Carbon Fiber SCBA to SCUBA conversion

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Dr.Clean

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Hey guys. I have an SCBA tank that was given to me. I was wondering if anyone would be able to tell me if a scuba valve could possibly fit on an SCBA cylinder, to use as a pony bottle or something. thanks.
 
Not sure about the thread pattern butI would think that it would be like taking a balloon with you requiring a lot more lead.
 
Look up PSI/PCI website (can't recall it off the top of my head). They teach VIP for both SCUBA and SCBA bottles and I believe their course book lists the thread sizes of common SCBA and SCUBA.

Let us know how it works. If it were me I'd take it down fully charged without a regulator attached to it to play around with its buoyancy characteristics.

Michael
 
I've got an 88 cf carbon fiber tank with a DIN valve on it. It's a little different than a standard scuba DIN valve in that it has a pressure gauge, (probably a non-submersible one), integrated into it. I imagine I could remove that and replace it with a plug and dive it if I wanted. I've never wanted to do that though.

I use it for filling airguns and it's fantastic in that role. It's lightweight and it can be filled to 4500 psi, which means I get a lot of fills out of it. For diving, I suspect that any advantage I got out of the higher pressure would be more than negated by the positive buoyancy, (it really is a very light tank). What's more, finding 4500 psi fills can be tough. Those kinds of pressures might be tough on your first stage too.
 
The quick answer is no. Could you cobble together something with enough adapters to do it? Maybe.

Buoyancy characteristics are horrible, they have a DOT regulated 15 year life span and you likely won't be happy diving it for any reason.

But hey it was free :D
 
An issue with hoop wrapped composite tanks is that they are very susceptible to damage in the wrap. If you damage the outer coating and allow water into the wrap, the tank is toast, so in addition to being exceptionally floaty, life limited and having different threads that would require a home brewed adpater, it also won't hold up well in service.
 
I can see it now...

1. SCBA tank gets nicked, or deteriorated by the conditions.
2. You strap it to you back and go out for a dive.
3. Boom!

Probably best to leave SCBA's for the environment they were engineered to be used within.
 
An issue with hoop wrapped composite tanks is that they are very susceptible to damage in the wrap. If you damage the outer coating and allow water into the wrap, the tank is toast, so in addition to being exceptionally floaty, life limited and having different threads that would require a home brewed adpater, it also won't hold up well in service.

Ditto.
 

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