Ok, here is the story. Maybe I'm a little anal when it comes to tank fills and such, but here is what happened to me this afternoon.
I took my two relatively new PST E7-120s into a local shop here to get O2 cleaned. When I had bought them originally, they were approved for pre-mix, but since there aren't too many shops that bank pre-mix around here, I figured I'd be better off getting the tank and valves O2 clean.
Anyway, was at the shop. Good group of people, very knowledgeable. Great fill station (all certs in order, Z180.1, Maxxam tested, etc). The tanks and valves were broken down, cleaned, etc, and re-assembled.
Now there were 2 guys in the shop. One guy who worked at the shop did the cleaning of the tanks and valves, and did the initial fill. There was another guy who wasn't really an employee of the shop, but did work for them (presumably on a contract basis). He was in the back room doing visuals, tumbling tanks, etc. He even told me at one point that he does hydros on tanks.
Long story short, some customers came into the shop and the first guy got busy and asked the 2nd guy (the non-employee) to get my tanks for me. All he had to do was shut off the fill valve and bleed the lines. So I follow him into the fill room.
He asks me what I want my tanks filled to. So I said 3442, which is the service pressure. He proceeds to open up the fill valve more. At first, I thought he was going to overfill them a bit and let it cool. No problem, I thought. The tanks are pretty new and are rated for 10% over-fill. I was watching the fill gauge at this point. 3500 .... 3600 .... 3700....
When the guage hit about 3600 and he didn't turn it down or off, but rather cracked it open even more, I started to get worried. Then when it hit 3700 I knew something was not right, and then it hit 3800 when I said "what the hell are you doing?? It's almost at 4000 psi!!". At that point he looked at the guage and said "no it isn't". And I said "yes it is!!". He then shut the valve off and had a closer look at the guage.
The fill guage has 2 sets of markings. One is PSI, one is millibars. He was reading the wrong markings. The other guy (the employee) must have heard the commotion and came into the fill room and asked what was going on. I said my tanks were overfilled to almost 4000 psi. He bled them down and explained that it would be no problem as the tanks probably didn't really get that high as the lines pressurize higher than the tank itself at first (which makes sense otherwise the tank would not fill).
My question is this. Do I have anything to worry about? I don't like the idea that my tanks were overfilled to nearly 4000 psi. These are brand new and I would be severly pissed if they didn't pass their first hydro in another four+ years.
If I hadn't have said anything, my tanks might have been filled to 350 bar.
I took my two relatively new PST E7-120s into a local shop here to get O2 cleaned. When I had bought them originally, they were approved for pre-mix, but since there aren't too many shops that bank pre-mix around here, I figured I'd be better off getting the tank and valves O2 clean.
Anyway, was at the shop. Good group of people, very knowledgeable. Great fill station (all certs in order, Z180.1, Maxxam tested, etc). The tanks and valves were broken down, cleaned, etc, and re-assembled.
Now there were 2 guys in the shop. One guy who worked at the shop did the cleaning of the tanks and valves, and did the initial fill. There was another guy who wasn't really an employee of the shop, but did work for them (presumably on a contract basis). He was in the back room doing visuals, tumbling tanks, etc. He even told me at one point that he does hydros on tanks.
Long story short, some customers came into the shop and the first guy got busy and asked the 2nd guy (the non-employee) to get my tanks for me. All he had to do was shut off the fill valve and bleed the lines. So I follow him into the fill room.
He asks me what I want my tanks filled to. So I said 3442, which is the service pressure. He proceeds to open up the fill valve more. At first, I thought he was going to overfill them a bit and let it cool. No problem, I thought. The tanks are pretty new and are rated for 10% over-fill. I was watching the fill gauge at this point. 3500 .... 3600 .... 3700....
When the guage hit about 3600 and he didn't turn it down or off, but rather cracked it open even more, I started to get worried. Then when it hit 3700 I knew something was not right, and then it hit 3800 when I said "what the hell are you doing?? It's almost at 4000 psi!!". At that point he looked at the guage and said "no it isn't". And I said "yes it is!!". He then shut the valve off and had a closer look at the guage.
The fill guage has 2 sets of markings. One is PSI, one is millibars. He was reading the wrong markings. The other guy (the employee) must have heard the commotion and came into the fill room and asked what was going on. I said my tanks were overfilled to almost 4000 psi. He bled them down and explained that it would be no problem as the tanks probably didn't really get that high as the lines pressurize higher than the tank itself at first (which makes sense otherwise the tank would not fill).
My question is this. Do I have anything to worry about? I don't like the idea that my tanks were overfilled to nearly 4000 psi. These are brand new and I would be severly pissed if they didn't pass their first hydro in another four+ years.
If I hadn't have said anything, my tanks might have been filled to 350 bar.
