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Oxygen refill

rvdave

Well Known Member
I have a 12 cu ft tank from airox and have been having trouble getting it filled. Recently found an fbo who will fill it for $75, is this typical? None of the welding or medical supplies here will do it only exchange the steel tanks but they don?t have aluminum tanks like mine. Anyone know of alternatives or is this what I should expect?
 
O2 Tank refilling

I am looking at installing O2 also in -10 and may follow a very similar design to the capability in the Glassair III as shown in the link beginning at minute 7 using the DeVilbiss ifill system.

Depending on how often you will be flying at altitude and require O2 will determine the cost benefit justification for the ifill.

https://youtu.be/xCoPQXH75JI

Ron
 
Find a scuba shop or local bulk gas vendor like praxair, airgas, etc. Expect to pay $25 tops for a fill, usually closer to $10-15 at a local scuba store.
 
David I imagine its oxygen from SCUBA shops supplying mixed gas or rebreather divers. Though I have to say when I was diving oxygen was taught to be poison at depth. Times change I guess.
 
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Scuba shops and Oxygen????? They normally do AIR only.

In addition to air, most scuba shops in the US will also supply enriched air (nitrox) with a higher oxygen content. Most shops use the partial pressure filling method, by first filling a scuba tank with a small amount of bulk oxygen and then topping up with compressed air. Shops that do this will have bulk oxygen available to fill tanks as the OP found.
 
The scuba shop does use oxygen for nitrox fills so has a large tank to draw from, but I?m sure filling a few o2 tanks more than pays for his tank exchange plus some, he seemed to be happy to fill it.
 
What Kurt said... Today Nitrox is much more popular than years ago. I owned/operated a dive shop back in the 1990's when it was still brand new voodo and was the first person in my neck of the woods to be using Nitrox and Trimix. We had O2 on hand for filling cylinders for decompression stops, and for enriching air to Nitrox. Additionally we had Helium on hand for making Tri-mix gasses for deep diving.

The benefit of all that prior experience is that while I sold everything and got out of that activity as a profession, I still own a 4-cylinder Oxygen fill station in my hangar. O2 fills are dirt cheap if you own a couple of the large cylinders. It's fairly trivial to purchase the required hardware, and it basically costs a similar price to fill one gigantic cylinder at the gas store than it does to have one small portable cylinder filled elsewhere. With my 4-cylinder cascade system, I haven't even needed to top off a bottle in quite some time.

I'd recommend that if you use O2, and you have others near you that also wish to do the same, that you partner up and buy yourself 3 cylinders with the proper valves, and a fill whip. It's not necessary to have cylinder interconnects. Just get the handwheel type connectors and spin it on the lowest pressure cylinder first. Fill as far as you can. Move it to the next cylinder and fill it some more. Then finish with the highest pressure cylinder. When your fills aren't sufficient any longer, take the lowest pressure one and get it filled and make it the highest one again.

Cheap and simple. Just make sure everything you use is Oxygen clean and compatible and keep it that way.

Oh, and always open valves slowly with O2. Adiabatic compression is a real thing. You can even feel extreme heat when quickly pressurizing air lines. It's pretty amazing when you feel it first hand.
 
What about Hydro Inspection?

All good info here, Gents.
But what about obtaining a Hydro Inspection.
Who, what where do we go for that. Asked Aerox and received no reply. After the holidays I'll check with a scuba shop for the inspection.
Any other ideas?
 
Welding tanks...

I bought a couple large welding tanks and transfill to a medical tank. Works just fine. The large welding tanks cost about $18 to to fill. Can refill my E size medical tanks many times from that.
 
All good info here, Gents.
But what about obtaining a Hydro Inspection.
Who, what where do we go for that. Asked Aerox and received no reply. After the holidays I'll check with a scuba shop for the inspection.
Any other ideas?

You?ve already got the right idea - SCUBA shop is the place to ask. If they don't have a connection, I wouldn?t use them as a SCUBA shop.....

Paul
 
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