Disposable bottle problem

Hi everyone,

I'm fairly new to welding and I seem to be having lots of problems with disposable bottles.

I bought a 110 litre Argon/CO2 from Machine mart and it lasted about half an hour before the gas flow came to a complete stop.

So, I bought another, this time 60 litre bottle from Halfords along with a new regulator. Everything was great again, until about an hour later.... the gas flow had stopped again!!

I had a look at the valve on both bottles and the pin in the middle is loose, if I turn the bottle upside down I can see the pin fall towards me.

Surely the bottles can't be empty already. I really don't understand what's happening here.

Can anyone shed any light on the subject? I searched the forum but found nothing like this.

Cheers,
Henry

Id guess thaey are empty matey.

Gas flow to be of any use even on a small machine is about 8-10 litres per minuite.

For easy maths, lets say your using yours at 11lpm, that gives you 10 mins of welding time untill its empty, the smaller one, half that.

Even if you run your gas at a bare minimum, youd only be looking at 10 mins from a 60litre.

Id be tempted to bite the bullet and get a rental bottle, have a read round on this forum, theres lots of different suppliers, depending on where you are and what you want to pay.

Thanks for the reply.

So they really don't last that long then! I almost cannot believe they last such a short amount of time.

Expensive hoby! I'll have a look at getting a larger bottle.

Thanks,
Henry

They'll be empty. Disposables are OK for little jobs, but for anything of sensible proportions -- or outside -- they're next to useless.

Going to a refillable is like entering a new universe. It's not just that the bottles are bigger, but the gas inside is at a much higher pressure.

Thanks guys. I feel like a right newbie now

Where are you in the UK Henryg? Might be a cheap supplier in your area. Well worth a big bottle - check out the gas price spreadsheet for price comparisons.

Well if you have a stock of empty disposable bottles end em my way.............

I have a pub CO2 bottle that gets refilled with something other than CO2 by a chap at the engineering supplies place. He doesn't fill it a lot, but only charges £11 a go. However I get through a bottle in a day if I am doing anything much, so I have decided to do the right thing and get a BOC account and a proper cylinder.

He aint filling it if you can empty that in a day.................

The amount of fill is a bit variable, which is why I am getting a BOC Y size next week. Plus I don't really like the idea of a 15 year old CO2 cylinder being filled with argoshield. I much prefer to do things properly.

With a bit of luck a nice big consistent gas supply will improve my abilities!

It should help jim.