And no, a burst disc didn't blow.
So, I went to a store I'd never been to, just down the road here from my college, UCF, and I won't name it. Netdoc reccomended one to me, but it's a good 35 minute drive and $5 in tolls, so I went to this closer one. Seems like a nice shop, really.
I set down my aluminum 100 doubles, and the guy seems to be looking for a hydrotest date. I point them out to him. Then I point out the VIP dates. He still looks confused.
"I've never seen tanks like these before."
"Oh, they are high pressure hundreds, (assuming that he'd noticed they were wider than 80s) you fill them to 33 hundred."
He seems satisfied by this, and drags them closer to the fill whip, as he says
"so I just hook them both up?"
"Um, no, just one. The isolator should be open."
"oh.....ok, so you just want one filled?"
"No, both...but....um, you just hook up one side. And you fill it like a normal tank, because the isolator is open."
"which side?"
"It doesn't matter....but the knobs turn differently, so just look to see which way to turn it."
So he hooks it up...... it's a 232 bar DIN manifold, and I'd noticed that out of the four whips, one of them was DIN with a yoke adaptor. I failed to notice how he'd hooked it up, until I hear a hiss. At this point, he gets all confused and starts saying something about needing an oring.
He'd hooked it up with the yoke adaptor. I don't have yoke inserts.
So I managed to explain how he need to take off the yoke adaptor, and it seems like he is getting them filled, finally. I tell him I'll come back so they'll be nice and full....I tell him I want them at 33 or higher.
He explains that his bank can only go to 33. I explain that'll be fine, just leave them to fill slowly once they are full, or top them off in a bit or whatever you want to do. I didn't quite understand that he was still confused.....
...so I go to Walmart and buy a bright orange recorder. Beautiful plastic instrument for 88 cents. I played it along with some hardcore metal stuff (Acts of Depression by Underoath) all the 5 minute trip back to the dive shop. I got wierd looks from other cars. I'm bad at playing the recorder, but I'll get better with practice.
...and I walk back in. The guy asks if I can come back and get them later.....he explains that "something burst." I ask for more explanation. He shows me how he'd hooked up one of those brass DIN to yoke fill adaptors to try and check the pressure with a yoke pressure guage. I tried it, and the oring on the brass piece extrudes when you turn the air on.
But we hook the tanks back up to his bank and I try to explain that if no air is moving from tanks to bank or from bank to tank, thehn the pressure guage on his banks is going to be exactly what my tanks pressure is. Then I manage to figure out that he'd filled them from a bank that read about 3200, and the other banks read higher, so I managed to top them off from another bank. He still wants me to leave them, because "you wanted them each filled to 3300, and I can't get the compressor to get higher than 3300, and if you have two tanks filled to 3300, shouldn't that be 6600? If you leave them till 6:30, an instructor is coming over who can figure out how to make it work."
I am so glad I didn't blow up a dive shop trying to get an air fill! He's an OW only diver who got a job with the shop after going on a trip with them....nice guy, I tried to explain to him how manifolds work and why you use one....mostly I'm just glad he didn't blow my tanks up trying to take them to 6600 psi.....
I also tried to explain that pressures don't add like that. And the guy said he was new, and wasn't allowed to fill nitrox yet.
So, I went to a store I'd never been to, just down the road here from my college, UCF, and I won't name it. Netdoc reccomended one to me, but it's a good 35 minute drive and $5 in tolls, so I went to this closer one. Seems like a nice shop, really.
I set down my aluminum 100 doubles, and the guy seems to be looking for a hydrotest date. I point them out to him. Then I point out the VIP dates. He still looks confused.
"I've never seen tanks like these before."
"Oh, they are high pressure hundreds, (assuming that he'd noticed they were wider than 80s) you fill them to 33 hundred."
He seems satisfied by this, and drags them closer to the fill whip, as he says
"so I just hook them both up?"
"Um, no, just one. The isolator should be open."
"oh.....ok, so you just want one filled?"
"No, both...but....um, you just hook up one side. And you fill it like a normal tank, because the isolator is open."
"which side?"
"It doesn't matter....but the knobs turn differently, so just look to see which way to turn it."
So he hooks it up...... it's a 232 bar DIN manifold, and I'd noticed that out of the four whips, one of them was DIN with a yoke adaptor. I failed to notice how he'd hooked it up, until I hear a hiss. At this point, he gets all confused and starts saying something about needing an oring.
He'd hooked it up with the yoke adaptor. I don't have yoke inserts.
So I managed to explain how he need to take off the yoke adaptor, and it seems like he is getting them filled, finally. I tell him I'll come back so they'll be nice and full....I tell him I want them at 33 or higher.
He explains that his bank can only go to 33. I explain that'll be fine, just leave them to fill slowly once they are full, or top them off in a bit or whatever you want to do. I didn't quite understand that he was still confused.....
...so I go to Walmart and buy a bright orange recorder. Beautiful plastic instrument for 88 cents. I played it along with some hardcore metal stuff (Acts of Depression by Underoath) all the 5 minute trip back to the dive shop. I got wierd looks from other cars. I'm bad at playing the recorder, but I'll get better with practice.
...and I walk back in. The guy asks if I can come back and get them later.....he explains that "something burst." I ask for more explanation. He shows me how he'd hooked up one of those brass DIN to yoke fill adaptors to try and check the pressure with a yoke pressure guage. I tried it, and the oring on the brass piece extrudes when you turn the air on.
But we hook the tanks back up to his bank and I try to explain that if no air is moving from tanks to bank or from bank to tank, thehn the pressure guage on his banks is going to be exactly what my tanks pressure is. Then I manage to figure out that he'd filled them from a bank that read about 3200, and the other banks read higher, so I managed to top them off from another bank. He still wants me to leave them, because "you wanted them each filled to 3300, and I can't get the compressor to get higher than 3300, and if you have two tanks filled to 3300, shouldn't that be 6600? If you leave them till 6:30, an instructor is coming over who can figure out how to make it work."
I am so glad I didn't blow up a dive shop trying to get an air fill! He's an OW only diver who got a job with the shop after going on a trip with them....nice guy, I tried to explain to him how manifolds work and why you use one....mostly I'm just glad he didn't blow my tanks up trying to take them to 6600 psi.....
I also tried to explain that pressures don't add like that. And the guy said he was new, and wasn't allowed to fill nitrox yet.
