Build your Own Oxygen Setup?

[rvmills]

Originally Posted by Mike S

Bob, good write up, great addition to a great aircraft.

Thanks.

Thanks Mike...probably won't need it for a quick hop over the hill to visit you (gotta do that soon!), but good for getting up there for a X-C and catching some good tailwinds (now that it's not so freeeezing up there!)

Cheers,
Bob

[gasman]

[quote=RV7Guy;213176.
3) Filling the tanks. Another method is to check with your local fire department. Everybody knows somebody in public safety. In many cases they will fill your tank for training purposes. [/QUOTE]

This is not good. Fire departments use compressed air. See page 5, post 45..... "accident - compressed air"

[Mike S]

Originally Posted by gasman

This is not good. Fire departments use compressed air. See page 5, post 45..... "accident - compressed air"

Not exactly so, at least in the dept I worked in.

While we did use compressed air ------filtered, de humidified etc----for our SCBA units, it was never used in oxygen bottles.

We had O2 for filling our medical oxygen bottles.

Even the fittings on the bottles are different, it would take a custom made adapter to put air into an O2 bottle.

It certainly wont hurt to ask at your local FD, worst that can happen is you get told no.

[MikeS]

Thanks to the wealth of information on the subject that I've read (and re-read) on these forums, I've got all of my questions pretty much answered. Now it's down to deciding whether I want a long, skinny aluminum 24 cu. ft. tank or the shorter and fatter 22 cu ft. tank. The long skinny tanks can be found very cheaply since they are used for medical purposes and when those people die their relatives sell the tanks for $50 or so, some hardly used.

My question is: Are the regulators that come on those medical tanks (which look exactly the same as the $400-500 Sky Ox tanks) okay for single pilot operations? My plane is single place and I don't need the extra outlets. I'm thinking I would just add a flowmeter and use an Oximizer pendant cannula.

Thanks for any thoughts on this.

Mike

[Kahuna]

Originally Posted by MikeS

My question is: Are the regulators that come on those medical tanks (which look exactly the same as the $400-500 Sky Ox tanks) okay for single pilot operations? My plane is single place and I don't need the extra outlets. I'm thinking I would just add a flowmeter and use an Oximizer pendant cannula.

Thanks for any thoughts on this.

Mike

Yes........

[MikeS]

Thanks for the confirmation.

********

Looking at the prices for turnkey kits sold by Aerox, Sky Ox & others, I sure don't know why someone would spend five or six hundred dollars when they can do the whole thing for $100 or so. It makes me wonder "what am I not understanding here?"

Mike

[Radomir]

But you're not getting an "aviation" unit for $100

"Aer" or "Sky" in front of Ox simply denotes a multiplier that is to be used when determining the price Just like anything else that has anything to do with aviation...

Originally Posted by MikeS

Thanks for the confirmation.

********

Looking at the prices for turnkey kits sold by Aerox, Sky Ox & others, I sure don't know why someone would spend five or six hundred dollars when they can do the whole thing for $100 or so. It makes me wonder "what am I not understanding here?"

Mike

[MikeS]

Looking further than eBay and Craigslist, direct from a supplier of medical oxygen equipment, I'm finding prices of brand new oxygen bottles of 24 cubic feet and smaller (and larger) to cost around $50. Regulators, also brand new, even less.

Unless I'm missing something here, the difference in price between products of the same quality and capacity (medical vs aviation use) is quite incredible.

This company

http://www.cramerdeckermedical.com/c...?category_id=2

appears to be a source of the bottles and regulators sold by the re-sellers that repackage them for aviation use, adding several hundred dollars in the process. It appears that the observation

> "Aer" or "Sky" in front of Ox simply denotes a multiplier that is to be used when determining the price."

is exactly correct.

Unless . . . like I said . . . I'm missing something here. I still can't believe it.

**********

And it appears it's not just the aviation oxygen re-sellers that are doing this. The above company provides bottles and regulators for the scuba industry as well. And for many other specialty applications - mountain climbing for instance. I'm sure the dive shops and specialty shops are doing the same thing as Aerox and Sky Ox, etc.

Mike

[az_gila]

Originally Posted by MikeS

Looking further than eBay and Craigslist, direct from a supplier of medical oxygen equipment, I'm finding prices of brand new oxygen bottles of 24 cubic feet and smaller (and larger) to cost around $50. Regulators, also brand new, even less.

Unless I'm missing something here, the difference in price between products of the same quality and capacity (medical vs aviation use) is quite incredible.

....
Mike

...but will the regulators work correctly at high altitudes?

The earth-bound regulators may use atmospheric pressure as a reference.

This one is only rated to 10,000 ft.

http://www.precisionmedical.com/down...res/504302.pdf

[MikeS]

Ah ha . . . I knew something had to be fishy.

That's a very nice regulator . . . it (and there are some others too) does pneumatically what the EDS device does electronically (the one Deakin talks about in his article). Tomorrow I'll get on this trail and look into this question about possible altitude limitations of medical regulators.