Nitrox fills

[WIdiver_Paul]

As a new diver to this forum, I would like to say, Greetings from Wisconsin! Perhaps i'll see some of you at Wazee....

Anyhoo, on the topic of nitrox/air fills- let's not forget about that training we paid for and the Equipment section of the PADI "Enriched Air Diver Manual" (page 9) which states, "Standard compressed air from a conventional fill station should never be put into an enriched air cylinder." The reason being that a standard compressor uses petroleum-based lubricants that produce hydrocarbons on the inside of your tank. Then during a partial pressure blend, 100% 02 is applied under pressure to these particles and *bam!* no more problem! So if you get a "dirty" fill on your nitrox tank, technically you should either have the tank 02 cleaned and re-Vipped or remove the nitrox VIP service and tank markings. The other downside to having an air fill in your nitrox tank is the possibility of backfeed into the fill whip and/or banks of the supplier. This could mean a dangerously wrong mix of 02 in a subsequent air fill or topoff. So the little dive store guy was doing the right thing according to his training, but ??

Seriously, I get air fills on my Nitrox tanks all the time, you just have to request "02 clean air fills", they can do this either with possibly the same compressor they use to top off 02 fills (this is why I use only a nitrox supplier for my air fills in a nitrox tank) or they can manually do it with their own 02/Nitrogen fill whip (which they use for the normoxic fills also). Questions, please?


Nice to meetch'all!
(Paul on RTL Diver III near Isle Royale)