Oxygen Refills- Robbed

[N201MKTurbo]

3 hours ago, great circle said:

Servicing aircraft O2 is done with aviators breathing oxygen, a certified mixture that has no moisture content. For GA aircraft (Part 91, non-pressurized) this may not be important, but for 135/125 operations it is required. This is what most FBO's have, hence the cost. Also, an A&P has to do the servicing and sign it off. 

Most of out servicing is on commercial aircraft, so you will pay commercial prices. No apologies for that should be expected. 

I get my supply bottle filled at the gas plant. It is not ABO, but it is filled from the same pipe as the ABO bottles. The only difference between ABO and any other oxygen is a moisture test. I asked the guy at the gas plant if a cylinder of ABO ever failed the test. He said not in the 25 years he has been filling them. The oxygen all comes from LOX. it would be impossible for any moisture to exist in the system it would freeze and clog the system. Medical, welding and ABO all come from the same pipe (manifold). I wouldnt breathe anything that came from a cascade at the gas plant. they can get contaminated with other gasses. If I ask them to fill my bottle from the manifold, they have no problem except they say I have to come back the next day to pick it up, unless you get there first thing in the morning. They run the manifold first thing in the morning. When all the O2 cylinders are filled they shut down the manifold, so if you come in in the afternoon they will fill it from a cascade. The cascade is 36 bottles on a skid all hooked together. They top off the cascades in the morning when they are running the manifold.

The gas plant has a big tank of LOX. the LOX goes to an evaporator/heat exchanger to warm it up, then to this ginormous compressor that compresses it to 10000 PSI. This runs to the individual branch lines. Each branch has its own regulator. each branch has about 50 pigtails with individual shutoffs. All the cylinders on an individual branch will be filled to the same pressure. when the whole branch gets to the desired pressure, the branch shutoff is closed, then the cylinder shutoff is closed, then the pigtail shutoff is closed and the full cylinder is removed. The ABO and medical cylinders are usually filled on the same branch.

All medical and ABO bottles are emptied before they are filled so they can't backflow into the manifold. They aren't quite as careful with the welding bottles. When I take mine in to get filled, I tell them that I'm not going to breathe this oxygen, but to treat it like I was. They give me a wink and say "You got it" and they fill it on the medical branch.

[GeeBee]

2 hours ago, Red Leader said:

I just read every post in this thread and am surprised that only one person mentioned a portable oxygen unit (Innogen). I looked into that a short while ago and found it is not rated for any significant altitude. Another thread I read recently mentioned one pilot used his portable at an altitude well over 10k with no problems. Although these devices are expensive, I wouldn't use one simply because it is not designed to function properly at altitude and I will not risk the safety of myself, passengers or those on the ground due to dependence on, or a malfunction of, such an iffy device. 

On another note, slightly related, has anyone built an oxygen charging system in their hanger using the older generators and an oxygen compressor? I was looking at the Invacare XL and Homefill 2 bundle, thinking that since it can fill small tanks to 1700+ PSI, why could we not adapt that for use on our planes? It is medical-grade oxygen, so if there was someone who wanted to raise a stink, they wouldn't be able to do much about it. Of course, it would much slower to fill a plane (perhaps a day or two), but once the rig is purchased and set-up, the operating cost would be less than minimal. Thoughts?

That is incorrect. They are aviation rated as long as you purchase the "Aviator" model which is rated to FL180. FL180 is the limit because it is a pulse system using a cannula. Inogen worked with the FAA and the primary issue was not sufficient supply but EMI. They solved that issue. There is a write up in Aviation Consumer if you subscribe.

https://www.inogenaviator.com

 

[Pinecone]

17 hours ago, great circle said:

Servicing aircraft O2 is done with aviators breathing oxygen, a certified mixture that has no moisture content. For GA aircraft (Part 91, non-pressurized) this may not be important, but for 135/125 operations it is required. This is what most FBO's have, hence the cost. Also, an A&P has to do the servicing and sign it off. 

Most of out servicing is on commercial aircraft, so you will pay commercial prices. No apologies for that should be expected. 

There is no such thing as aviators breathing oxygen these days.  ALL O2 comes from boiling liquid oxygen.  It is nothing but oxygen.   Hospitals get theirs from the same supplier that supplies the local welding shop and so does your FBO.

If you look at the fill price, you are pretty much paying for an hour of A&P time and the O2 is almost free.

[Pinecone]

15 hours ago, Red Leader said:

I just read every post in this thread and am surprised that only one person mentioned a portable oxygen unit (Innogen). I looked into that a short while ago and found it is not rated for any significant altitude.

The Imogen 5 is good for 2 people up to 18,000.

There is a good thread on BT in the Beech Singles section.

https://www.beechtalk.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=215076&p=3200920&hilit=imogen#p3200920

Here is a site that will sell to you if you furnish a copy of your pilot certificate, no prescription needed.  Also $1000 off with free FedEx shipping.

https://mainclinicsupply.com/products/inogen-one-g5-2020-model-rated-1-in-portable-high-flow-oxygen-1-6-only-4-7-pounds-free-fedex-next-day-delivery-dont-miss-this-sale

 

[Red Leader]

So what about setting up your own oxygen concentrator and compressor to fill the tanks in a plane. Has anyone done that?

[Pinecone]

The concentrator does not delivery pure oxygen, only enriched air.

Also, compressors that can do 1500 - 2000 PSI with O2 (no oil, nothing combustible) are NOT cheap.

[tigers2007]

I used to lease an M size tank and refill it myself. So much cheaper and way more convenient. Some MS members use a cascade of multiple tanks. Be sure to read your hangar agreement before investing into your own refill station.

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[hubcap]

It costs me $75 to have the local shop fill my built in tank once or twice a year…which is all I need with the O2D2 system.

[kortopates]

I think it cost me less than $60 for an exchange large tank of ABO for my cascade system. Two big tanks last me a couple years with a number of refills to my onboard 115 cuft tank.
I won’t risk using an electrical device like the O2D2 in the flight levels, but the Precise Demand conserved does the same thing mechanically with a fail safe to continuous flow. Just more expensive.


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[McMooney]

On 7/6/2023 at 4:28 PM, McMooney said:

i fill my portable at the local gas supply, had to force the guy to take 20$ last time

so the last time i filled my bottle, it was a saturday the counter was closed and i walked around back to the filling area.

the medical, welding and my bottle were all filled from the same source.  I actually saw them stop the medical fill to fill welding bottles.

[kortopates]

so the last time i filled my bottle, it was a saturday the counter was closed and i walked around back to the filling area.
the medical, welding and my bottle were all filled from the same source.  I actually saw them stop the medical fill to fill welding bottles.

Yes, they fill from the same O2 source for all O2 bottles, but they fill differently for breathing O2 vs industrial gas. For breathing O2 they have to clean the bottle out first. I recall they do that by vacuuming out the bottle (1x or 2x) then fill the bottle.
Welding gas bottles don’t get cleaned. They may be able to shortcut the cleaning process when it’s your bottle being refilled - i am not sure. But it’s a requirement when you exchange tanks. I own my tanks which are +P rated but i simply exchange mine for filled ones of same size and specs and never have worry about hydro inspections.


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[McMooney]

1 hour ago, kortopates said:

Yes, they fill from the same O2 source for all O2 bottles, but they fill differently for breathing O2 vs industrial gas. For breathing O2 they have to clean the bottle out first. I recall they do that by vacuuming out the bottle (1x or 2x) then fill the bottle.
Welding gas bottles don’t get cleaned. They may be able to shortcut the cleaning process when it’s your bottle being refilled - i am not sure. But it’s a requirement when you exchange tanks. I own my tanks which are +P rated but i simply exchange mine for filled ones of same size and specs and never have worry about hydro inspections.


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yeah, they mostly just swap the bottles.  only real issue is the filler valve they have to remove from mine and put on another

[Brandt]

On 7/6/2023 at 2:02 PM, great circle said:

Servicing aircraft O2 is done with aviators breathing oxygen, a certified mixture that has no moisture content. For GA aircraft (Part 91, non-pressurized) this may not be important, but for 135/125 operations it is required. This is what most FBO's have, hence the cost. Also, an A&P has to do the servicing and sign it off. 

Most of out servicing is on commercial aircraft, so you will pay commercial prices. No apologies for that should be expected. 

Sorry, but everything you posted is incorrect.

https://www.aviationconsumer.com/accessories/breathing-cheap/

 

[PeteMc]

1 hour ago, kortopates said:

but they fill differently for breathing O2 vs industrial gas.

Not any more.  Maybe for decades.

Yes, years ago there was a cost factor in creating the aviation oxygen, but now days it cost them more create, store and manage the various types with the big implications if they give you the wrong one.  Now days they just make one O2 and put a different markup on it pending which market it goes to.  At least that's what I've been hearing for years at various seminars and seen in articles. 

[A64Pilot]

Years ago, couple of decades anyway I was told by the then Air Products, now Airgas that the only difference in any O2 was the bottle it was put in, they alluded that medical bottles were sterilized somehow, but I believe he was incorrect.

The source of all their O2 was a large Dewer out back that as others have said was liquid O2. 

I don’t fly O2 anymore but when I did I filled my bottle from welding tanks at the plant with a simple transfer hose.

If you fill your own bottles be double sure that not even any kind of hint of oil gets on anything or you can honestly have a bottle explode, one drop is all it takes.

Good friend who worked at a cave diving shop burned his hand pretty good, he was eating lunch (fried chicken) and got up to unhook the Haschal from a deco bottle, he wiped his hands off, closed the valve on the tank and the hose, but that leaves a couple inches of hose pressurized, when he turned the hose to bleed that tiny bit off it apparently ignited the little bit of oil on his hand and flash burned him.

The first accident I’m real familiar with

https://www.luxfercylinders.com/news/cylinder-incident-in-luraville-florida

https://komonews.com/news/local/dive-shop-damaged-after-oxygen-tank-explodes

https://scubaboard.com/community/threads/oxygen-cylinder-explodes-on-diving-boat-france.504785/page-2

https://www.dansa.org/blog/2023/03/01/kaboom-the-big-oxygen-safety-issue

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6147225/

There are more, but I think that’s enough to make the point, just there are way more divers than pilots refilling their own O2 bottles. An O2 concentrator seems like a good idea, with of course a back-up O2 source.

We had an O2 concentrator on the AH-64, it took the O2 and dumped it overboard and filled the fuel tanks with the O2 depleted air, Nitrogen to prevent fuel tank explosions 

https://www.army-technology.com/news/newscobham-modernise-us-apache-units/

Seems like the Boeing 787 does too?

Edited July 9, 2023 by A64Pilot

[kortopates]

22 hours ago, PeteMc said:

Not any more.  Maybe for decades.

Yes, years ago there was a cost factor in creating the aviation oxygen, but now days it cost them more create, store and manage the various types with the big implications if they give you the wrong one.  Now days they just make one O2 and put a different markup on it pending which market it goes to.  At least that's what I've been hearing for years at various seminars and seen in articles. 

Go talk to your local industrial gas suppliers. Nothing in your comments nor any of the internet articles say anything at all about the gas bottle filling procedures. They're all about that they only have one source for O2, which is totally dry, that they use to fill all the different bottles. But not a word on how they fill breathing O2 bottles differently from industrial gas bottles. The breathing bottles require cleaning whereas the industrial gas does not. When you buy it in bulk the cost delta is not that significant.

Edited July 9, 2023 by kortopates

[1980Mooney]

I use a local dive shop that supplies pure O2 for oxygen dive systems.  They boost my portable tank up to 2,400 psi.  $25 to fill a 22 cu ft "M" cylinder.

[N201MKTurbo]

44 minutes ago, kortopates said:

Go talk to your local industrial gas suppliers. Nothing in your comments nor any of the internet articles say anything at all about the gas bottle filling procedures. They're all about that they only have one source for O2, which is totally dry, that they use to fill all the different bottles. But not a word on how they fill breathing O2 bottles differently from industrial gas bottles. The breathing bottles require cleaning whereas the industrial gas does not. When you buy it in bulk the cost delta is not that significant.

At our local gas plant the only cleaning they do for breathing oxygen, is to open the valves and vent them to the atmosphere before they hook them to the fill manifold. This way nothing backfills the manifold. 
 

I have been there and watched them. They fill hundreds if not thousands of medical bottles a day. They would need way more staff to do more than that. Can you imagine hooking up a few thousand cylinders and then unhooking that many every day? A mindless job.

[PeteMc]

7 hours ago, kortopates said:

Nothing in your comments nor any of the internet articles say anything at all about the gas bottle filling procedures.

Well, okay I didn't go into detail nor was I talking about that.  My point was they don't "make" different O2 anymore.  They may bottle it differently, hence my "different market" comment.  But I didn't go into detail, so you got me there.   

But maybe you should check with your gas supplier....  Do they really do it differently for the different types?  Most providers now have the same protocol for filling any bottle, so basically you can use any bottle. 

 

 

Edited July 10, 2023 by PeteMc

[Pinecone]

13 hours ago, kortopates said:

Go talk to your local industrial gas suppliers. Nothing in your comments nor any of the internet articles say anything at all about the gas bottle filling procedures. They're all about that they only have one source for O2, which is totally dry, that they use to fill all the different bottles. But not a word on how they fill breathing O2 bottles differently from industrial gas bottles. The breathing bottles require cleaning whereas the industrial gas does not. When you buy it in bulk the cost delta is not that significant.

Where is the requirement for cleaning?

That would require removing the valve each time they are filled, and I don't see gas suppliers doing that.

[Pinecone]

11 hours ago, M20Doc said:

Imagine the liability if a shop fills your plane with O2 from the welding supplier and there is a hypoxia type accident.  Just like good maintenance, using the correct supplies is only marginally more expensive.

Except there is no AOB.  If you ask for it, they supply the same O2 as if you buy welding gas.   A savvy gas supplier may charge you more.

[N201MKTurbo]

The only difference between ABO and any other oxygen is it is tested. I have seen this test performed. They take a handheld tester that screws onto the CGA 540, they snug it with a wrench crack the valve open and read the numbers off the tester, then close the valve and unscrew the fitting. It takes about as long as it took to read this. If you asked them real nice to do this to your "Welding" oxygen, they probably would.

This test has nothing to do with the O2s breathability, it verifies that there is no moisture, which can freeze up your regulator and stop the flow of oxygen. They don't do this test on medical bottles.

[dzeleski]

All of my local welding/gas shops refused to fill my portable tank. All of them refused to do it with the smaller tank. Some said they couldn't "safely" do it because its too small, others just said they couldn't do it. FBO wanted 100 dollars to fill it so I eventually found a scuba shop that could and charged 50.

Depending on how much I start to use O2 I can order/lease ABO tanks from my local suppliers and just transfill myself but I have never had such an annoying time trying to convince people to put O2 in a bottle.

[N201MKTurbo]

27 minutes ago, dzeleski said:

All of my local welding/gas shops refused to fill my portable tank. All of them refused to do it with the smaller tank. Some said they couldn't "safely" do it because its too small, others just said they couldn't do it. FBO wanted 100 dollars to fill it so I eventually found a scuba shop that could and charged 50.

Depending on how much I start to use O2 I can order/lease ABO tanks from my local suppliers and just transfill myself but I have never had such an annoying time trying to convince people to put O2 in a bottle.

Most of our portable bottles are medical bottles. They can't fill them without a prescription. If you get a prescription, you can get them filled at a medical oxygen company. There are zillions of them. And they are cheap.

The local gas plant won't fill my supply cylinder if I tell them I am breathing it. I told them once and the guy put his hands over his ears and went "la la la I can't hear that" then he asked again what I needed and I said "welding oxygen" and he said "I got you covered boss"

[kortopates]

Except there is no AOB.  If you ask for it, they supply the same O2 as if you buy welding gas.   A savvy gas supplier may charge you more.

ABO is alive and well. Of course it’s the same O2, but dispensed in a tank labeled for ABO for breathing versus industrial O2.


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