Argon Question

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MASS-Diver

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On the advice of board members I have decided that instead of carrying an argon bottle, my dive buddies and I will just have a large tank on the site and we will each pre-purge with this argon filled tank before the dive, I have been told this is very effective.

My question is that I would I like to save a little cash, can I use my al80 and my sequest 1st stage for this argon set-up (which will never go in the water). I know ideally I would have an lp72 and maybe a different 1st stage, but, will this be ok? I will label the tank/1st stage so that no one tries to breath off either one.
Thanks
 
That would be fine. A pre-flush works great and you can really feel the difference. For wreck dives, a small 6 cu ft. bottle works great.

Eric
 
For rigging options - you can do a search here (I think it was under General Technical or General Equipment). One way is to mount ot the side of your doubles. Or, you can mount the bottle to your waist strap (like a cansiter light) or like this:

http://www.scubaboard.com/t7036/s.html

ERic
 
I've heard of flushing the suit as a way to make the small suit inflation bottle last longer, but in lieu of using an inflation bottle doesn't make a whole lot of sense - at 100' you will have only 25% argon in the suit, tops (and that only after multiple purges, wasteful) , hardly enough to make a difference while using a bottle and no surface flush you'd have 75%. So it just isn't economical or cost effective.

You say "ideally I'd use a steel 72" for transporting argon. Why? for lugging it around on the surface, either one will do fine. Do mark it, mark it and mark it again. amd not just ARGON but NON-BREATHABLE GAS. I like skull and crossbone poison stickers - overstated, but everyone understands.
 
Board member Unlce Pug reccommended this method to me and said it worker well, he says the ammount of air you put in during the dive in a very small ammount and does not dimenish the argon's effectivness.


Pug, you out there?
 
You don't have to appeal to higher authority on this one - you can figure it out yourself using your knowledge of basic dive physics.

If you have a drysuit filled so it is comfortable on the surface, how much gas will you have added by the time you reach 100 feet, to maintain the same level of inflation?

Originally posted by MASS-Diver
Board member Unlce Pug reccommended this method to me and said it worker well, he says the ammount of air you put in during the dive in a very small ammount and does not dimenish the argon's effectivness.


Pug, you out there?
 
We don't use that much gas in our suits on rec. (<100') dives and the EAN32 we use for back gas is sufficient for suit inflation.

However since we already have the argon purge tank(s) available we will use that if it is along. Since we are heavy at the beginning of the dive (full backgas) we can descend to 20' before having to add any extra gas to the suit... and we don't try to get back to the volume we had on the surface... just take the squeeze off - so what we add isn't that great of a diluent. At least the effect is worth it for us .

As for cost effective... nothing we do is cost effective anymore :wink:

We do carry 6 cf argon suit inflation bottles when we have Helium in our back gas of course. And since we have them available we could take them on EAN32 dives as well... but we don't bother since the purging with argon works for us. (Actually when we dive doubles with EAN32 we do take the argon inflation bottles but that is just because the rig is set up that way.)

As far as a purge tank... and AL80 is just fine... I would suggest that you only have an inflator hose on the first stage and that the tank be well marked as ***ARGON -Do Not Breath*** and the regulator should stay on the tank as an added precaution. You can buy IANTD Argon stickers from your LDS.
 
UP


My dive shop does not have Argon stickers do you know where I might be able to get some. thank you.




:sharky:
 
Originally posted by Uncle Pug
I would suggest that you only have an inflator hose on the first stage and that the tank be well marked as ***ARGON -Do Not Breath*** and the regulator should stay on the tank as an added precaution. You can buy IANTD Argon stickers from your LDS.

As an addendum to Pug's excellent setup here I would add that you should always have a pressure relief valve in the reg's HP port also, both on your purging tank and on your carry tanks (on any reg which has no 2nd stage).

Tom
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/
http://cavediveflorida.com/Rum_House.htm

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