airshawn58
Member
Trying to get my 02 system serviced in Northeast Ohio. Any suggestions?
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02 system service
- Thread starter airshawn58
- Start date
If you mean o2 cleaning and calibration of the system itself, reach out to the manufacturer of your system. They are the ones that should do this.
If you mean a fill, cylinder vip, o2 clean, or hydro, scuba shops are usually a good source for those services. Call around and I bet you can find one. Make sure to tell them what valve thread you have, you might need to provide an adapter. Northeast Scuba supply can make you just about any adapter you might need, once you hear from your local scuba shop on what valves they have.
If you mean a fill, cylinder vip, o2 clean, or hydro, scuba shops are usually a good source for those services. Call around and I bet you can find one. Make sure to tell them what valve thread you have, you might need to provide an adapter. Northeast Scuba supply can make you just about any adapter you might need, once you hear from your local scuba shop on what valves they have.
airshawn58
Member
Thnx for the help with this. I called a local dive shop, they wanted to know if I need "just breathable air" or straight o2? I must have sounded like a total idiot (which I am about this) bcs I told them I didn't know.
Airshaw
I am a certified cylinder inspector located in PA. Make sure you know what you actually need.
The cylinder must have a hydro check every 5 years or no one will fill it for you. As for the “visual inspection “ that is a scuba requirement, not an aviation one. If you get your cylinder filled at a scuba shop then we would require a visual tear down, clean, and inspection. If you got to an airport service shop that has O2 then you probably won’t need this. Just depends.
Scuba shops are generally easy to work with but we have significant liability on the fills we do. This makes some squeamish about stepping outside of what we know.
Your hydro is stamped on the outside of the cylinder near the neck if the bottle is aluminum or on a special sticker if it is composit. Check that first and then go from there. If you need the valve serviced, cleaned, or calibrated then u will have to go to the manufacture or a medical supply place. Those valves are not easy to work with.
Pm me if you need more info.
I am a certified cylinder inspector located in PA. Make sure you know what you actually need.
The cylinder must have a hydro check every 5 years or no one will fill it for you. As for the “visual inspection “ that is a scuba requirement, not an aviation one. If you get your cylinder filled at a scuba shop then we would require a visual tear down, clean, and inspection. If you got to an airport service shop that has O2 then you probably won’t need this. Just depends.
Scuba shops are generally easy to work with but we have significant liability on the fills we do. This makes some squeamish about stepping outside of what we know.
Your hydro is stamped on the outside of the cylinder near the neck if the bottle is aluminum or on a special sticker if it is composit. Check that first and then go from there. If you need the valve serviced, cleaned, or calibrated then u will have to go to the manufacture or a medical supply place. Those valves are not easy to work with.
Pm me if you need more info.
airshawn58
Member
Thnx for this essential info. I rarely if ever fly above 10k. The only reason I'm looking into this is bcs of my pending west-coast flight. My RV came with the system; it's large/heavy and in my guess needs the whole 9 as I doubt if it's been used in years, if ever. All that said, maybe I'm better off just buying a handful of portable/hand-held bottles?
Is the system hard mounted? If that’s the case- check the pressure. If it has any- then I’d just take it to an airport that services O2. They will probably fill it for you. If it’s not leaking- then don’t worry about it. If the pressure is 0 though. No one will touch it.
Draker
Well Known Member
Besides the obvious hydro-test requirement, has anyone recently had to deal with push-back from either aviation O2 fillers, dive shops, or welding gas suppliers about filling green medical O2 bottles? I read a bunch of threads here on VAF about how lots of companies get squirrelly or simply refuse to fill, but most of those threads are pretty old. I'm planning on putting together a DIY system and am worried that nobody might be willing to fill it.
I have some buddies who have had their tanks filled at the local scuba shop and they didn't do any teardown, etc., just filled it, AFAIK. I used the same shop, but can't answer directly as it was for a hydrostatic check and fill, don't know what all is involved there, and it's obviously different than just a fill. (We do our own refills from large tanks at one guy's hangar).
They had no issue whatsoever with any of our tanks, clearly marked for aviation use. Said they handle them all the time. The hydro check was pretty cheap, IIRC. Dunno what the guys paid for their refills, but nowhere near as much as an FBO.
Untainted123
Well Known Member
Even though those threads are old, most of it still applies:
- The medical bottles usually require a prescription to fill (maybe not hard to get from your friendly Dr)
- Most places don't actually fill them, they simply take yours and give you a filled one. This is important if you have an odd size bottle for whatever reason.
- Presumably you need O2 cause you are going high and far, consider the difficulty of getting a replacement/refill enroute and/or your destination (maybe no medical O2 supply place nearby/reasonable?)
All of those factors made me build my system using the smallest, commonest welder O2 bottles available, which is basically the O2 bottle that comes with the cheap HF torch kits you can buy, which I think is about 20cuft. I went to the local welding supply place, asked for their smallest bottle that they keep in filled stock, and bought a filled tank for ~$120, a pediatric regulator and oxymizer cannulas on eBay. When my bottle is empty, it's about $15 to trade it in again and get a full one, at any welding supply place, and no questions or hassles given. Also, since you are just trading it in each time, you don't have to worry about hydro test etc, the new one is always good to go. Biggest downside is that the 20cuft bottle is heavier than an equivalent volume medical bottle, mine is about 16lbs, but it's rare I am weight constrained anyway, plus I built a little cradle to effectively put in under my right seat passenger, instead of adding to cargo CG.
They also said they would fill my nice odd-ball size bottle if I brought it to them, but they don't do any actual filling there and it would be sent out on the daily runs, takes about 3-5 days to come back. One place I called I mentioned something about aviation and the conversation was pretty much over at that point. I think it all depends on what you available in your area, SCUBA shops aren't exactly abundant here, but maybe in Fl, that is a better alternative etc. I was more worried about flying through the midwest, and I figured welders supply shops are a dime a dozen, even in Nowhere Muni Airport KS. Turns out I have never really needed to refill on the road, so there's that.
PS: This is all presuming you don't care about "aviators breathing oxygen" and all that debate (not trying to start that here, it's been beat to death plenty of other places). But, just as a safety precaution, I take my latest refill each time and take a few puffs at the house, wait to keel over. In the airplane, I am monitoring with a spO2 monitor anyway, so if I was breathing something besides O2, my sats would go down.
airshawn58
Member
