Setting up a pony cylinder

[mark_a_taylor]

I just want to check that I haven't been narked to much but! I've just been given a new pony for xmas by my wife from Deep blue diving and I went to fill it today and it leaked gas from the bottle/valve area.

I have always borrowed or hired cylinders in the past so have never had a new one, so I'm a little unsure if i'm being a muppet and should have had the valve refitted before i used it!

Any advice would be gratefully appreciated

[Richard Whitcombe]

Where exactly is it leaking from? If its a new cylinder and its leaking from the cylinder neck chances are the valve hasn't been screwed on fully or properly. Did you tell the fill station it was a new tank? (they normally check for this if so).

[mark_a_taylor]

I'm a compressor operator at my club and was filling up some other cylinders earlier! I checked it over and it looked properly sealed. I reckon it wasn't screwed in properly and i didn't notice.

[ChristianG]

I'm a compressor operator at my club and was filling up some other cylinders earlier! I checked it over and it looked properly sealed. I reckon it wasn't screwed in properly and i didn't notice.
That seems odd. The shank for a valve is quite long but the screw itself has no bearing on the integrity of the seal, only the O Ring does that yet if the O Ring has not been screwed in place properly you should be able to see at least part of it.

[Ron Evans]

I just want to check that I haven't been narked to much but! I've just been given a new pony for xmas by my wife from Deep blue diving and I went to fill it today and it leaked gas from the bottle/valve area.

I have always borrowed or hired cylinders in the past so have never had a new one, so I'm a little unsure if i'm being a muppet and should have had the valve refitted before i used it!

Any advice would be gratefully appreciated

You shouldn't need to do anything to a new cylinder other than mark your name on it. If there is anything else wrong, get it exchanged (Sale of Goods Act applies).

[mark_a_taylor]

As I am in Cyprus It would have taken forever to send the cylinder backwards and forwards. So I took it to a local dive shop and apparently it had the wrong size o-ring. Not happy with this! Admittedly it only cost about £1.50 for the fix but its not really on if you buy new kit! Deepblue diving please take note!

[ChristianG]

As I am in Cyprus It would have taken forever to send the cylinder backwards and forwards. So I took it to a local dive shop and apparently it had the wrong size o-ring. Not happy with this! Admittedly it only cost about £1.50 for the fix but its not really on if you buy new kit! Deepblue diving please take note!
To my knowledge, and I may well be wrong here, larger concerns buy cylinders in one of two ways:

1) Without valves in place and they then fit the valves. The question here arises whether those valves arrived with O Ring already in place in which case recognising that it is the wrong size would be quite difficult if there is no suspicion already there.
2) Ready made up, valves in place.

Either way, it is not necessarily the fault of Deepblue. Do you still have the incorrect O Ring? Have you sent it to them? Or at least advised them what happened?