ssi gas blender course

[gary cullen]

ssi gas blender course
hello everyone my name is gary cullen i live in Belgrade serbia though originally from scotland ,i am new to the scuba board so please bear with me ....i wanted to ask if anyone knows anything about the SSI GAS BLENDER COURSE as i see on some websites it is advertised as a specialty course but when you enquire they always have the prerequisites etc some say it is simply a specialty course and that it can be taken with open water level certification while others say you must be a dive con specialist ...at present i have ssi open water cert with 24 dives and i am about to take the advanced open water in montenegro in a few weeks along with 26 more dives ,can anyone tell me if i can take the gas blending course with ssi as a master diver certified with ssi ?????

ps.My wife thinks i am nuts as before my open water dive certification i had never been in the sea ever

or in water/pool for 35 years ,so now i am pushing to reach the best i can do in 1 year ..hopefully

 

[frozenwarp]

I am just about to do my SSI blenders course in a couple weeks, I myself am a Dive Con but i do know that some of the people doing it with me are not. One is a PADI AOW diver so i would pressume that you would be able to do it, you may need atleast a prerequisites of the NITROX specialty.
I don't think its treated the same as a standard specialy as the book and everything is different.

All the above is just based on my experiences and i am not 100% on it but hopfuly it gives you an idea.

goodluck,
Bradley

 

[gregmontalbano]

Just out of curiosity, why take the gas blender course? Unless you work in a dive shop or all the equipment necessary required to do fills and mixes, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

About the class, i really don't know about the SSI blending class but i've done both the TDI/SDI and IANTD blending courses, and theres really not a whole lot to it. I can't imagine that SSI would have more information than IANTD and/or TDI/SDI.

 

[gary cullen]

thanks for the replys guys your answers have been helpful as far as doing the gas blender course, we intend to buy the equipment for use between a group of diving friends who are all fed up with the costs of refills in our area ,i have a good source for the equipment in turkey which is just across the border really and so costs can be kept down ,while waiting for some replys i contacted a local ssi diving instructor instructor and we had a good talk and so i have agreed to use his services for the best ways to go as he was very helpful and as it turns out 50 yards from my wifes office,and he basically said the same as your replys ... and he has all the equipment so i can get hands on experience from him and locally

ps ,he gave my new cylinder a refill to show me the basics with o2 but his set-up is for nitrox too

 

[roakey]

...we intend to buy the equipment...

Then they very first piece of equipment you need to buy is this book:

Vance Harlow's OXYGEN HACKER'S COMPANION From Airspeed Press

If you search "Oxygen Hacker's Companion" on this board, you'll find hundreds of references to it, and I don't think I've ever seen a single negative comment on it. It's a fantastic book for the home mixer.

Roak

Ps. All the other books offerend at that site are excellent as well.

 

[dannobee]

The DSAT course requires Enriched Air as a prerequisite.

Other industries (not diving or scuba related) use "certified gas blenders." I'm sure they don't require OW certification, much less EANx certification.