Oxygen Administration Equipment

[ken adams]

Hi all,

I have just taken over as club Boat Officer, with the purchase of the new club RIB.

I am looking at getting our boat O2 Kit serviced but I can't find any info on where I can get it done.

I may also be looking at getting it replaced - any ideas where I can get one from?

Any help gratefully recieved.

Ken

[Mike Halligan]

Ken,

A word of warning from experience. Buy nothing before consulting the Tech Services paper linked below.

Mistakes in this field can be expensive.

Good luck,

Mike

[ken adams]

Ken,

A word of warning from experience. Buy nothing before consulting the Tech Services paper linked below.

Mistakes in this field can be expensive.

Good luck,

Mike

Mike,

thanks for this - duly noted.

Ken

[steve anderson]

Ken

Servicing is difficult. BOC won't touch anything that isn't thiers without charging you an exhorbitant fee for doing so - this includes even filling an O2 cylinder that isn't a BOC cylinder.

Depending on where you are, there are sereval places around the country that could help. However, I suggest that you contact your local fire station - explain what you have and what you want doing and they may be able to suggest the best local place for servicing. They may even be willing to service for you, if you offer a ssuitable donation. (no promises though)

If you aree considering buying new equipment, there are a few things to consider. BOC will not fill a non-BOC oxygen cylinder unless they carry out a BOC service before hand - even if the cylinder is brand new. BOC do not sell O2 cylinders, they only rent them. HAving said that, renting a BOC cylinder is usually fairly cheap, about ?5-6 per month. For filling they simply exchange the cylinder for a full one, so no waiting.On the down side, the BOC cylinders are usually much lower pressure (typically 136 Bar) and therefore lowercapacity of oxygen.

If you buy a cylinder, you generally get more oxygen per cylinder size as they work at upto 210 bar. There are a number of filling stations that will fill a non-boc cylinder, again ask the local fire station.

Dive had a very good article on oxygen equipment - July 2003. If you still have it, read it it has good advice.

I have just orered a new O2 set, it's due to arrive next week. It cost me about ?480, delivered, from Medical Gas Services and comes with a fully working O2 kit in a waterproof case. Best I've seen. Have a look at the link below.

Hope this helps

Steve

[ken adams]

Ken

Servicing is difficult. BOC won't touch anything that isn't thiers without charging you an exhorbitant fee for doing so - this includes even filling an O2 cylinder that isn't a BOC cylinder.

Depending on where you are, there are sereval places around the country that could help. However, I suggest that you contact your local fire station - explain what you have and what you want doing and they may be able to suggest the best local place for servicing. They may even be willing to service for you, if you offer a ssuitable donation. (no promises though)

If you aree considering buying new equipment, there are a few things to consider. BOC will not fill a non-BOC oxygen cylinder unless they carry out a BOC service before hand - even if the cylinder is brand new. BOC do not sell O2 cylinders, they only rent them. HAving said that, renting a BOC cylinder is usually fairly cheap, about ?5-6 per month. For filling they simply exchange the cylinder for a full one, so no waiting.On the down side, the BOC cylinders are usually much lower pressure (typically 136 Bar) and therefore lowercapacity of oxygen.

If you buy a cylinder, you generally get more oxygen per cylinder size as they work at upto 210 bar. There are a number of filling stations that will fill a non-boc cylinder, again ask the local fire station.

Dive had a very good article on oxygen equipment - July 2003. If you still have it, read it it has good advice.

I have just orered a new O2 set, it's due to arrive next week. It cost me about ?480, delivered, from Medical Gas Services and comes with a fully working O2 kit in a waterproof case. Best I've seen. Have a look at the link below.

Hope this helps

Steve

Thanks for this,

We currently use BOC cylinders but with our own reg/dv etc. I would ideally prefer to get the service than buy the new equipment as it can be expensive!

Also I am located around exeter so anywhere in Devon would be ideal.

I will certainly look into the fire station idea!!

Thanks for your help.

Anyone else?!

Ken

[TerryH]

Well it's a cylinder with O2, 1st stage and regs (albeit slightly diffrent ones).

So you need to go along to an IDEST cylinder testing station
that also does servicing (most do).

Not sure where you live, but Pete & Bob at Southern Cylinder
Services will test the cylinder. Do the 1st/2nd. Replace bits
and refill with O2.

SCS
Unit 18 North Gallery, Fort Fareham Industrial Site,
Newgate Lane, Fareham, Hants
Fareham 01329 221125

They do all the fire brigade and Navy BA's etc.

HTH
TerryH

[Steve Walker]

THat's a good price for the SOS kit, you might also be able to order it direct from the manufacturers in Manchester, however if you do that you might find it useful to know that when I did just that, I found their "customer service" to be non-existent: good kit but be prepared to get on the phone and kick their butts to make sure it arrives (we waited over three months!). Unless they've now changed their name to distance theirselves from previous poor practice.

[Paul Leyland]

Also I am located around exeter so anywhere in Devon would be ideal.

I will certainly look into the fire station idea!!

I'll ask the bods in the Medical Electronics dept. at work The do the Hospital and ambulance service + St Johns ambulance O2 equipment. Are you Exeter Branch? I have sent you a pm.
Paul

[Neil Radcliffe]

Hi all,

I have just taken over as club Boat Officer, with the purchase of the new club RIB.

I am looking at getting our boat O2 Kit serviced but I can't find any info on where I can get it done.

I may also be looking at getting it replaced - any ideas where I can get one from?

Any help gratefully recieved.


Just a couple of thoughts which you might consider (and I'd appreciate any feedback on!):

You can get an adaptor from Sub Aqua Products which turns a (DIN oulet) scuba cylinder into pin-index outlet. About ?35 I think. So then you can use your own scuba cylinders (02 cleaned of course), which gives easier options for bigger sizes - so less risk of running out of gas? The idea being that you find someone who is qualified to use 100% O2 for diving, and then buy your gas from any tekkie diving outlet.

It occurred to me recently that off-the-shelf dive O2 units aren't terribly suited to 2 divers being in trouble - and with the buddy system this has always struck me as possible (probable?)outcome.

For example, let's assume you're divers are both still conscious. With a normal set-up you get one demand valve/mask, fine, that guy gets 100% inspired 02. The other guy gets the pocket mask, on the constant flow supply (and what I've read elsewhere suggests 15l/min is a better minumum). This gives not much more than approx 50% inspired O2. And 100% is very definitely what you should be aiming at. (The pocket mask obviously mainly comes into its own when you're doing the CPR stuff).

The solution for the second diver seems to be the non-rebreather mask, which gives much closer to 100% inspired (due to its bag reservoir), and given how cheap they are (?2 to ?3!) I don't understand why these are not more routine.

The following is what I'm thinking about, mainly for myself and my buddy's own personal use - we're both novice tekkies:

Scuba cylinder with a twin DIN outlet. All O2 clean.

Two adjustable constant flow pin index medical 02 regs - second hand from ebay (normally found on the medical section). I saw one hardly used and still in the mfr's declared service interval go for about ?24 recently. Plus adaptors from SAP.

Two pocket masks and a number of the cheapo non-rebreather masks.

A screw top poly bottle to put it all in - about ?6 from your nearest chandler.

Then for two divers you get all the options:

You could plug up to 2 O2 clean scuba regs (DIN) straight in and breathe off those (the potential problem here is that a reg in your mouth is apparently less tolerable than a mask if you're nauseous etc).

Else both divers could also get very high %O2 using the medical 02 regs fitted with the non-rebreather masks. (Left set up in box like this with DIN adaptor fitted as well, so in use you'd only need to screw the DIN fitting into the cylinder and turn the cylinder on).

Else you could treat two unconscious divers with the above swapped for the pocket masks - although hopefully we're getting a litte far fetched here, and we might not have enough helpers anyhow if it's us!

And then obviously all the mix-and-match permutations.

The main reason for thinking about the above being the cost savings / increased flexibility / ease of getting a refill.

Can you tell I've read the Oxy Hackers Handbook?

Neil