A normal air compressor (as used in workshops and construction) will charge to 8 bar with rather dirty air. Not going to do much for a 230 / 300 bar cylinder that needs clean dry air.
few people outside the sport seem to understand the immense pressure needed by a PCP.
Stick to dive shops, £5 is a good deal, rip-off merchants near me slapped a £20 surcharge on my last fill for some spurious BS reason to do with it being a surface cylinder and requiring extra cooling/special handling / rarefied mountain air /chicken sacrifice to keep the dive god happy.
Scuba tanks - surface air or otherwise, need a high pressure and they need filtered systems better than found on commercial plant.
The air is not Dry - but a lot of the moisture is removed. Humans are generally breathing this and need some moisture otherwise the throat would dry and they would dehydrate. Even snorkelling leaves your throat bone dry and that's normal air with water evaporating all around.
This is specialist kit needing regular servicing and probably engineer inspection to comply with safety and legislation/insurance conditions.
In the same way I would never use a stirrup pump to fill my gun, I would not use anything other than a proper dive compressor to fill my tanks
In a battle of wits I refuse to engage with an unarmed person.
To one shot one kill, you need to seek the S. Kill only comes from Skill
Oh yes. £7.50 for the fill, and a £20 surcharge for it being a surface cylinder which "has special filling requirements" wont be going back there again.
Nothing wrong with the cylinder, it was about 3 months old from BestFittings.
Was about to spend on a new Leatherman while i was in the shop but needless to say didn't.
Stick to the quality £5 fills.
http://www.blueoceandiving.co.uk/
In Maidstone.
I challenged it, and he gave some crap about special filling requirements though didn't seem to know what he was talking about, and pointed out the register automatically added the charge (when her set the cylinder type filled to 'surface')
So after a fruitless discussion i told him I knew he was talking bollocks, forget about the multitool i asked about and id get the tank filled elsewhere in future.
Some dive shops can be fussy we have our cylinders tested at flame skill to British standards fully certified but the local dive centre won't fill them because the date stamp has not got a fish stamped they say it's not valid
It's a joke as they test the bottles for offshore and breathing apparatus for fire fighting
Fish stamp?
The fish stamp is in the outline of a fish with the IDEST testing station number centred in it , When iwas testing cylinders at MDE it was IX (9).