Help Critique My Fill Station Design

[randy88k5]

I bought a complete fill station a few years ago. I had to do some reorganizing of the garage, so the assembly of the fill station fell on the back burner. I am now trying to get it back together.

From my notes and pictures, and help from the previous owner, I was able to reconstruct the system on paper. After looking at it, I wanted to simplify it. Thanks Wookie for the help and pointers along the way.

• I wanted to reduce or remove the use of Quick Disconnects.
• I wanted to reduce the amount of tubing and fittings exposed to O2.
• I want to reduce the amount of flex hoses used.
• I wanted to use a shop air compressor rather than using banked gas to drive the Haskel.

I want to reuse as much as I can. I have the hand valves labeled to separate the globe, needle, and ball valve locations.

Here are the main components used:

• Bauer Capitano ~5cfm
• Four 4500 psi storage bottles
• Two 3600 psi storage bottles
• Three 2400 psi O2 bottles
• Haskel AG30

Let me know what you think.
Thanks for looking.

 

[johndiver999]

How do people actually live with engineers? LOL

 

[randy88k5]

Lol. It's a disease

 

[Asheron]

1 & 2 deleted.........read the in/out on haskell backwards.

3 - Get your haskell so it can boost from your banks(if your filtration is Oxygen compatible from the compressor) to the tanks and even bank to bank.

4 - setup a method to run the haskell from the 4500psi air bank as a secondary source. Your shop compressor may not be fast enough for the haskell for some situations, except boosting nitrox from the small bank you are going to have into a dive cylinder. It can be convenient(not efficient) to just burn the 4500psi air after it is regulat3d down to 2000psi.

 

[admikar]

I'd say OP took a careful consideration of his shop comp, making sure it can run the Haskell.
With lining everything up, it looks like Asheron's idea is mostly waste of banked nitrox/trimix.

 

[Wookie]

3 - Get your haskell so it can boost from your banks(if your filtration is Oxygen compatible from the compressor) to the tanks and even bank to bank.

Why in the world would you use banked air as drive air if you have a shop compressor?

It makes no sense to add big energy (4500 PSI air) to a LP system to bleed it out to add small energy (150PSI) to turn around to develop big energy. You lose efficiency with every step.

Use the HP compressor to build HP gas, and use an LP compressor to run the booster.

 

[rx7diver]

I bought a complete fill station a few years ago. I had to do some reorganizing of the garage, so the assembly of the fill station fell on the back burner. I am now trying to get it back together.

... Let me know what you think.
Thanks for looking.

@randy88k5,

How do you expect to use this fill station? For example, are you planning to tri-mix fill four sets of HP120 or LP121 manifolded doubles (cave-filled) and nitrox/oxygen fill deco cylinders to support two divers weekend diving to a MOD of 220 ffw--for example, to complete four deep wreck dives? Some other expectation?

rx7diver

 

[randy88k5]

I don't currently have helium bottles, so I will be diving mostly air for now.

I will be diving LP85 manifolded doubles, and have 50% and 100% in AL40s. So likely 2 sets of LP85s filled to ~3000 once to twice a month. The frequency will increase as I make more time for it. I may switch to AL80 doubles when it gets hot down here.

 

[rx7diver]

I don't currently have helium bottles, so I will be diving mostly air for now.

I will be diving LP85 manifolded doubles, and have 50% and 100% in AL40s. So likely 2 sets of LP85s filled to ~3000 once to twice a month. The frequency will increase as I make more time for it. I may switch to AL80 doubles when it gets hot down here.

Okay. I wonder if your system is too large (i.e., has too much capacity). You want to make sure you run your compressor enough (often enough, and long enough each time) to keep it healthy. You will be running it only to fill your air/nitrox/trimix storage bottles, correct? Then, to start, you might calculate how many times you can fill LP85 manifolded doubles from 1,000 psig (say) to 3,000 psig before you need to again run your compressor to bring your four 4,500 psig cascade bottles all back up to 4,500 psig.

rx7diver

 

[Asheron]

Why in the world would you use banked air as drive air if you have a shop compressor?

It makes no sense to add big energy (4500 PSI air) to a LP system to bleed it out to add small energy (150PSI) to turn around to develop big energy. You lose efficiency with every step.

Use the HP compressor to build HP gas, and use an LP compressor to run the booster.

Idea 3 is to boost between HP banks. Not use it as drive gas.

Idea 4 is to use it as drive gas as a convenience or to eliminate the upfront cost of buying a shop compressor. I also called it out as inefficient. OP never said they have a shop compressor already and it wasn't listed in their parts list. My own large shop compressor has been down and I have elected in the short term to just use the banked gas to boost my O2 fills for rebreather bottles. The electricity is cheaper and the dive compressor is even cheaper than replacing my scroll compressor.

I am just trying to give the OP ideas for flexibility in their system that may be a nuisance to add later after all the swagelok and hp hoses are assembled. Also, what is most likely to be broken here? I would say the shop compressor as it's probably the most used component especially if OP uses it for tools and equipment like automotive and woodwork. Having a backup way to drive your haskell will save a headache especially when the most used piece of equipment(and maybe lowest quality) goes down.