Compressor/Nitrox Questions

[in_cavediver]

Oops! I thought you knew it...

Boiler Maker,:no

I am in the center of your rival town in the hoosier land.

Pity you're not closer (and after you posted it, I remembered the conversation a while back in another thread). I was just going through what's going to take to get my 'new to me' boat ready to dive from and a portable compressor was a 'wish' item. (or at least a resonable source for pre-filled bank bottles). Maybe could have worked something out.

Maybe I'll run into you at Blue Springs/France Park/Gilboa et all this year

Mike

 

[Hoosier]

Pity you're not closer (and after you posted it, I remembered the conversation a while back in another thread). I was just going through what's going to take to get my 'new to me' boat ready to dive from and a portable compressor was a 'wish' item. (or at least a resonable source for pre-filled bank bottles). Maybe could have worked something out.

Maybe I'll run into you at Blue Springs/France Park/Gilboa et all this year

Mike

What I found is that "A portable doesn't mean a portable in itself." It should be stick to somewhere, such as garage, trailer, or dungeon. As we talked before, the scuba trailer is the most versatile option if I can get some extra money.

One day, I was looking at my closet. It made me to think why I bought this whole crap instead of getting RB. If I knew something in advance..LOL~~~~..

The travel cost, distance, and accessibility to be somewhere are a big hassle in a hoosier land, specially S. Indiana. I really hate it, but some hicks never understand it. It really make our hoosier land isolate (look at I-69 project. It has been more than 20 years). I don't mind driving up the Great Lake for the decent wreck diving ocassionaly though.

Sure, just shoot PM. There will be another winter diving at BS after X-Mas.

 

[rjack321]

Carbon Dioxide.........1000 ppm
Carbon Monoxide.......10 ppm
Oil mist....................5 mg/m3
Volatile Hydrocarbon...25 ppm
Water......................24 ppm

The above are grade E specs for breathing air as applied to divers' compressors. Take a look at the number for volatiles, 25 ppm. It has been shown that humans can detect the common volatile toluene at 80 ppb (billion). Let's make an assumption that the odor of compressor oil aerosol can be detected at 160 ppb. That is equivalent to 0.12 mg/cubic meter. The "E" standard allows 5 mg/m3. This suggests that if one can smell oil the air is not safe for several reasons but may in fact be lower than permitted by grade E. Oil travels with water as an emulsion. One might assume that if water shows up in the tank then oil is present also, and that is not safe. No water, no oil. No smell, no oil-- or insignificant oil shall we say. Something to think about.

Yes I agree but monitoring that tiny filter is rather imprecise.

I have a PO cartidge on my 3.5 cfm Alkins and have found that water "breaks through" very fast. It goes from being <10% RH to >30% in the course a filling a single tank. (I have a 10/20/30% RH detector card in between the PO and my 2nd stack.) These primaries last between ~8 and 30 hours depending on temp.

For this reason alone I would recommend a second filter. Its very hard to know when to change out the tiny primary. I log time and temp but that's still only a rough guide. I have been surprised a couple times in both directions (longer and shorter times).

I use 13x and AC in the primary and have a LF cartridge with hopcalite in the secondary. The secondary gets changed out just a bit less than annually and the moisture stip in there has never changed. A secondary filter chamber costs ~$650 and the cartridges with hocalite about $45.

I would be very cautious with O2 use on a boat. I guess I would continuous blend in your circumstance, but only if I had the space to setup a comparable setup to most home blenders use. I would not cram it all togather with an O2 bottle in the bilge :11doh:

 

[cobaltblue]

I had hoped I covered this earlier but I am not planning on mixing on board the boat. It's only 28 feet. I will have the compressor on there at times but I will mostly be used at my building. I don't have a problem having an extra filtration system at the building.