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Fill your own pony? How often do you get viz?
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Hatul
Contributor
The dive shops top off my pony tanks without charge, so I do get them vized every year. It's only a few bucks what's the big deal.
Adam
Adam
Shops here fill pony bottles for free with the main tank. It's been several years since I've actually used mine and I'm not certified to do VIPs so I'm glad to have the pony VIP'ed once a year to make sure there is "fresh" air in it. But then the shop often doesn't charge me for my VIP (but if it does I don't mind).
Scared Silly
Contributor
VIPs are industry guidelines, 12 months for most, 6 months if used frequently, 3 months if used even more, like rentals.
I do look at hydro stamps. In fact, recently while on a trip on the first day we had a AL6351 cylinder show up. While it had a recent hydro it had no sign of eddy current testing. Given that I had no idea of the inspection criteria I asked that the cylinder be set aside an not used while we dove over the next couple of days.
Leisure Pro sells both yoke and DIN "equalizers". (If you want the most flexibility, you could always buy the DIN one and two yoke adapters, I suppose, but the yoke-yoke one is significantly cheaper.)
I'll generally remove all the sling hardware from my pony and re-viz it every year, although this year I was a bit behind schedule, as I needed a new hydro before vacation and didn't see the point in a viz two months before hydro.
(The most annoying part of the viz is getting the hose clamps perfectly centered on the bike inner tube wrapped around the pony. If I weren't such a stickler for nice-looking positioning or if I ignored galvanic corrosion and skipped the rubber layer, it would be trivial. It's just such a pain to waste something like three to five minutes a year for perfection!
)
We had a guy bring 6 bottles in for Nitrox fill last week. We noticed that one of his tanks was out of VIP and the other 5 tanks would be out of VIP next week. He told us to go ahead and VIP the one, and fill all 6, because he did his own VIP's and didn't want to pay to VIP the 5 other tanks that were still good for a few days. He has VIP stickers purchased online.
Now, I'm not one to get overly governmental. If you read my posts I'm the first to say there's alot of crap when it comes to Nitrox Clean vs. O2 clean versus what works and doesn't work.
But when we opened up the one tank to VIP he had SO much Silicone grease on the threads and O-rings we could scrape it off with a putty knife. ALL STOP!
I had 200lbs of Oxygen in his first tank (the one still in VIP). I bled the O2 out that I had put in, and pulled the valve to confirm my fears. This tank was also loaded up with Silicone Grease.
Here's the problem. People don't know what they don't know. And that is the reason for the education.
We called the customer back and had him come in. We explained that we would NOT ever fill his tanks unless he had a VIP inspection sticker with a PSI Cert Number on it. We tried (unsuccessfully) to explain why you couldn't use Silicone Grease. His argument was that the type of grease doesn't matter.
So, you can do what you want, unfortunately, you don't know what you don't know, unless you've taken the class specifically instructing you on what to look for. This is not something you can read in 15 minutes online. There's a reason the class is 8 hours long.
Now, I'm not one to get overly governmental. If you read my posts I'm the first to say there's alot of crap when it comes to Nitrox Clean vs. O2 clean versus what works and doesn't work.
But when we opened up the one tank to VIP he had SO much Silicone grease on the threads and O-rings we could scrape it off with a putty knife. ALL STOP!
I had 200lbs of Oxygen in his first tank (the one still in VIP). I bled the O2 out that I had put in, and pulled the valve to confirm my fears. This tank was also loaded up with Silicone Grease.
Here's the problem. People don't know what they don't know. And that is the reason for the education.
We called the customer back and had him come in. We explained that we would NOT ever fill his tanks unless he had a VIP inspection sticker with a PSI Cert Number on it. We tried (unsuccessfully) to explain why you couldn't use Silicone Grease. His argument was that the type of grease doesn't matter.
So, you can do what you want, unfortunately, you don't know what you don't know, unless you've taken the class specifically instructing you on what to look for. This is not something you can read in 15 minutes online. There's a reason the class is 8 hours long.
FWADIVER
Contributor
LOL, you just made my point. THANKS!
Guys, pure O2 and Silicone grease is explosive when combined under pressure. Take a PSI Class and they demonstrate this in a real life situation.
Please don't bring your tanks to me FWADiver.... I don't want your ignorance to blow anyone up.
Guys, pure O2 and Silicone grease is explosive when combined under pressure. Take a PSI Class and they demonstrate this in a real life situation.
Please don't bring your tanks to me FWADiver.... I don't want your ignorance to blow anyone up.
dumpsterDiver
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Leisure Pro sells both yoke and DIN "equalizers". (If you want the most flexibility, you could always buy the DIN one and two yoke adapters, I suppose, but the yoke-yoke one is significantly cheaper.)
I'll generally remove all the sling hardware from my pony and re-viz it every year, although this year I was a bit behind schedule, as I needed a new hydro before vacation and didn't see the point in a viz two months before hydro.
(The most annoying part of the viz is getting the hose clamps perfectly centered on the bike inner tube wrapped around the pony. If I weren't such a stickler for nice-looking positioning or if I ignored galvanic corrosion and skipped the rubber layer, it would be trivial. It's just such a pain to waste something like three to five minutes a year for perfection!
put the sticker on the bottom of the pony....they actually last there pretty well.
If you are filling your own cylinder, then you are assuming the risks of catastrophic failure, which usually occurs during the filling process. So you can get a visual inspection whenever you want. It's your life that you are putting at risk.
Annual visual inspections are not something dreamed up by dive shops to squeeze more cash from their customers. Real-life events dating back to the 1970s and the U.S. Navy have led us to our current recommendations for cylinder safety. Cylinders have failed catastrophically (i.e., exploded) and have maimed and killed many people. You don't hear much of that stuff anymore because modern cylinder safety standards generally prevent such disasters from occuring anymore.
Now people are wondering why they need annual visual inspections.
It's kinda like vaccinations against disease. Everyone gets vaccinated and the disease almost disappears. Then people wonder why they are getting vaccinated for a disease that doesn't exist anymore, and they stop getting the vaccines. Then the disease re-emerges.
Annual visual inspections are not something dreamed up by dive shops to squeeze more cash from their customers. Real-life events dating back to the 1970s and the U.S. Navy have led us to our current recommendations for cylinder safety. Cylinders have failed catastrophically (i.e., exploded) and have maimed and killed many people. You don't hear much of that stuff anymore because modern cylinder safety standards generally prevent such disasters from occuring anymore.
Now people are wondering why they need annual visual inspections.
It's kinda like vaccinations against disease. Everyone gets vaccinated and the disease almost disappears. Then people wonder why they are getting vaccinated for a disease that doesn't exist anymore, and they stop getting the vaccines. Then the disease re-emerges.
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