Mega Minor with Natural Gas??

[JanetB58]

Anyone out there using a Nortel Mega Minor with natural gas???? If so how did you hook up and are your beading results O.K.???? Thanks, Janet (still trying to get hooked up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

[LisaF-R]

We are!! DH (Tenor_ringer) and I just set up a home studio using natural gas and oxycons. We had our NG pressure upped to 5 psi and ran a separate line to the studio at that pressure. The rest of the house goes through a step-down regulator to reduce it to house pressure (I think 1/4 psi). Craig at Arrow Springs gave us tons of advice and walked us through the steps more than once. Once the gas goes into the studio, we have a shut off valve, a flash back arrestor, then the splitter for the 2 torches and quick connects. You need to work with your NG supplier to see what gas pressure you have. Usually they give it in inches of water column. It is usually 6-7. (equates to about 1/4 psi). That might not be enough to open the flasback arrestor. We were told that 1/2-1 psi would be sufficient for that.

Our beading results have been excellent. The Mega Minor is a hot little torch!

Good luck. If you have more questions, PM me or Tenor_ringer.

[laserglass]

i run my major burner off of standard household pressure natural gas. you do not have to get a higher pressure for the nortel torches from the minor all the way to the red max.

[tenor_ringer]

Originally Posted by laserglass

i run my major burner off of standard household pressure natural gas. you do not have to get a higher pressure for the nortel torches from the minor all the way to the red max.

According to the specs I've seen, the Nortel burners will work on 1/4 to 5 psi, however, you may not get the same performance on lower pressure. Check with the vendor and/or manufacturer about specific capabilities. I was told by Craig that, yes, the burners will work on 1/4 psi, but that they will work much better on higher pressure.

It was expensive, but the boost to 5 psi NG service was worth it. The performance from our 2 MegaMinors is amazing.

As Lisa F-R said above, the real issue is apparently whether 1/4 psi is sufficient to work with the backflash arrestor you're using (and yes, you should have one....our utility actually required an arrestor). When researching this issue for our own studio, I was told by several sources (and I believe there are a couple of threads on LE that address this issue) that some arrestors will simply not work at 1/4 psi. Do some research and be sure before you spend the money for the gas installation.

[gtessman]

i use natural gas with my beth pm2d