Used Sorb Question.

[Capt Morgan]

Next of my dumb questions is ..........
How long can a used fill be kept and still be used again ?
I have used the sorb for one hour then fitted a narked@90
Scrubber cover and would like to know how long it can sit
before being used again and if the duration of use should be
reduced ?

[DiverMike]

Next of my dumb questions is ..........
How long can a used fill be kept and still be used again ?
I have used the sorb for one hour then fitted a narked@90
Scrubber cover and would like to know how long it can sit
before being used again and if the duration of use should be
reduced ?

Until your next dive. Stick within the use guide lines (3 hrs, shallower than...) but its a chemical so what's to go off?

[notdeadyet]

I filled my unit in October, did a dive, never dived CCR again over the winter and used the same fill last month.

I'd say it would last a while :)

[deepunderground]

Don't worry about it...

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[Capt Morgan]

Thanks folks.
I did say it was a stupid question :blush:
Get ready for more, I've only started.
I thought it would be ok but someone questioned
the wisdom of using it and spooked me a bit :(

[Ken Hawk]

They say the only stupid question is the 1 you didn't ask.
There is a good chance you may prove that wrong ;)

I didn't spook ye did I :(

[Ruffy]

As long as its well packed and not able to shift in the canister it will be fine...

[Capt Morgan]

They say the only stupid question is the 1 you didn't ask.
There is a good chance you may prove that wrong ;)

I didn't spook ye did I :(

Well you got me thinking of how long it would keep.

[Ken Hawk]

Well you got me thinking of how long it would keep.

Well I know even less than you about ccrs than you but it gets me how folk pay 1.7 to 8k on a unit then worry about saving £3 on sorb ;)

[Hot Totty]

Biggist issue is forgetting how much life is left in the stack ;)

[Capt Morgan]

Well I know even less than you about ccrs than you but it gets me how folk pay 1.7 to 8k on a unit then worry about saving £3 on sorb ;)

Why throw something that is still good out ?
I don't drain my twins before refilling them
so why toss the sorb if it's got a dive or two left ?

[FrogTec]

It will last, but at the same grow you a nice culture in there I would suggest.

The scrubber works on heat & moisture; nice home to some bugs.

I will keep it max a month in between dives & never anything more than a puddle dive on used scrubbers. This is also based on having a co2 sensor to give me a heads up. Before that a week or two max.

It is probably wasting £3 of scrubber if you swap out. The significant issue is what part of your scrubber is used?

Go with what your taught, too many deaths due to somebody unqualified to understand the full risk gives advice!

Just my opinion.

Karlos

[Ken Hawk]

Why throw something that is still good out ?
I don't drain my twins before refilling them
so why toss the sorb if it's got a dive or two left ?

As I say, I don't know enough about it, just seems some folk push the scrubber sometimes for the sake of a few £ s of lime.
I am sure your top class instructor will tell you what you should and shouldn't do.

I would like to here what gobshite thinks about it, he seems to give honest no bullshit answers :D

[Ruffy]

Why throw something that is still
so why toss the sorb if it's got a dive or two left ?

We had a really good discussion on this subject back on the other forum and the general view was store a part used stack in an air tight container, well marked with dates and usage, for months on end but don't take the piss...
I would suggest a new stack for each deep/long dive however..
Interesting subject..

[Ken Hawk]

We had a really good discussion on this subject back on the other forum and the general view was store a part used stack in an air tight container, well marked with dates and usage, for months on end but don't take the piss...
I would suggest a new stack for each deep/long dive however..
Interesting subject..

Ruffy what is IYHO is a deep long dive?

[Capt Morgan]

We had a really good discussion on this subject back on the other forum and the general view was store a part used stack in an air tight container, well marked with dates and usage, for months on end but don't take the piss...
I would suggest a new stack for each deep/long dive however..
Interesting subject..

I'm new to CCR having only had one dive and haven't even done Mod1 yet.
I'd like to try and get in with other CCR divers to get used to the unit and how
to control it. I hope to have my Mod1 done in the next couple of months but for
now I will be doing shallow stuff.
I won't be pushing the scrubber, at the moment it has had one 30 min dive last
Sunday and I have counted that as 1 hour scrubber use to allow for pre-breathing
and testing the unit and have just taken delivery of a keg of lime so tipping is not
an issue.

[Hot Totty]

For me, 50% of scrubber life or more left I'll bag the can BUT if I don't use it for a shallow (< 30m ) dive within a couple of weeks I'll bin it :) it's just how I roll others may be different :rolleyes:

[notdeadyet]

It's more saving time than money. Mk15 scrubber takes a good 15 min to fill and is an absolute pain in the arse (think 3kg of lime through a 18mm hole).


It will last, but at the same grow you a nice culture in there I would suggest.


They used to use lime for burning the flesh off bodies in mediaeval bone yards. It's one hell of a bug that survives in a bucket of it. That really is one to worry about, it's the Godzilla of fungus. I keep the unit clean but stuff growing in the lime is really low on my list.

Canadian defence labs tested storing used lime, the result was no reason why it can't be stored in excess of ten days in the unit without anything bad happening.







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[Ruffy]

Ruffy what is IYHO is a deep long dive?

I am not a really deep tec guy....but an example for me would be say two dives of an hour each over a three week period on my stack at 20/30 meters, If the next dive was a forty meter one then I would be on a new stack..
If I was under the pier at swanage I would do it on the used one..
:blush:

[FrogTec]

It's not in the lime itself I was suggesting but in the can.

[Barrygoss]

Ruffy what is IYHO is a deep long dive?

Lime is seriously antibacterial, the stack is as sterile a place as you can get. Make sure the rest is cleaned though ;)
And the rules;
Writer-Gordon Henderson, the author of DDPLAN.

Here on Zorg, we abducted some humans to test your resistance to CO2 and the efficiency of our patented CO2 grabbing demon chamber.We took a human and connected a hose to them. The hose supplies gas and has one-way valves. The exit of the hose goes into a box. Inside this box are 1000s of little demons. These demons adore CO2. They will grab a passing molecule of CO2 and hang onto it for the rest of their lives. They can only hold one each. After the CO2 demon box there is another box with different demons inside - these count the number of O2 molecules you have used and replaces them.

We observed that humans when in a steady state consume the same amount of O2 per breath, regardless of the pressure we subjected them to. When given 100 molecules of our gas, they would use 4 molecules of our oxygen and turn this into 3 molecules of CO2 and 1 molecule of water vapour.So in the test, with 100 molecules of gas in the loop. The human push/pulled this through the box with the CO2 demons in it.

Every breath, 3 lucky demons grab a CO2 molecule each and are happy for the rest of their lives. We repeated this for many of your earth hours, pushing 100 molecules of gas through the CO2 box at a nice steady rate - the happy demon front line progressed linearly through the CO2 demon box until eventually they are all happy. At that point, the loop gas has some CO2 in it and we observed that the humans started to show signs of unease, panic and general ill-feeling.

They eventually died a rather uncomfortable death.

To continue our experiments, we abducted more humans and carried on, this time we subjected them to a pressure of 2 bar. This is the same as being under 10 metres of your water. There is now 200 molecules of gas in the loop, but the human still only uses 4 molecules of O2 and turns these into 3 molecules of CO2 and 1 water vapour. Each breathe pushes 200 molecules through the CO2 demon chamber, so the demons have to work faster to grab the CO2 molecules and die happy. Sometimes a front-line demon misses, but the 2nd line catches it OK.

This carries on and eventually all the demons are happy, then as above, the human dies painfully and horribly from CO2 poisoning.

We needed to do more experiments, so we continued with our abduction programme. Now we're testing to 90m. There are now 1000 molecules of gas in the loop, but as observed before, then humans still only take 4 molecules of O2 out and metabolises these into 3 of CO2 and one of water with each breath, However, the poor CO2 demons now have 1000 molecules of gas going through their chamber like a hurricane, and in those 1000 molecules there are still only 3 molecules of CO2! It's now very hard for the demons to catch a CO2 molecule and hang on to it!

The front-line demons have a really hard time catching the CO2 molecules and a lot more pass further down the line to be caught by the latter ones. Eventually, the front-line demons are full, but still the latter ones need to work to catch the CO2 and there will come a stage where there aren't enough latter ones who can catch the CO2 fast enough, so some will get through.

Eventually so many will get through that the human starts to notice it and dies horribly as before - even when there are still some unhappy and empty CO2 demons left.

Continuing our experiments with more abducted humans, we test again at 90m, but then we decide to ascend the human to some depth where the number of molecules in the loop is much less, so each breath the CO2 demons have more of a chance to catch the CO2 molecules left.Eventually, after 100's of trials, killing a great many humans every time, (And you should have seen our abduction budget! Off the scale!) we have come up with some rules for keeping humans alive and maximising the happiness of the CO2 demons. Our rules are many, long and complex but to simplify them for you humans we have reduced them to 3 simple rules.

Rule 1: You have 3 hours maximum.

Rule 2: For subsequent dives deeper than 20m: You must leave the bottom when the total time breathed through the system reaches 140 minutes.

Rule 3: For subsequent dives deeper than 50m: You must leave the bottom when the total time breathed from the system reaches 100 minutes.

And my personal take on this is any dive greater than 40m is fresh scrubber.

[BTS]

It's not in the lime itself I was suggesting but in the can.

what bugs in particular are you thinking of? Is there research available?

[Capt Morgan]

Domestos is good at killing germs in the can.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gn68vtbz5Hs

[Ruffy]

It's more about the loop and lungs...disinfect properly and allow to DRY..bugs don't like DRY..

[Ruffy]

My mother in law became seriously ill by having a quick drink
from a bottle of spring water in her car then putting the cap back
on over a few weeks during the summer.....
Saliva/food matter.....see where I am going. :puke

[Barrygoss]

My mother in law became seriously ill by having a quick drink
from a bottle of spring water in her car then putting the cap back
on over a few weeks during the summer.....
Saliva/food matter.....see where I am going. :puke

Please tell us you're not going here
http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/plasticbottles.asp

B

[Janos]

Rule 1: You have 3 hours maximum.

Rule 2: For subsequent dives deeper than 20m: You must leave the bottom when the total time breathed through the system reaches 140 minutes.

Rule 3: For subsequent dives deeper than 50m: You must leave the bottom when the total time breathed from the system reaches 100 minutes.

I do like these rules (and the explanation)


And my personal take on this is any dive greater than 40m is fresh scrubber.

I'm similar. Although it depends on the dive - my 40m dives tend to be longer - so I'd be using a new scrubber. A dive 40m on a Scapa Battleship with the club (probably 5 mins at the deepest point then working slowly up) and I wouldn't.

----

On the chucking or not debate. I'm happy keeping scrubber from day to day, or even for a couple of weeks. But more than that and I chuck it. It's only £4 for half a fill of lime and I don't think it's worth it.

Janos

[Janos]

I'm new to CCR having only had one dive and haven't even done Mod1 yet.
I'd like to try and get in with other CCR divers to get used to the unit and how
to control it. I hope to have my Mod1 done in the next couple of months but for
now I will be doing shallow stuff.

Careful. You need to stop thinking like an OC diver and start thinking like a CC diver.

Lots of the risks on CC are just as likely to happen shallow as deep. Hypoxia, hyperoxia, etc will kill you just the same shallow as deep.

Personally I didn't dive my unit until after my MOD1. I was tempted, but I've got plenty of diving ahead of me, and no need to rush.

Janos

[Ruffy]

Please tell us you're not going here
snopes.com: Reuse of Plastic Bottles (http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/plasticbottles.asp)

B

Thankfully not! Is this stuff fact?

[AMW]

I strip clean/disinfect my RB after each days diving and when I dive it again use new snof. For a bit of time/money it is not worth the possible consequence.

Andrew

[mrmints]

I strip clean/disinfect my RB after each days diving and when I dive it again use new snof. For a bit of time/money it is not worth the possible consequence.

Andrew

Bringing an old post back to life...

My memory is shocking, but on a weekends diving, leaving the unit in the car/on the boat overnight I'm fairly certain I didn't do any disinfecting...maybe just drained 3ltrs of drool from the hoses...do you guys disinfect the whole thing every evening?

Chris

[nigel hewitt]

Bringing an old post back to life...

My memory is shocking, but on a weekends diving, leaving the unit in the car/on the boat overnight I'm fairly certain I didn't do any disinfecting...maybe just drained 3ltrs of drool from the hoses...do you guys disinfect the whole thing every evening?

Chris
Nope. I do it when I get home.
I might think about it if it's going to be more than a fortnight away.

[mrmints]

Nope. I do it when I get home.
I might thing about it if it's going to be more than a fortnight away.

So even a week on a boat, diving twice a day, not a splash of disinfectant to be seen?

[matt]

It will last, but at the same grow you a nice culture in there I would suggest.

The scrubber works on heat & moisture; nice home to some bugs.

Do you have a reference?


I will keep it max a month in between dives & never anything more than a puddle dive on used scrubbers. This is also based on having a co2 sensor to give me a heads up. Before that a week or two max.

Why is a month OK but longer not? Do the bugs have a watch?


It is probably wasting £3 of scrubber if you swap out. The significant issue is what part of your scrubber is used?

Where does this £3 figure come from?

I'd happily use the scrubber and then remove it, keep it in the unsealed pot (sealing it up isn't going to let it air dry around the scrims. It's also not going to do any harm (unless you put it in a wind-tunnel ;-)

However if I have no plan to dive I chuck it out. At 8 fills per tub and £80ish a tub it's a tenner and I wouldn't want to mis-recall how long it was used for. That said you can tell in the first 30 mins with the temp-stick how old it is.

I have the CO2 monitor - the temp-stick is a whole lot more useful.

Matt.

[matt]

Careful. You need to stop thinking like an OC diver and start thinking like a CC diver.

Lots of the risks on CC are just as likely to happen shallow as deep. Hypoxia, hyperoxia, etc will kill you just the same shallow as deep.

Personally I didn't dive my unit until after my MOD1. I was tempted, but I've got plenty of diving ahead of me, and no need to rush.

Janos

I did 100 hours <35m before doing the Mod3 and any deeper diving. You learn a lot by putting it together and getting it ready IMHO.

[matt]

So even a week on a boat, diving twice a day, not a splash of disinfectant to be seen?

I don't clean mine whilst I'd diving, just when I get home. Even if I go for a month...

Matt.

[dwhitlow]

So even a week on a boat, diving twice a day, not a splash of disinfectant to be seen?

nope. it gets done when I get home.

As the OPV is at the bottom of the lung the gloop gets emptied out from the exhale lung most days.

[jturner]

So even a week on a boat, diving twice a day, not a splash of disinfectant to be seen?

Not for me either. I do flush it with fresh water but that's because I don't like the chinese take-away style chicken and sweetcorn soup that runs out of the lungs and breathing hoses from time to time.

[matt]

Not for me either. I do flush it with fresh water but that's because I don't like the chinese take-away style chicken and sweetcorn soup that runs out of the lungs and breathing hoses from time to time.

I drain the juice, but skip the water.

[nigel hewitt]

So even a week on a boat, diving twice a day, not a splash of disinfectant to be seen?
Nope. It gets nasties from me and sea water and they are largely incompatible.
It's sitting at home between dives that the stuff can fester.

[MadUKDiver]

Nope. It gets nasties from me and sea water and they are largely incompatible.
It's sitting at home between dives that the stuff can fester.

Agreed but ... my Inspo buddy didn't clean his loop at all last season (not even a flush between dives). Not something I'd recommend and he only told me at the end of the year. Said he just left it open to the air when not in use. We took a look few weeks ago while preparing for this year and there was nothing to see so I guess he'll do the same this year.

Personally if I'm not diving the next day I just flush with fresh water when I get home. Twice or so a season I will treat with buddy clean (or the new stuff when my bottle run out). If away on a liveaboard I don't bother until I get home.

I do always hold the breathing hoses upright and stretch hard to get the condensate out.

If you want to see some goo then run a bottle brush down the breathing hoses and look at what flushes out :p

[mrmints]

Jeeze! I think I was possibly a bit over the top, but not cleaning it at all must be risky to ones health?!

I read a story about a man taking a breath fro his BCD (in my mind, my counterlungs!) and he got such a serious bacterial infection he lost most of the use of his lungs and then died. As a consequence of reading this, at the end of every dive trip, everything was taken apart, rinsed, sprayed with Dettox, rinsed again and then hung up to dry! I did always used to wonder how good it was for my mushroom valves to have such vigorous and regular cleaning...(in the rinse phase of my cleaning, I used to open the bailout valve, fill the inhale hose with water, then close the valve again, so all the water would rush through!!)

[Major Clanger]

Bringing an old post back to life...

...do you guys disinfect the whole thing every evening?

Chris

Nope, up in scapa for example, it'll go a week before taking it apart to clean.

[WFO]

Agreed but ... my Inspo buddy didn't clean his loop at all last season (not even a flush between dives). Not something I'd recommend and he only told me at the end of the year. Said he just left it open to the air when not in use. We took a look few weeks ago while preparing for this year and there was nothing to see so I guess he'll do the same this year.

Personally if I'm not diving the next day I just flush with fresh water when I get home. Twice or so a season I will treat with buddy clean (or the new stuff when my bottle run out). If away on a liveaboard I don't bother until I get home.

I do always hold the breathing hoses upright and stretch hard to get the condensate out.

If you want to see some goo then run a bottle brush down the breathing hoses and look at what flushes out :p

It's all the little folds and stuff in the counterlung bags that I would be concerned about, not the bits that you can see and that will dry out alright

[Barrygoss]

Jeeze! I think I was possibly a bit over the top, but not cleaning it at all must be risky to ones health?!

I read a story about a man taking a breath fro his BCD (in my mind, my counterlungs!) and he got such a serious bacterial infection he lost most of the use of his lungs and then died. As a consequence of reading this, at the end of every dive trip, everything was taken apart, rinsed, sprayed with Dettox, rinsed again and then hung up to dry! I did always used to wonder how good it was for my mushroom valves to have such vigorous and regular cleaning...(in the rinse phase of my cleaning, I used to open the bailout valve, fill the inhale hose with water, then close the valve again, so all the water would rush through!!)

I clean every three days on a trip.
I know I'm susceptible to chest infections and to clean a KISS takes unscrewing two water bags, squirting some stuff in them then rinsing so I do it.
Maybe a minute of time. Hence simple and easy to do regularly.

B

[ebt]

Personally i run a sliding scale. Cold water/Cold surface I dont worry about too much, i'll rinse every 3-4 days and clean every 5-7. Warm climate, I'll rinse every time i change sorb and disinfect once a week.

[FrogTec]

I finished up with a scrubber about 3 weeks back, I stripped the unit but did not empty the scrubber as it was late.

I went back to it last week to clean it all up, the top of the scrubber through the mesh had a nice carpet of fur on it!

It wasn't sealed up, but exposed to air. The scrubber wasn't flooded and it had only been used in fresh water.

Karlos