nothing else. However for me that’s not enough, I want to let *everyone* know they are EANx without any possible chance of error. I do this by putting a band on the tanks.

Now I have to agree however, that just because a tank is banded, does not mean they are O2 clean. However a VIS sticker (color matters not *for Genesis*) from a dive shop that states the O2 clean state of the tank is a step in the right direction. This still does not prevent the person from getting a fill from a suspect source and contaminating the tank. This type of irresponsible act is next to impossible to control. The answer to that problem is a long way from being solved. Hopefully the words “government” and “regulation” will not be part of the solution.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Actually from a prcess design prospective...

A process that says...
1, only "air" goes in thanks without a sticker.

2, All tanks with a sticker may have something other than air in them and mus be analyzed and given a contents tag and verified by the diver.

Is a perfectly valid system especially if the assumption is made that many fill stations can only provide "air" anyway.

If the capability of the process comes in question then additional controls or tests (not always both) need to be implemented. In this case the process seems perfectly capable. The thing that, IMO, most likely to render this process incapable is the fact that some refuse to follow it. If such a condition existed on a manufacturing line I would simply train or replace the oporators who refused to folloe the process because in this case it's more like sabotage. LOL Intentionally not following a process does not indicate that the process isn't capable.


If we follow some of the logic here and assume that any tank can contain any gas until proven otherwise then per existing conventions...

Every diver needs to be mixed gas trained because that's where a diver learns to analyze gas and determine MOD (min and max) and END and he will be required to sign a log verifying the mix and MOD for every fill.

You can't stop with analyzing O2 because we also use helium and any tank could contain it. Therefore each tank would have to be analyzed for helium content.

Sounds like a lot of trouble for fill station like the only two within 50 miles of me who are only equiped to pump air and don't have a gas blender on staff and don't own any analyzer.

 

[bwerb]

Alright...let's back-up and summarize, I'm getting a bit lost here.

Can someone please clearly answer these questions:

1.) Is there any concrete tank labeling standard that is more or less universally adhered to by all agencies/dive shops (for now, let's leave GUE out of this)?

2.) What exactly is this universal standard if there is one? Which stickers? Where adhered?

3.) Can someone tell just by looking at a tank labeled "Nitrox" in any way what is in it?

4.) Is there any label (not including the bands) on all tanks which would indicate that it had something other than air in it? Which label is this?

5.) If there is/are labels which are universally applied to all tanks and if there are universally applied formats for information regarding tank contents, why is it not taught to all OW students across the board?

If there is no universal standard and various different things are taught and adhered to on a regional or agency level. Then how can there ever be a consensus of the "right" way to do it.