O2 kit - buy or rent?

We had a convoluted discussion last night about the pros and cons of buying
O2 kit and paying for maintenance or using the BOC arrangement where you
lease the kit and have maintenance as part of the deal. We also wondered
whether it made economic and practical sense to keep a large O2 cylinder
ourselves to refill the emergency kits. We'd need two kits - one for each
boat.

What do other clubs, etc do?

--
######################
## PH, London ##
######################

Philip Herlihy wrote:
> We had a convoluted discussion last night about the pros and cons of
> buying O2 kit and paying for maintenance or using the BOC arrangement
> where you lease the kit and have maintenance as part of the deal. We
> also wondered whether it made economic and practical sense to keep a
> large O2 cylinder ourselves to refill the emergency kits. We'd need
> two kits - one for each boat.

Most of the O2 kits I've seen are small and low pressure.
I filled one for a club a couple of weeks ago (yes I do
have the two pin adapter) and frankly I take more oxygen
home after a weekend's rebreathing.

I seem to remember that the constant flow valves and masks
et. al. are listed on DAN's website. It must be worth at
least pricing up. Now if somebody could come up with a
constant flow valve on a DIN fitting most teckie trips
have at least a couple of people carrying 100% in bulk
so you have backup.

nigelH

Imorital wrote:

> The cost is about the same as a dedicated unit, but you may be able to
> recycle a cylinder. It should be easier to maintain (more standard, less
> reliance on BOC), easier to get filled & tested (LDS), and will probably be
> more useful (better capacity) should the time come.

All good ideas, and certainly any O2 is better than no O2...

Another consideration is the people who will be using the O2. If they
are all techies and know one end of a bullnose/pin index/ DIN fitting
from the other and how to set all this up then you are fine. If it is a
normal diver then they will look for a unit that looks like the one they
were trained on - and any further complication from that will result in
a delay in the application of O2, which could contribute to the severity
of the accident.

Just my 2p.

Ben

--
Ben Panter, Edinburgh
My name (no spaces)@bigfoot which is a com.

> If money is no object then get both systems!

As long as the money was just as free-flowing when you bought the boat! We
can barely fit kit for 4 divers on our RIB, the current small O2 kit is a
squeeze, a full sizes bottle, particularly if it was in a huge box, just
wouldn't go! :o(

David