Buying o2

[Gavin Yates]

<font color='#000F22'>My LDS - darling that they are insist on charging me over £11 for a nitrox fill for my twinset. So does it make financial sense to get a supply of o2 and partial pressure blend my own by getting a mate to do a top-off for me.

If I were to do this I would do the appropriate course before embarking yadda yadda yadda ....

Thoughts and who do you buy from?

[peter k]

You can get medical quality O2(make sure it's medical quality and not welding quality) from BOC. Alternativly go to your local hospital and liberate a few tins. The idiots just leave it lying about in the corridors. Obviously I am not advocating this criminal and downright scumbag method, but it is an option. You can do the course at Fort Bill.

Peter

[jasondrake]

medical o2 is full of moisture. Not so good for your cylinders. Aviation &nbsp;o2 is cleaner. Industrial o2 can be just as clean or cleaner than 'breathing' o2. It's the testing procedure which differs-allowing the higher grade labelling and price of breathing gas-not the production method. Unless your using lots of nitrox it's not worth setting up your own. You need at least 2 cylinders or a booster to get decent value, and rental can be expensive. Getting gas suppliers to sell you gas is tricky too-most regional suppliers won't bother with such a small volume client and will often run a mile if you say your wanting to dive with their stuff. That said lot's of people do it.


(mate works for boc!)

[DecoWarrior]

it does make sense to buy in your own o2

that stuff about medical grade O2 is crap i have been using medical grade O2 that has been liberated from the Nhs in my rebreather for ages i have just had th take the valves out of my bottles for a trip and they are immaculate the only problem is the pressure seems to be a bit lower

[Dominic]

I'd be surprised if medical grade had more moisture than any other type - All the Oxygen that a company sells comes from the same tank, and they don't usually contaminate it..

http://www.subaqua.co.uk/reference/gas-suppliers.shtml is a list of people who'll sell you Oxygen (and Helium)

Given that a J of Oxygen is around the £20 mark, three fills and it's paid for itself at your shop prices.

Having a cascade or a booster pump could be helpful if you wanted accelerated deco mixes, but given that you only need 10 bar or so to get a 32% mix, a single 200 bar J should give you more than enough fills to make it plenty worthwhile.

Of course, you have to pay for the decanting assembly as well. Subaqua products is a good place to go, they sell a complete decanting unit for £255.88 - so you've got to do rather more fills to make the whole thing pay for itself. However, it'd probably pay for itself in the space of a year..

[steve-k]

its a question of quantaty, unless like decowarrior you have a source you will need to rent 2 cilinders &nbsp;at about 5 per month each, medical grade has an introduced moisture content, that in theory can accelerate the decay of your tank, and also is only charged to 130barr breathing grade is charged to 230 barr and is only slightley more expencive,
we hire o2 if we are going on trips where there is a high expected use or the local shops dont offer a fill
apart from the relevent course you will need a filling whip (£250-£300) And an o2 analiser (£200) +60 a year for a new cell

you can also have the problem of shops doing a top-up of clean air, especially when you try to explane why the finished cooled pressure is so important, they become verry reluctante,

i never atended a blending cource befour i mixed my own, i suppose you need to determin your own level befourhand, and decide what course you need

conclusion
unless you intend to ues nitrox on every dive, it is not worth the finantial outlay and running costs to mix your own nitrox, it becomes more feasable if you have a diving partner to share with, furthermore it can be a bit of a hastle, and is so much easer to just drop your tanks off, then to pick them up filled,
all this said we run a trip down south where we rely on our own o2 because of thr time constraints of the local shop, we 1/2 our deco penelties by filling our stage cyilinders with our own o2, we even get it delivered to the local pub &nbsp;lol

[Dominic]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (steve-k @ Mar. 25 2003,22:06)]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]medical grade has an introduced moisture content

Live and learn..

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]you will need to rent 2 cilinders &nbsp;

Given that Gavin is intending to fill his twinset with Nitrox, I think we can safely assume he'll be running mixes of less than 40%. Why then does he need more than one cylinder of Oxygen? He doesn't need high pressures.

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]And an o2 analiser (£200) +60 a year for a new cell

Surely anyone who dives Nitrox should have one of these, so it can't be considered an extra cost...

[Gavin Yates]

<font color='#000F22'>Sorry lads - I should have said.

I already have a delightful o2 decanting whip complete with needle valve and funky pressure guage for sub-aqua products and an o2 analyser. I also have a personal filter with all the atachments one could ever need - also from sub aqua products.

The info I was after really was how much a J cost and where to get one from. I understand that without a booster I'm gonna lose some o2 on every J but does it still make financial sense after taking that into account.

Also how does one go about getting the stuff from BOC? or elsewhere.

[Andy the Coastie]

<font color='#0000FF'>RIGHT here goes from a Commercial divers point of view.


O2 j bottles, get a mate in your local scrap yard QUICK, buy the O2 from them direct normally £ 10 - 15 , return J when emptied and get a refilled one.

Scrappies get thou a load and get a good discount, if you have a good mate there you get it for the price they pay, unless he is a REALLY good mate and ' dare i say it ' . just return it later when empty.

At work, we get thou about 5 bottles on a normal working week,having said that , we got it hooked up 24/7 just in case of a bit of cutting is required &nbsp;

Reference the MEDICAL &nbsp; O2....... Some has moisture in and some Don't... look at the RED tags ( MOISTURE induced), i forget which health problems it is needed for ( I had some , coz my uncle is a director of nursing ) and he showed me years back.

Blending ,,,,,, Why get the ticket ? only reason i saw from it was . that my house insurance and garage went up by £ 5.57 a year for reason of storing high pressure O2,,,,,

What you learn from any course, you can learn from someone that has done it or better still someone that has been a GARAGE BLENDER for years...



ANdy

[Dominic]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]how much a J cost and where to get one from.

*tut* Why do I bother posting links..?


As mentioned previously: http://www.subaqua.co.uk/reference/gas-suppliers.shtml - suppliers of Oxygen and a price list as well.