Herr Dräger Oxygen Booster

The Dräger Oxygen booster U200, also known as the "Herr Dräger", in the pictures below was made in 1955. The U200 is a 150 to 200 bar booster. The booster is a very stable design and the one in the pics weighs 80+ kg.

The following data relates to the successor the U300DS but they are functionally very similar:

Primarily a high pressure (330 bar) booster to fill 300 bars Oxygen tanks from 200 bar storage tanks
90 (or in a special version 180) strokes / minute
will fill 20 2L tanks to 300 bar in 1 hour
Cooled and lubricated with a water / glycerine mixture (4:1)

The major difference between the U200 and the U300DS is the power of the electric motor. The booster comes in a wide variety of versions for different gases and was a common component in the gas mixing stations of the 1960's.

The unit in the pics below will be restored and used for oxygen and general gas boosting.


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In the early 80's me and my twin brother were diving Interspiro 300bar doubles but only had a very old 60L/min 200 bar compressor. Luckily we got our hands on two 75L 200 bars tanks and an old crappy but almost complete U200. We cut everything not 100% necessary away and stripped almost all tubing but a combined activated charcoal and silicagel filter to convert the U200 to a straight 300+ bar air booster.

The U200 was very pleasant to refurbish, all sealings were cupper washers which in most cases were only heated before re-installing, replacement cupper washers were available at the local machine shop. The only soft-seals in the unit are two standard (metric) packing boxes sealing around the pistons, these were also available off the shelf at the local machine supply shop. The high pressure non-return valves in the cylinder heads were spring loaded polished stainless steel balls in soft brass/bronze metal seats that still worked perfectly after cleaning.

The unit was run for more than five years with no problems at all. Assuming that the 2*75 L storage tanks were filled it was the fastest 300 bar filling station in the region. A 2*4L*300 bar interspiro set was filled from empty to full in slightly more than 1 minute and a half. The heating of the tanks was significant but was managed with water cooling.

Last updated 2002-01-22

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