• Welcome to the DeeperBlue.com Forums, the largest online community dedicated to Freediving, Scuba Diving and Spearfishing. To gain full access to the DeeperBlue.com Forums you must register for a free account. As a registered member you will be able to:

    • Join over 44,280+ fellow diving enthusiasts from around the world on this forum
    • Participate in and browse from over 516,210+ posts.
    • Communicate privately with other divers from around the world.
    • Post your own photos or view from 7,441+ user submitted images.
    • All this and much more...

    You can gain access to all this absolutely free when you register for an account, so sign up today!

Altitude training

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
It can take a long time to get an up-to-date response or contact with relevant users.

Gabe

Apnea-Dad
Mar 4, 2005
16
4
0
61
Does any one have any information about training at high altitudes? If I am in an alpine lake (7000ft), how is my breathold time going to be affected as opposed to being in the ocean? :duh
 
Gabe
I did some experiments at that altitiude a few years back. Air density decreases about 2% per thousand feet, all else being equal, so I expected my static to decrease 14%. The time was closer to 1 % less. It looks like only half the O2 used comes from the lungs and blood and tissue saturation is the same as sea level. Just guessing on the reason but -7% would be close for me.
Aloha
Bill

P.S. I just checked your profile and you might be a good person to ask about Nitrox. Is it easy to explain how they take 21% O2 air and make it 40% Nitrox?
 
Last edited:
Hey Bill,

There are few different ways. I think the simplest and easiest to explain would be the blending method. You can calculate, (or download a freeware program) your desired mix by volume. Examle: You are using an 80 cu.ft. cylinder and you want a 40% mix at 3000psi. Using a blending program, calculator, or calculations, you would put a volume of ambient air in the tank to a predetermined pressure and add 100% O2 to the tank to reach 3000psi and 40%O2. WARNING!!! this must only be done at a dive shop with the proper equipment. Any one who would try to do this without the proper equipment would likely blow themselves and anyone else close to them, to smitherines.
 
Last edited:
PM Box? I am new here and not sure of the features of these forums. Thanks
 
Thanks Gabe. I understand the mixing and even can do the math but the local shop does it without O2. It looks like they use two compressors and a filter. The 'filter' vents gas, N2 if I understand things. I'm trying to figure out an easy(cheap) way to get Nitrox10 to try this altitude thing and stumbled across something that I didn't understand. John referred to something and I wonder if it is like osmosis. Machine is expensive and even if they let me capture the exhaust, I would have trouble transporting 200 gallons of air home anyway. Maybe I could just put a big trash bag in a one cubic meter box with a few weight belts, hmmmmm. I've saved John's PM for after dinner, so I might be back with more questions.
Aloha
Bill
P.S. Thanks for the caution, I had a talk with a trimix diver about handling O2. You wouldn't believe some of the things we did in the 50's. Most of us got away with it.
 
Last edited:
Bill,
Your talking about a system like this: http://www.dnax.com/dnax.html

It was the third type of sytem that I mentoned to you in my PM. You need to pump a LOT of low% nitorx to make a system like this worthwhile- which is why you have them in Hawaii and no one uses them in Wisconsin. ;)

You could always use some nitrous gas from your local dentist to train with. :friday

I would think that making your own hypoxinator would seem to be a cheaper route- I know that there was just a thread on that about a week ago on here.

The only times we normally mix low 02 mixes are when we add in Helium for trimix dives. Since the helium added in off sets the 02 in the air you can get a hypoxic mix fairly easily.

As far as what people got away with in the 50's, all you have to do is look around at some of the people welding in their garages and wonder why we don't have more explosions going on. :duh

Jon
 
Jon
Thanks for all the explaining. The site you sent me to is perfect. I think I'll pursue this. Since I'll only need about 10 cu ft of N2 per session maybe I should go check the price at Gaspro. I'll leave the NO to the street racers thanks.
Aloha
Bill
 
Bill,

I looked into this as well but found the hypoxicator a whole lot cheaper ....plus I like building stuff! Either way I'll build you an O2 analyzer if you want one and bring it over when I'm there in May?

Andy
 
OK Andy. I checked David Owens O2 meter (http://www.cisatlantic.com) and I have all the parts, left over from another project, (except the O2 sensor) but I was taught not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Let's talk about it when your here. It looks like the local scuba shop is dumping more N2 in a day than I would use in a year. I want to kludge a system without a blood monitor, scrubbers or anything, just to give it a test. If I can get back to where I was in Dec., I'll do most anything for another 15 seconds. How did your trials work out?
Aloha
Bill
 
Hi Bill,

If they are dumping that much N2 each day then maybe a really simple flow rate based system would be an option. It only gets complicated when you have "on demand requirements" I'm pretty sure I have some hospital manifolds and flow gauges in the shed. I'll have a look tonight for you.

Andy
 
DeeperBlue.com - The Worlds Largest Community Dedicated To Freediving, Scuba Diving and Spearfishing

ABOUT US

ISSN 1469-865X | Copyright © 1996 - 2024 deeperblue.net limited.

DeeperBlue.com is the World's Largest Community dedicated to Freediving, Scuba Diving, Ocean Advocacy and Diving Travel.

We've been dedicated to bringing you the freshest news, features and discussions from around the underwater world since 1996.

ADVERT