Real-life Equipment Failures

[Shcubasteve]

failures

I’ve come across some equipment failures recently that I would like to share with the group. I’ve seen plenty more but never thought to take pictures.

Example one: RUSTED Steel tanks. Within ONE YEAR this kind of damage happened to two different tanks. I’m not sure exactly what the customer subjected his cylinders to, but for sure they were condemned. Make sure your LDS takes the boot off

Example Two: Broken lever from an Aqualung Micra. An older style regulator that probably wasn’t cares for correctly. Customer said he was underwater and all of a sudden had NOTHING! he calmly switched to his octo and aborted the dive. Sure enough, the lever fractures off!

Ill try to update this thread as I find more equipment problems worth sharing

Steve W

 

[syntaxerrorsix]

Holy poop! Someone brought those in for a hydro or VIP?

We use to see steel tanks with internal surface rust from sucking bottles dry or leaving them open in the garage for years on end. Those look like they were salvaged from the river.

By far the biggest equipment failure I've repaired or dealt with are 1. O-rings 2. Leaking second stages.

 

[muddiver]

That cylinder looks like some of the ship hulls I've inspected. Could be that the cylinder was stored outdoors in or near a marine environment standing up right in its boot, and never moved.

 

[Amphiprion]

That seems like an excessive amount of corrosion. Perhaps the guy had them stored in bilge water on a big boat with some current from the bilge pumps getting into the water? I've seen some pretty bad corrosion on sailboats where the mast is bolted to the keel from that type of situation, but nothing like those tanks - although I suppose the alloy was different.

 

[Roko]

Wow, those tanks scare me... I've added removing the boot to the hosing-down repertoire of my tanks if I'm not going to be using them for a while.... I don't know what I'd do if anything happened to my precious HP100s.

 

[Shcubasteve]

Holy poop! Someone brought those in for a hydro or VIP?.

These tanks were brought in FOR FILLS!
They were proudly displaying a now out-of-business shop's inspection sticker from 11 months prior. go figure. My Shop inspected them three years prior without incident. While dragging them around for bleed-off, i noticed LOTS of rust all over the floor. It didnt take long to trace it back to these tanks.. scary stuff

 

[h90]

Recently I dove with a Dive Center. Alu tanks.
Next inspection should be 1998.
They go with an inflatable boat to their dive boat.
Having their a scuba tank with hose for watering flowers (no first stage) to refill the boat while going 200 meter as it leaks that much.

All the tanks I have seen leak from the neck so from all the tanks on the boat you can use only half after checking the pressure.

Most scary dive center ever seen (Asia). If they would have steel tanks they would look the same....

 

[Zodiacdiverdave]

Thanks for sharing the info with us. I use mostly steal tanks and usually take the boots of when I rinse then down, but lately I have been slack doing that. These photos really drive home the importance of that practice.
I use a piece of 1x4 lumber about 2 ft long to remove the boots. By sliding the end of the wood down the tank while holding the tank a few inchs above the ground and turning the tank to evenly remove the boot it comes off really quickly.
ZDD

 

[OneRestlessNative]

Can't you just hit them tanks with a wire brush and some krylon?

Quite a few years back in Sebastian, Florida. I remember hearing about a tank that exploded blowing out the side of the building and killing the fill attendant. I never heard the reason for the failure or what kind of tank it was.

 

[elmer fudd]

I just bought a pair of tanks on e-bay, one of which looked just like that. The thing is, you couldn't tell until you knocked the boot off and scraped off the paint that was hiding the damage. Under the boot there were a few small holes in the paint, (dime sized or smaller), and the rest of the paint was just a bit lumpy, so it really didn't look that bad. Once I took a screwdriver to the holes in the paint however the real extent of the damage became clear. The salt water had gotten in under the paint, migrated and over a period of years had destroyed the tank. As I scraped the mostly intact paint off, chunks of paint mixed with flakes of rust the size and thickness of silver dollars came off of the tank. Afterward, I actually did take a wire brush to it, just to confirm that the tank really was bad. It was. There were pits 1/8" deep or more in several places.

Fortunately, I got the tanks very cheap, ($53 for both including delivery), so I'm not out too much money for the bad tank.