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Old 2007-03-20, 8:49am
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kbinkster kbinkster is offline
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Join Date: Jun 24, 2005
Location: Spatula City
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You could "Y" the concentrator and the tank together and only run one or the other for whatever application you choose, though, but not have to switch out connections. For soft glass beads, a 5 LPM concentrator is usually sufficient. If you have a concentrator that puts out poor quality, you may have trouble with getting enough heat for that, though.

Although concentrators do put out slightly lower purity than tanked oxygen, there should not be a big difference between a new unit or a properly reconditioned medical unit and tanked oxygen. I have run my Regalia and the DeVilbiss units I sold on a few different torches and compared them to tanked oxygen. The "strength" of the flame was about the same.

I have used other concentrators that had a higher output pressure than the manufacturer originally designed into the machine (more thrust for the flame), but the flame was "weak." You could tell that it was much cooler just by looking at the intensity of the blue in the flame. The flame tends to be more reducing because the concentration of oxygen is so low. If you were to add tanked oxygen to this, you would probably increase the overall concentration of oxygen, but it would still be poor compared to tanked oxygen alone or the oxygen from a new or properly reconditioned concentrator (one that has been reconditioned and not altered to perform beyond the manufacturer's specifications).

If you want to try connecting a tank to your concentrator, then make sure that you have a backflow prevention valve on your concentator line, so oxygen from the tank could not push itself back up the line into your concentrator. Set your oxygen regulator (with your torch running) to the psi your concentrator puts out (maybe 1 or 2 psi lower). As mentioned above, you do not need an external oxygen regulator for your concentrator. You should have more volume available to your torch, but not more pressure (unless your concentrator does not really put out the psi claimed and your tank is really doing all the work). Look at the flow meter on your machine and watch what it does.

Just side note...
Johnny O. told me that he has connected two tanks together so there is no interruption in oxygen deliery when one tank empties out. You just set one tank to a higher psi than the other. When the higher psi tank empties, the lower psi tank is then able to get its oxygen into the line and there you go. That Johnny O. is smart.
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Kimberly
working glass since 1990 - melting it on a torch since 2002
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