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mcf69
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Homefill O2 systems
« on: May 27th, 2006, 5:33pm » |
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I've been thinking about buying a homefill oxygen concentrator to refill portable cylinders, takes alot of the hassle out of having tanks delivered or having to go fetch them, plus the savings of filling my own. Does anyone use this kind of setup? I've checked out a couple companies and it seems that they only sell machines that fill their particular style of cylinder with conserving devices aimed at the COPD community. I haven't seen one that will fill a regular E cylinder that you could put a 15 LPM regulator on. Anybody have any experience with these or any ideas? Mr Happy maybe?
PFDANs to all...........
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Ueli
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From the number of responses up to now, not many seem to have experience with what you propose,  .
To have enough oxygen to abort a single attack, a small cylinder has to be charged with a pressure of 100 Bar or more, a task that can't be done with any old bicycle pump. Oxygen compressors are high precision machines, as the only lubricant allowed is the gas itself. Add to the cost of a 'home' oxygen compressor the price of the concentrator and the savings will hit rock bottom.
However, another method gets near to what you want: Filling the small cylinder from a large tank. For this purpose there a special connecting hoses available, they are called "pigtails". You best google for suppliers of aviation oxygen systems.
Ueli 
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mcf69
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Re: Homefill O2 systems
« Reply #2 on: May 31st, 2006, 2:11am » |
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Ueli,
I did find a couple systems that will fill a regular E cylinder to 2200 psi, the cost, as you said though, is not too cheap. Basically they use a regular concentrator with a booster pump. I have quite a bit of experience with high pressure breathing air. I helped design our FD's mobile cascade system we carry on our heavy rescue, and am one of the handfull of people who can run the county's compressor system for filling SCBA cylinders, same as used in dive shops, just on a bigger scale. Not much difference between air and o2 when it comes to filling cylinders, the same level of purity has to be maintained.....
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Mr. Happy
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Re: Homefill O2 systems
« Reply #3 on: May 31st, 2006, 11:30am » |
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I kinda followed the Ueli route, instead of concentrators/compressors. Found a Rube Goldberg assembly on eBay that's made for 540 to 870 transfers. Easy enough to make, if you don't mind hunting up the parts.....or you can check out a guy named "johnclairowens" on eBay that usually has them available.
The only drawback is you can never fill the E tank to the actual 2000 psi limit. You'll never be able to transfer more than the psi in the large tank.
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D_Robinson
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Re: Homefill O2 systems
« Reply #4 on: May 31st, 2006, 2:27pm » |
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O2 only requires proper seals in pumping equipment. Its pretty easy to find out that information and buying the proper booster pumps and such is easy. I used to sell Pneumatic equipment and did a lot of work with O2 concentrator service companies, and sold a line of pneumatic booster pumps that had an O2 option (how do these welding shops and home health supplies fill bottles).
You can rent or buy an O2 concentrator that has the ability to fill a bottle. I am not sure what PSIG it will fill tanks, but it would be worth looking into. Pneumatic booster pumps only require a air compressor to run the booster pump and proper lines to fill your tank.
2,200 PSIG is easy to get to, I have done 120,000 PSIG before for a customer in a water cutting application. That is the threshold where water goes from a liquid to a solid due to pressure.
Just remember you are storing energy when filling anything at pressure, if you screw up someone of something is going to get beat up over and possibly destroyed.
Dave
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mcf69
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Re: Homefill O2 systems
« Reply #5 on: May 31st, 2006, 10:32pm » |
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Quote:| The only drawback is you can never fill the E tank to the actual 2000 psi limit. You'll never be able to transfer more than the psi in the large tank. |
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Actually Hap, if you had more than one large tank you could cascade the E up to 2200 psi- quote from Poseidon Air Systems website: "By cascading you simply equalize the pressure between the cylinder to be refilled and the supply cylinder. If this doesn't "fill" your cylinder, you simply repeat the process with the supply cylinder with the next highest pressure until you attain the desired fill." Our larger cylinders are filled to 4500 psi with the compressor, so it doesn't take alot of larger cylinders, but with O2 only filled to 2200 psi it would probably take a larger bank of cylinders to refill several smaller ones.
Quote:| Just remember you are storing energy when filling anything at pressure, if you screw up someone of something is going to get beat up over and possibly destroyed. |
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Very true Dave, the drawback to any kind of system of this type would be the scatter shield/containment enclosure needed to contain any possible "mishaps'. I was at the State Fire Academy once when they had a popoff go on an scba cylinder, 10 times louder than a gunshot, good thing it was contained, talk about projectile........ I wonder about those systems where the cylinder is setting on top of a concentrator filling, what happens if something fails? I'll have to get you guys some pictures of our breathing air systems......
Thanks for the advice
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