Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] question about general design?

["Nero Wolfe" <wolfe19@megsinet.net>]

paintball equipment isn't a bad plan ;-)  I haven't seen stuff much more reliable than a good system from air america.  Actually, what sounds good to me, for an emercency surfacing device is a good 'ol 20oz co2 tank, and an ASA fitting with a one way valve on it.  If you NEED to come up NOW!  screw the 20oz co2 tank into the fitting, and you hvae a source of 1800psi air to flood those balast tanks with.  the only advantage to a compressed air (instead of co2) tank is that you'll be able to guage how much air you have by looking at the guage.  Also note, paintball tanks are only in the 1-2cubic foot range.  so if you're in a dire situation, you'd need a LOT of paintball tanks to get your boat to surface when even partially flooded... given that case.. you'd want something with a lot of air to push that water out of your hull.

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On 8/9/01 at 1:37 AM TeslaTony@aol.com wrote:

>In a message dated 8/8/01 6:50:55 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
>kandd@softdisk.com writes:
>
>
>In short: SCUBA tanks are cheaper for how many PSI they deliver, are meant
>to 
>go underwater and will blow your ballast faster, assuming a shop
>compressor 
>tank can blow the tanks at all.
>
>Now if you have the sub tethered to the surface a shop compressor just
>might 
>be what the doctor ordered since you really don't have to worry about
>running 
>out of air if you have gas in the engine or a proper power source for the 
>electric models, but I'd probably still want to keep a tank of compressed
>gas 
>onboard in case of emergency (a large bottle for a paintball gun might
>fill 
>the ticket here, but I'm sure someone else will nix that idea)
>
>Anthony