Argon worth it?
- Thread starter Ghost Diver #
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
its happened occasionally but with the advent of helium analyzers its not really a big problem, pretty much every shop filling trimix has a trimix analyzer nowadays
never heard of an argon-helium swap actually causing a fatality either.
broncobowsher
Contributor
My trimix analyser also does Argon. I bought a bottle used and it was filled and had an Argon sticker on it. So I ran it to see what it had inside. 15% Argon. Ran the math and figured it was ran down to about 450 PSI and topped off with air. O2 was at the bottom end of breathable range. I plan on dumping it as I want to do a proper inspection and get it back in hydro.
I've thought about doing an oxy/argon mix long before this post was started. A breath of the wrong gas is better then a breath of no gas when stuff hits the fan. While a bad choice to breath, it would keep you alive long enough to pick up the pieces and get the right gas in your mouth. If I do fill the bottle with Argon I will still be tempted to put 20% O2 in it as a FUBAR safety factor. Alive and narced vs. passed out and dead. Not like a little 6 or 13 cf bottle will last long.
In all reality, it will probably just be filled with air. Unless I get that TIG welder next year.
I've thought about doing an oxy/argon mix long before this post was started. A breath of the wrong gas is better then a breath of no gas when stuff hits the fan. While a bad choice to breath, it would keep you alive long enough to pick up the pieces and get the right gas in your mouth. If I do fill the bottle with Argon I will still be tempted to put 20% O2 in it as a FUBAR safety factor. Alive and narced vs. passed out and dead. Not like a little 6 or 13 cf bottle will last long.
In all reality, it will probably just be filled with air. Unless I get that TIG welder next year.
Trimix analyzers work on 1 of 2 principles. You can run any gas through there inert or otherwise, but because they operate on:
The thermal conductivity of helium
or
The sound conductivity of helium
They wont read anything close to the correct values
So if you analyze a set of mistakenly filled doubles of 21/35 O2/Ar you wont get anything close to 35% argon which should be a red flag to investigate further. Which seems to work in reality because there haven't been any argon filling mistakes that have (ever?) led to a fatality. Doubles have been filled with O2 on one side and Helium on the other and it nearly killed that diver (she survived and as of a few yrs ago is still diving). Makes more sense to worry about your isolator than whether your shop has argon around to mix up with helium.
The thermal conductivity of helium
or
The sound conductivity of helium
They wont read anything close to the correct values
So if you analyze a set of mistakenly filled doubles of 21/35 O2/Ar you wont get anything close to 35% argon which should be a red flag to investigate further. Which seems to work in reality because there haven't been any argon filling mistakes that have (ever?) led to a fatality. Doubles have been filled with O2 on one side and Helium on the other and it nearly killed that diver (she survived and as of a few yrs ago is still diving). Makes more sense to worry about your isolator than whether your shop has argon around to mix up with helium.
Why the hell would you have a 2nd stage reg hooked up to your suit gas cylinder?
broncobowsher
Contributor
Not. But on a rebreather you can connect different off-board gasses to the rebreather. Simple drysuit/wing generic quick connect. Something bad had to have happened to need that. I hadn't actually thought about a second stage added (although doing so would be an OPV in a pinch). If you are doing a semi-closed recovery and run out of DIL, and something went FUBAR with the bailout, there is one more gas left. Unplug the drysuit and plug that into the offboard. If there is a little O2 in there it will be a survivable gas.
A friend almost killed himself in a camper. A jacket got pressed against the stove knob. Made for a propane leak. No fire but the propane was enough to displace oxygen to the point he and his dog almost went to sleep forever. one of those hand of god stories that got him out just in time.
Bronco, do you even have a CCR?
I'm sorry but mistakenly offboarding your suit gas into your loop just doesnt happen in the real world. And even if you did inject 100% argon you are only going to be narced as all get up, not hypoxic. SCR on 6cf of suit gas? Dude come on, that is useless, in part because you have to go up - so you would basically be flushing so much you'd be on open circuit at that point. You are just grasping at "risks" that dont actually exist now. Focus on something that is actually killing divers, heart disease, diabetes, stroke, failure to change out O2 cells, cave navigational errors, CO, failure to analyze, and mark breathing gases, the list goes on. What's in people's suit gas bottle doesnt even crack the top 20.
I'm sorry but mistakenly offboarding your suit gas into your loop just doesnt happen in the real world. And even if you did inject 100% argon you are only going to be narced as all get up, not hypoxic. SCR on 6cf of suit gas? Dude come on, that is useless, in part because you have to go up - so you would basically be flushing so much you'd be on open circuit at that point. You are just grasping at "risks" that dont actually exist now. Focus on something that is actually killing divers, heart disease, diabetes, stroke, failure to change out O2 cells, cave navigational errors, CO, failure to analyze, and mark breathing gases, the list goes on. What's in people's suit gas bottle doesnt even crack the top 20.
Never used it, just air in my 'argon bottle'. So no, it is not worth it. And I dive in really cold circumstances. Heating AFTER a dive is most important and a 10mm hood.
Not to put words into @broncobowsher mouth but I read his post as being in favour of keeping a breathable gas in the suit bottle and not as saying that an argon bottle was a risk in terms of accidental connection. I am not doing rebreather dives where this sort of thing could be an issue, yet, but the concept of having every tank on you contain a breathable gas (given PPO2 concerns etc) and having a standard way to access that gas if needed makes sense to me.
Given all the studies regarding argon vs air for suit inflation, I personally would keep air in mine and then know that I can swap it to the MAV if Murphy brought all his friends to the dive party.
broncobowsher
Contributor
That's exactly what I was describing. I didn't say that is what I do, but something I have thought about.
I do have a rebreather.
Similar threads
