Low Pressure SCBA cylinder questions

[SamsonFCDES]

With low pressure SCBA cylenders, 2216s, does anybody have any idea what the cylinders are truely rated at?

IE their fill rating, etc...

We have a bunch of old steel cylenders from our old SCBAs. We now have high pressure SCBAs.

We would like to maybe keep the old bottles around for emergency spares and training, but we are have some aprehension in regaurds to mixing bottles. It would not be a common practice on the fire ground, and would be avoided as much as possible.

Any other creative thoughts on what to do with these.

We have about 30 of them, 2 from each of the old SCBAs, and a few spares.

So far the ideas have been...

- A manifold or some other system to power air tools.
- Training bottles to keep our composite bottles from being damaged.
- Change some valves (DINS valve?) and let the local volunteer S&R dive team use them...Is this even possible? What happens if they use an old 2216 SCBA bootle with their dive gear? Is the guy that came up with this a nut job (IMO yes :D).

Thanks

[sfdlt5]

First of all you can not put a low pressure bottle on the high pressure air packs, the threads on the high pressure will be fine thread and on the low pressure ther will be course threads. You will mess up the threads on bpth bottles and packs that way. Do you have an air bag system maybe you could disignate the old bottles to that or something along those lines. One other screwy idea take the neck off and make them into lamps for the station or for gag gifts to fellow members. Hey look at the "bright" side no body will steal it at least not easily.:)

[Adze39]

Originally posted by sfdlt5
First of all you can not put a low pressure bottle on the high pressure air packs, the threads on the high pressure will be fine thread and on the low pressure ther will be course threads.

Actually, you can place Scott-based 2216 cylinders on Scott 4500 psi SCBA without a problem. You cannot do the opposite because of the length of the threads.

[Dalmatian90]

Technical addition to Adze's answer: There's a notch in the threads on the 4500psi cylinders that the female on the low pressure airpacks won't cover. So when you open the bottle, air blows by.

The threads on all high & low pressure bottles AFAIK (Scott, MSA, Interspiro) are compatible. Low pressure bottles can be used on High Pressure packs, however the low-air alarms being pressure activated will go off when you still have greater volume of air left than they do in l.p. packs. Not a recommended practice, just something that does work. Also not recommended but sometimes perfectly safe is swapping bottles between makes. Scott bottles fit Interspiros a-ok and it's no functional problem; going the other way around though Interspiros don't work well in Scotts though since they lack the do-hickey around the neck for the Scott clip to lock into.

[SamsonFCDES]

I am not near the fire hall so I cant go check this out...

So, which way is it? :D

Yes LP can be hooked to an HP SCBA, or no?

Thanks

[mjollnir]

You can put a low pressure bottle on a high presure pack. We did it several times when we were evailing new packs.

You cannot put a high pressure bottle on a low pressure pack through.

[Adze39]

Yes you can put LP and HP.

HP cannot go on LP because the threads (while the same distance apart) are on a longer shaft on the HP. This prevents a LP pack from covering the hole at the end of the threads so you cannot overpressurize a LP pack with a HP cylinder.

A HP pack will cover that hole on a LP cylinder.

[cdmrtn7]

Yes you can use them for running air tools, but watch what kind of regulator you are using. If you are using a LP regulator, make sure no one tries to hook up with your hp bottles. Should not be a major problem, because the longer thread rule should apply as mentioned before. But know you have to carry two types of bottles; on my apparatus, space is a mojor problem, so just switched to hp regulators all the way around.

Switching them to SCUBA? I've never heard of it being done, but probably possible, but not cost feasible. Scuba bottles usually cost quite a bit less than SCBA bottles. They come in differant sizes, but usually they are 3000 PSI 80 cu ft. Even the smaller ones that a lot of female divers (who don't use much air) are 50 cu ft. Most divers use aluminum, for corrosion resistance as well as lighter weight.

Using them for training? Will work, but you do have that problem with the alarm going off at 1/2 pressure instead of 1/4. If I had a major problem with no air fill supply, I might consider it in none toxic environments only. I would to hate have a fatality, and have niosh or osha come in and find a mixed lp bottle/hp pack. (Hate to have one under any circumstances, but I think you know what I mean.)

We ended up giving our Scott 2A's with steel bottles away to a neighboring department.

[nwadler]

I dont want to sound like an ass but why dont you ask the manufacturer or the dealer in your area for a concret answer based on the type of packs you have. That way you can cover your arse if somthing goes wrong or somthing brakes because of it.

[Weruj1]

did anyone here an ass ? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^:D

[42VTExplorer]

Originally posted by Weruj1
did anyone here an ass ? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^:D

I might have HEARD one. :D :D

Just kidding Weru, I just had to get that in. It's only us, the Explorers, making spelling "mistrakes" now isn't it?




Edit: Broken quote.