Thread: Dive Bottle Tyre Inflator

I have exactly the same set-up (also the male at bottle and old style connection). I have used the "carefully does it" approuch to air up tyres from 0.8 Bar to 2.0 Bar in 20 seconds and waxed it down to a T without the use of a regulator, but I'm the only one allowed to use it (safety reasons).

My problem is not the regulator or pressure control, but having my bottles re-filled. I see you call yourself "CAPELANDY" - please tell me this is CAPE TOWN, SA... b'cause I don't know where to turn to for a re-fill seeing that these bottles have not had a hydro or any other tests done for some time now.

I use an air cylinder of a Paintball Gun.
It holds .92 Cubic feet of air at 4000 Psi and has an inbuilt regulator that can be adjusted down to 200 psi on the output side and up to 1000 psi.
Any paintball field can and will refill it, typically for about a Dollar.
I'll put some pics up.

Originally Posted by 90 2.8i

I have exactly the same set-up (also the male at bottle and old style connection). I have used the "carefully does it" approuch to air up tyres from 0.8 Bar to 2.0 Bar in 20 seconds and waxed it down to a T without the use of a regulator, but I'm the only one allowed to use it (safety reasons).

My problem is not the regulator or pressure control, but having my bottles re-filled. I see you call yourself "CAPELANDY" - please tell me this is CAPE TOWN, SA... b'cause I don't know where to turn to for a re-fill seeing that these bottles have not had a hydro or any other tests done for some time now.

Yep, Cape Town.
My bottle has had a proper hydro test and luckily our maritime supply company has a high pressure compressor which costs me a whiskey for as many refils as I need. Officially they will probably not open this up to anyone els unfortunately so that's as much detail as I can give.

It wood be much cheaper and safer to by a 12volt air compressor off ebay than all this stuffing around I look at this as a portable bomb Have seen enough pictures of exploded pressure vessels and the damaged they have done to buildings . How ever I let a 3 megger watt boiler blow its safety valves off on its annual what a blast just for good fun did a accumulation test as well ,new safety officer didn't know what to do noise steam

Geez fella's use a bloody nitrogen regulator or you'll do some damage to yourselves and your tyres

And yes, I used to use a similar setup too. It's how I aired up my tyres at the race track for years using 'D' size industrial air cylinders that I filled at the local dive shop. I made up an adapter to go from the old style nitro/oxy valve to the dive cylinder valve for filling.

These days I carry at least one 'D' Nitrogen in the truck most of the time but use the 12V air compressor instead. Dry nitrogen is too damned exxy to waste all the time on my tyres except in an emergency.

Originally Posted by rick130

Geez fella's use a bloody nitrogen regulator or you'll do some damage to yourselves and your tyres

And yes, I used to use a similar setup too. It's how I aired up my tyres at the race track for years using 'D' size industrial air cylinders that I filled at the local dive shop. I made up an adapter to go from the old style nitro/oxy valve to the dive cylinder valve for filling.

These days I carry at least one 'D' Nitrogen in the truck most of the time but use the 12V air compressor instead. Dry nitrogen is too damned exxy to waste all the time on my tyres except in an emergency.

Are you saying that I should trace a regulator off a nitrogen bottle and make an adaptor from the bottle to the regulator. Are they filled at similar pressures? Who normally sells nitrogen type gear?
Thanks
James

This was the one i had years ago which was in my challenge truck

I just used normal dive stuff (from a dive shop) but had to have a regulator and pressure falve to stop build up of pressure or somthing like that . But was safe to use with air tools and pump up tyres

I actually have the two old air cylinders and adapter still, but I can't use them as;

a. they need a re-test, and the bloke that I used to use doesn't do it anymore and he is at least 350km away.
b. there isn't a dive shop for near 160km anyway

Nitrogen regulators usually have a safe maximum inlet pressure of 200bar/3000psi. Are you sure your bottle is being filled to 300bar ? Don't think I used to get mine filled anywhere near that high. 150 bar seems to ring a bell.

Inert gas regulators are usually available from industrial gas suppliers like BOC, and welding gear suppliers.
BOC, Harris, Murex and CIGweld are three names that spring to mind that make nitro regulators, but it sounds like you might have trouble trying to adapt something to your cylinder.