The concentrators work because of being so close in pressure and flow.
If you got the psi matched exactly right. It would kind of work. lets say a hypothetical 9lb psi. is the pressure your looking for.
If you have both set at Exactly 9 psi. Any time the concentrator fluctuates and drops below 9psi the tank will want to push threw. But if the concentrator is trying to push say 8.5 psi in to an opposing stream its going to be hard. inless the pressure in the concentrator builds up to 9 or higher then it will be the stronger stream. But the tank would usually win because its not going to fall behind intill the tank starts to empty. and some times the pressure on any giving gauge is RELATIVE to normal air pressure on most regulators you are going to have a very slight change in the pressure of any regulator from day to day or even hour to hour as the weather changes. So to keep the 2 pressures that closely matched might be a lot of fiddling around for a lil bit of any thing back.
So in terms of it being hooked up to save tanked o2 by having the concentrator supplement the supply its not too practical.
Now on the other hand IF you want to Use tanked o2 to supplement your concentrator if it drops in pressure when you torch You could have it to provide a "BOOST" if you had the tank pressure set below the pressure of the concentrator. In theory the tank would not bleed in to the system inless the pressure in the hose dropped below the pressure set on the tank.
So say the tank is set at 7 or 8 psi and the concentrator is pushing 9 psi. the tank should not feed inless the concentrator started to fall behind on pressure.
But the easiest sure fire way to use a tank and a concentrator together is on a 2 stage torch and to run the stage thats always on like the center on a concentrator and then run your bigger 2'nd stage fire from the tanked o2. then your only using the tank while the outer tank is on and not using it at all when the 2'nd stage is off.
Now on a much larger system like an o2 generator that has much higher pressure and a holding tank. You could have a tank hooked up in such a way as to be able to have the tank add pressure to the system if it ever fell behind a certain pressure in the holding tank. BUT only because the pressures that the gen. outputs verses the much lower pressure the user is drawing off for there torch. verses the tun on and turn of pressure of the generator. Is the only reason thats doable.
Like an onsite pro4 or a pro8 for instance. they a 60 gallon holding tank. The holding tank has a pressure switch on it that is usually set to turn the generator on if the holding tank PSI falls below 45 psi and turn the gen off when the holding tank is at 60 psi.
Now let say you run your torch at 30psi. Some times if you are really rageing for a while your holding tank pressure will still fall below 45 psi if your drawing o2 out of the tank faster then the generator is making it at the moment. Depending on the torch your using.
But you could have a tank of high pressure o2 hooked in to the holding tank that is set at 29 PSI. Then if you ever where torching so hard that the tank dropped to 29psi then the tanked o2 will keep the holding tank filled to 29psi.
intill the generator build the pressure up in the tank past 29 psi. So in a situation like that if you just can't have a interruption of your o2 stream if you have times that might occasionally need the boost from the tanked o2.
There also is a way to have a tank set up so it is on a switched valve and it turns on when a switch is activated. So it switches to the tanked o2 while the gen builds the pressure back up in the holding tank.
|