Driving a Jetsam baby booster

Sutty

Got a baby booster recently - sourced whips, filter etc in UK. Works great to fill the dumpy 3's on my Kiss. I know some board members have boosters & wondered what they drive them with? I was thinking of a small industrial-type compressor (like for air tools), but Jetsam say the drive gas needs to be "breathing quality".
What does anyone else use?
While I'm asking the booster states 10bar max for drive gas pressure - anyone using anything higher?

wizbang

Hi Sutty, I am still using diving air from a scuba cylinder. I have thought about both types of Compressors. The home industrial type with its own storage tank that can get to 8-12 bar. But the air would need to be cleaned up as these cheaper units certainly don't mind reduced tolerances and lubricant carry over. The other type is the good quality 4wd high volume relatively high presure compressors. I am guessing there will be less of a problwem with lubricant carry over (althought the air will still need to be cleaned etc) but that with no storage tank things may take even longer.

The other alternative is renting a G of air from BOC etc to run the booster. It could serve as the supply and drive gas. (seperately would be my method)

It will be interesting to see what others use. Especially those without a diving compressor.
I guess a hooka would also do. What presure does a Hooka compressor operate at.?

decoweenie

I have a compressor so I just dedicate one tank (80cf/10L) for driving the booster. Also use the same tank to service regulators, test equipment, etc.

The idea of the baby booster was to use left-over gas from ANY scuba tank (i.e. your buddy after the dive) to drive the booster when you are at the dive site (for example).

The drive to boost gas ratio is variable depending on the inlet/outlet pressure, but in general about 4:1. So boosting for a small 2-3L CCR tank won't require much drive gas unless you start from very low pressure. So a full 10L tank will be able to boost a couple of small O2 tanks easily.

The boost ratio is about 22:1, so Gordon limits the maximum drive pressure to 10 bar thus the output pressure will be around 220 bar. This is supposedly the maximum pressure for the reed valve. You will risk damaging it (and you) if pushing the IP too high!

Please be careful!

__________________
"...after a while you get bored offering advice to a bull that like to keep butting the fence with its head rather than walking through the open gate..."

- Rebreather World PM

Sutty

Thanks - being (hopefully excessively) careful!!
Booster is great but was just wondering about other sources of drive gas for when I use it at home - I'll probably just carry on using my twinset at the moment. Not sure cleaning up the output of a LP compressor would be worth it or effective (?low dwell time through filter stack) - don't fancy a load of oil in the booster with high pressure O2 around!

My booster only pumps to 200bar with a 10bar drive pressure (or at least is making so little progress at 200 I give up) which is why I wondered if people pushed it up a bit.

mixedangased

hi sutty,
i run my haskel of a half size j pumped to 200 bar using a 15lpm welding reg,i used to run it using a twinset of the lp hose but found i wasn`t getting enough flow and the reg would freeze up.filling the `j`s no prob just got to have a few extra fittings and your own comp.and with the welding reg you can turn the pressure down to regulate the speed of the pump,good if ur pumping he & o2.

__________________
if it ain`t broke,fix it till`it is!

decoweenie

For me personally, it wouldn't be worth the effort. However, if using to drive a Haskel then it would since the drive gas ratio on the Haskel is more based on past experience, plus it is usually mean boost for larger tank as well.


Depending on the inlet pressure, it might take a long time to get to full pressure. In the few instances when I boosted it past 200 bar (to see the limit), I used inlet pressure of 150 bar.

Of course, I am sure you have noticed from the rate of which the booster cycles the piston. When it gets too low (20/min or less), I just change the supply tank to one with higher pressure since you are just wasting drive gas at that time.

__________________
"...after a while you get bored offering advice to a bull that like to keep butting the fence with its head rather than walking through the open gate..."

- Rebreather World PM