What happens if you use a regular regulator with 100% oxygen?

[Curt Bowen]

I am really surprised to hear you say that. The logic behind O2 cleaning is to reduce the probability of a fire by removing contaminates. You are just one data point. My uncle used to smoke 2 packs of Lucky Strikes a day for decades, lived into his mid 90s and never had problems with his lungs. His experience doesn't mean that cigarettes are safe.

Did his family die early from second hand smoke?

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[Aotus]

This article may interest you:

Oxygen Clean - Is a Myth • ADVANCED DIVER MAGAZINE • By Bart Bjorkman

 

[Freewillow]

Nothing, Ive been using standard regulators with 100% O2 for 25 plus years.

Most likely what you are saying is true. But most certainly your statement is dangerous. It is not because you have excaped from it, that there is no potential danger in it.

 

[Curt Bowen]

Most likely what you are saying is true. But most certainly your statement is dangerous. It is not because you have excaped from it, that there is no potential danger in it.

Do you remember when sex was safe and diving was dangerous?

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[Diver0001]

Thanks for the question.

It's an issue that bothers me since I read years ago about a combustion of an Atomic Titan 1st stage.

I tried to image how that could happen,even given the fact that Titan might be more easily ignitable than brass, but didn't understand how.

I mean, how I learned it, you need for a combustion the combustion triangle.

So you need a fuel, which could be any type of contamination, means mostly carbohydrates.

You need an oxidizer, which would be the O2.

And you need heat, which comes while filling a tank for example in form of so called adiabatic heating.

I remember this incident. The Atomic regulator wasn't made from brass. It was made from titanium. In the presence of a catalyst, titanium can spontaneously combust (begin to burn due to an extremely energetic exothermic reaction -- so there's your heat) within the parameters found inside the HP side of the regulator when exposed to pure oxygen. Both the fuel source and the source of the heat is the self-ignition of the titanium. From what I've read titanium will only do this when damaged (cracked) but all alloys of titanium will burn like this.

I've never heard of a brass regulator catching fire like that and I've seen some pretty "dirty" ones put on deco bottles.

R..

 

[Superlyte27]

Nothing, Ive been using standard regulators with 100% O2 for 25 plus years.

I have 17 regulators, ranging from the cheapest Oceanic to the most expensive Apek. There's Dive Rite, Hollis, Poseidon and everything in the middle thrown inbetween. ALL of them are used for 100% O2, depending on what the dive is and which regs I happen to grab at that time.

I have been unable to find a single service manual that advises a different overhaul procedure for one regulator over another. They all should be cleaned the same.

This Oxygen Clean regulator thing was a "money grab" by Oceanic nearly 20 years ago. And people bought into it. Oceanic made two regulators. One had green banding on it and was said to be O2 cleaned. The other had black banding and was not Oxygen ready. Do you know what the difference was? The band color and $100. The service kits were identical, the overhaul procedure exactly the same. But people bought into it. And it stuck. Today some people still literally buy into this nonsense.

I've been diving 100% Oxygen since 1996. I haven't blown myself up yet.

 

[ams511]

Did his family die early from second hand smoke?

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My Aunt, his wife, is still alive, she is in her 90s now. They never had children. My aunt never smoked.

 

[axxel57]

Thanks everybody, I'm cleaning regulators O2 clean quite often for my customers, but I never really understood what for.

Okay, it makes me some extra money, but asking why they think they need this special cleaning for their regulators, they give me similar answers like I heard here.

For me they still don't make much practical sense, my understanding of the danger that regulators might be able in normal use to catch fire seems to be different and I would also after the comments for O2 cleaning in this thread not hesitate to use one of the regulators I have cleaned with my normal procedure with pure oxygen.

I'm sure that there might be a way to make a brass 1st stage catch fire in laboratory tests, means to produce a significant amount of heat within one or two inch from a source of significant cold, the tank valve, but for me that would sound more like a very unprobable freak accident in real life if you use normal caution.

Anyway, thanks a lot to everybody answering my question........

 

[Superlyte27]

Use the wrong lube, it'll catch fire easily. But I've yet to see a service manual recommend lubing with silicone lube.

 

[sealark]

Here's a picture of a fitting in my O2 system that exploded from heat of compression when I opened an O2 valve to fast. No one was hurt but my pants were full of crap. I also have been using a non O2 Clean Conshelf regulator for 30 years without incident. Just open the valve slowley at first and use Cristo Lube when working on O2 systems.