Purchasing emergency oxygen bottles

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2airishuman

Contributor
Messages
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Location
Greater Minnesota
# of dives
100 - 199
I recently came across a handful of O2 bottles for sale that now belong to the family of someone with a long history of respiratory illness. They are aluminum medical O2 bottles with the usual pin-index valve. A couple of regulators are included.

I know how expensive the DAN kits are, so this seems like a good purchase.

How do I make sure I'm not purchasing a leased cylinder?

What kinds of problems am I going to run into getting these filled?
 
It doesn't really matter. I like buying leased cylinders, because it transfers responsibility for hydro test back to the leasing facility. For me, it works like this: I buy (private sale) a O2 cylinder. It has Airgas' name on it. I take it into Airgas and they credit me for return of a rental. I get my next rental and they don't charge me rent, because I returned the rental. I do this with ABO as well as my Jumbo D cylinders, and I never pay for hydro on anything but Helium cylinders.

I don't know the local requirements in Minnesota, In Florida you have to have a prescription yada yada yada. In Texas I could buy medical all day long. Depends on where I am the requirements, so go into your local gas house and ask them. Find a gas house that fills their own medical cylinders, life is usually easier with them. Most gas houses fill welding, but not all fill medical.
 
unlikely to be able to find out whether they are leased, though they will occasionally have the owner stamped into the neck like cascade bottles.

If your dive shop has the ability to fill them, then you won't have any problem if you have some sort of emergency O2 administration cert or something like advanced nitrox. If not, and you have the certs *only the emergency O2 admin, advanced nitrox doesn't matter to gas suppliers*, then the gas companies should fill them per a FDA ruling. If they don't, but you have the certs, a doctor should write an Rx for you for emergency use and that will get the gas guys to fill them. If you don't have the certs, you're SoL.
 
Thanks. Am I better off characterizing this as ABO? I have a pilot's certificate also.
 
you can try, but since I think the valves are different for aviation *not a pilot*, I don't know if they'll fill a medical bottle with aviator. Never tried because I don't fill the medical bottle I have through the gas companies.
 
I only filled rebreather (and scuba) cylinders with ABO, never a medical O2 bottle. Of course, I was a commercial charter, therefore did not want to have the label and the contents differ.

And for T-bone, All O2 cylinders I've ever run across have the same CGA fitting, be them medical, ABO or welders.
 
I only filled rebreather (and scuba) cylinders with ABO, never a medical O2 bottle. Of course, I was a commercial charter, therefore did not want to have the label and the contents differ.

And for T-bone, All O2 cylinders I've ever run across have the same CGA fitting, be them medical, ABO or welders.

Those smaller medical bottles often have post valves instead of the normal CGA. You need a special adapter to fill these. Some scuba shops have the adapter and will fill them (ex - Northeast scuba) - others do not

Meret: Oxygen Cylinders, Empty - D Oxygen Cylinder W/ Z Valve
 
Those smaller medical bottles often have post valves instead of the normal CGA. You need a special adapter to fill these. Some scuba shops have the adapter and will fill them (ex - Northeast scuba) - others do not

Meret: Oxygen Cylinders, Empty - D Oxygen Cylinder W/ Z Valve
Yes, of course. I meant that all of the big O2 bottles (T's, 300's, 240's, etc) all come with CGA540 valves. Smaller consumer use bottles (D's, Jumbo D's, E's) come with CGA870 valves. I happen to have a CGA870 adapter, but only filled my medical O2 bottles from a Medical O2 source. I would never put welding or OBA in a marked Medical O2 bottle.
 
fwiw I believe that ABO is a higher specification than Medical O2. According to the AOPA, the ABO specification is the same as medical with the addition of a more stringent dewpoint limit due to the risk of line freezeup in aircraft with built-in oxygen systems where portions of the system may not be in the climate controlled portion of the cabin.

Most aviation systems use CGA-540 cylinder valves with the built-in systems typically having an external fill port with a Schrader-type fitting on it. A few of the portable systems use CGA-870.

Some aviation sources offer cylinders with low-profile valves: http://www.deltaoxygensystems.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/540valves.jpg but they are still CGA-540

I dunno. Maybe I should just convert my LP53 since it isn't much use for diving. I would have to use a DIN valve, and getting fills could be a problem since I don't have a tech cert. Not sure if my local dive shop would fill that on the strength of a DAN emergency oxygen cert.
 

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