Hydraulics International Booster

Hydraulics International Booster
By Stuart Ford


Well that's a solid piece of kit we all thought when it turned up for me at Wraysbury and we all opened it. A thing of beauty which would enable me to maximise the effectiveness of that J of O2 and He sitting in my garage.

The pump from Hydraulics International is a light weight (9.5 pounds or 4.5kgs) that is capable of boosting 20 times higher than your drive gas (that's right it is 20 times not 23 times as Silent Diving Systems, who are a dealer try and tell you.)

I got my pump from Chris at Tech Blue and 48 hours after placing the order it turned up - not bad when it had to cross the Atlantic. Chris only charges $1450 too compared to SDS $1499. He also does a mean whip kit at a very competitive price.

Well let's have a look at the pump then!


There you can see it next to the quick disconnects of my whip kit and a standard low pressure inflator.

The pump has a 1/4 inch female npt for the drive gas and 3/8 inch SAE female fittings for supply and out gas (same fittings as a Haskel where as KISS pump uses all 1/4 inch NPT)

I got the HI pump rather than the KISS pump as it uses ball not reed valves and so should require less servicing, also it is capable of filling faster and was in stock - the KISS pumps seem to be made in batches and I guess Gordan is focussing on the sport kiss right now.

You can also get a manual pump attachment for the system a picture Stefan took is shown below.


I did not go for the manual pump; I just drive mine from a standard scuba tank using a dedicated first stage with a low pressure inflator off it. A 12 litre tank will typical last about 8 top ups before needing to be refilled - obviously if I am filling a stage with 70% it goes quicker. The one thing I am really pleased about with this pump is that it has enough oomph to fill 7ls with ease. In fact it has been pressed into service filling some twin sets but that starts to get slow going - it took us 20 mins the other day but then the supply gas in the He was only 40 bar!

Now the manual tells you not to use more than 150psi for the drive gas but with that 20 times ratio that would only get you 3000 psi in the tanks - I admit to setting the interstage pressure on my first stage slightly higher than this to ensure I get a good 3500 psi or 240 bar o2 fill...but for legal reasons please don't try that at home kids Also the higher the interstage the quicker it fills

This next picture shows the booster connected to the whip kit


I got the whip kit from Ron at TMISHOP I had got it a while before getting the pump as I had been planning on getting a KISS pump. The workmanship is first class! In this next picture you can see the connector to the J of O2


Take note though if you are a Brit then we use different connectors for our Js than our transatlantic cousins.....Basically you will need to get a bull nose to 1/4inch NPT connector and then connect this to the quick disconnect nipple. This will apply equally if you get Chris's new whip kit which looks like a great piece of kit.

Incidentally we have the same connectors on O2 and He so you can use the same connector or just get 2 like I did.

I also have a quick disconnect to din fitting so If I go on trips I can take a 12 of Trimix and a 12 of O2 and boost our Meg cylinders up easily.

The next shot shows the whip kit on the Rebreather cylinder as you can see it is over 3000 psi so I must be using that tweaked first stage


Now I have not timed how long it takes to boost up the O2 but it is pretty short, the nice thing is if you set your interstage properly it will stall when it reaches 20 times the drive gas - so setting it to 12 bar interstage means it will never boost to more than 240 bar, but I would not count on that happening and would make sure you keep a good eye on it!

The only suggestions I would make and it is an upgrade I am making in August is to get a digital gauge not an analogue one - the analogue is great for boosting O2 but for mixing Trimix then it really is not up to it as it is difficult to count single bar off when filling.

Stuart


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