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[PfcAJ]

Do you have a link to the gas standards for balloon grade, or are there any?

 

[rjack321]

Just sayin... I was the supplier and what i wrote above is industry standard (and probably have more knowledge on the subject. p.s. there really is only 2 suppliers or mfg's of He in North America).
But feel free to use Balloon GRADE He or industrial O2! And when your not feelin so well, we can have a discussion on partial preasure and contaminants in your breathing gas

The only real contaminant of concern in industrial O2 is acetylene from someone not having check valves and draining the O2 with a full acetylene tank.

No supplier is tolerating water in their tanks, it kills their investment. Truly empty tanks are actually hard to have since the check valves on torches have a cracking pressure of a few psi which is enough. Not to mention you'd need to leave the valve open. And O2 is so silly dry that a couple of drops in the valve will evaporate into the inlet gas stream during filling.

We got mold in the air every day, but it requires water to grow anyway.

Mislabeling or mixing up an N2 or Ar tank and a He tank is a legitimate serious risk that people need to be aware of and test for.

 

[Pacific-Explorers]

thats the point, balloon gas (or grade) doesnt have a set standard. No checks and balances at the fill plant, cyl's are interchanged with other gases depending on cyl. demand. It isnt ment to be "injested" or "breathed". And again as He is so expensive, Balloon Grade for the most part is blended down with other cheaper gases.
So that gets back to the partial preasure thing. Although you as the consumer may do everything correctly when it comes to blending your mix, you may check your mix for basic content with your analyser etc. Its the contaminents that are going to get you. (and thats why you should always use gas of medical or aviation grade).

 

[rjack321]

thats the point, balloon gas (or grade) doesnt have a set standard. No checks and balances at the fill plant, cyl's are interchanged with other gases depending on cyl. demand. It isnt ment to be "injested" or "breathed". And again as He is so expensive, Balloon Grade for the most part is blended down with other cheaper gases.
So that gets back to the partial preasure thing. Although you as the consumer may do everything correctly when it comes to blending your mix, you may check your mix for basic content with your analyser etc. Its the contaminents that are going to get you. (and thats why you should always use gas of medical or aviation grade).

Not universal.
Suppliers here do not have a fleet of "clean cylinders" and seperate dirty ones. My supplier doesn't even have a "balloon grade" they just sell the same industrial tanks to balloon folks. They don't segregate these cylinders or treat them any different than the industrial, USP or the UHP for that matter. The USP, UHP just has a lot number and a paper trail. And that paper trail may not even be cylinder specific as they don't individually test every non-USP grade cylinder. They do test every USP grade cylinder but only because they have to. An "industrial" cylinder might be in USP or UHP service next month or vice versa though. They all get vacuumed before filling regardless of whether its being refilled with the same inert gas or a different one. O2 has a dedicated valve and never gets anything else in there intentionally. Supply gas contaminantion is really really trivial compared to the risks posed by our supposedly breathing air compressors.

 

[Pacific-Explorers]

The only real contaminant of concern in industrial O2 is acetylene from someone not having check valves and draining the O2 with a full acetylene tank.

No supplier is tolerating water in their tanks, it kills their investment. Truly empty tanks are actually hard to have since the check valves on torches have a cracking pressure of a few psi which is enough. Not to mention you'd need to leave the valve open. And O2 is so silly dry that a couple of drops in the valve will evaporate into the inlet gas stream during filling.

We got mold in the air every day, but it requires water to grow anyway.

Mislabeling or mixing up an N2 or Ar tank and a He tank is a legitimate serious risk that people need to be aware of and test for.

Yup agree somewhat, the reg's and torches have/need a few psi which keeps alot of stuff out. The problem is in storage of the empty cylinder at the welding shop in question. Most storage areas for the MT cyl's are outside and it would really surprise you how many valves are left wide open (rain, snow, bugs & dust). Kinda frustrating from a supplier point of view. And the cyl's are not visually inspected before each fill, so a bad cyl. can continue to be a bad cyl for some time until caught. (this is industrial grade).
Kinda like leaving your steel scuba cyl's empty and wide open... they wont look so good on the inside after a week or two in the salt air!

 

[Pacific-Explorers]

Not universal.
Suppliers here do not have a fleet of "clean cylinders" and seperate dirty ones. My supplier doesn't even have a "balloon grade" they just sell the same industrial tanks to balloon folks. They don't segregate these cylinders or treat them any different than the industrial, USP or the UHP for that matter. The USP, UHP just has a lot number and a paper trail. And that paper trail may not even be cylinder specific as they don't individually test every non-USP grade cylinder. They do test every USP grade cylinder but only because they have to. An "industrial" cylinder might be in USP or UHP service next month or vice versa though. They all get vacuumed before filling regardless of whether its being refilled with the same inert gas or a different one. O2 has a dedicated valve and never gets anything else in there intentionally. Supply gas contaminantion is really really trivial compared to the risks posed by our supposedly breathing air compressors.

holy crap thats alot of work for your local fill plant to evacuate every cylinder. Hats off to them if thats how they are conducting buisness! they would be the exception to the rule thats for sure! (edit here: around here all ind. O2 cyl's are separate from med or aviation by color).
For the O2, yes the chance of contamination that will make you sick would be really rare (like you said they all use dedicated valves). And as mentioned, 02 is all filled on the same bank... on comes with cert sheets, one doesnt. (and for the most part its just a lot number).

 

[Pacific-Explorers]

Well I guess instead of trying to convince everyone i should just have posted the material data sheet... here is it... note up to 10% nitrogen is allowable in balloon gas.
View attachment Balloon_Helium_EN.pdf

 

[PfcAJ]

So would it be a reasonable assumption to say that if it analyzes as 100% He then its 100%ish Helium and more or less kosher for scuba? Ya, usual caveats apply, of course.

Also, are Canadian standards different then US standards?

 

[Pacific-Explorers]

If I was a betting guy...
I would assume that 100%ish is pretty good (again putting aside scale, rust, mosture content etc.... which have there own set of issues).
The material data sheets are suppose to be good on both sides of the border, but that being said... rjack's supplier is refilling all the same cyl's and the ones that have to be of a higher quality are then analized (but the guy is having to evacuate all cyl's before filling).... from the buisness end of things (the gas buisness) usually is in responce to a cyl. shortage at the plant and they have to "diversify" there cyl. inventory depending consumer requirements.
Not sure if the rules are different from country to country (kinda doubt it) but think it has more to do with supply and demand issues in a much bigger picture.

 

[amascuba]

Do you have a link to the gas standards for balloon grade, or are there any?

At least with my local gas supplier, balloon grade is the same thing as industrial grade which is supposed to be 99.9% pure.