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The Flow

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  #1  
Old 2014-01-14, 9:45pm
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PolychromeBeads PolychromeBeads is offline
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Default Torch Problem? Concentrator Problem?

I've had these issues for several weeks now, but since I was torching intermittently due to the holidays I kind of shrugged it off. Now that I'm back to a regular schedule it's a regular annoyance...

Here's the situation: When I start out in the morning I turn my concentrator on about 20-30 minutes before working so it has time to "warm up" or whatever it's doing. My concentrator is an EX15. When I light my Lynx the first time it lasts about 3-4 minutes, then gets hissy and spitty, then blows itself out. This continues for an hour or two, with the time the torch remains lit lasting longer and longer until it finally stays on continually.

When this initially happened I thought it was bad gas (heh-heh), and returned the tank. But the new tank is the same. I cleaned the torch, though there was no indication of anything in the ports. I also replaced the filters on the concentrator. All this to no avail.

Any thoughts? Could the torch need some kind of service? Or is there something wrong with the concentrator? I have no idea how to tell if the concentrator isn't working properly, though the fact that things get better after a couple of hours has me wondering if it is just taking the concentrator that long to get going now.


Aimee
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  #2  
Old 2014-01-15, 5:53am
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i think it's your oxycon taking way longer then it should to produce useable o2.
how old is the oxycon? have you ever changed the filters out?

lastly...are you mechanically inclined? extreme o2 sells "rebuild" kits for the M/EX series (basically all respironics millenium) which includes a new sieve bed, new compressor and new filters.
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  #3  
Old 2014-01-15, 12:32pm
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Is Extreme Oxygen still in business? Their website no longer exists...


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  #4  
Old 2014-01-15, 3:49pm
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This was happening to me and I called Carlisle about my mini cc. He asked if
I used quick connects, (which I do) and said the leak was most likely there. I took them off and put the hoses directly on - and viola! Perfect flame!!
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  #5  
Old 2014-01-15, 8:57pm
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I did a test today - I turned the concentrator on about 2 1/2 hours before I was going to hit the torch. When I finally lit the torch, everything worked perfectly. So it looks like the concentrator is definitely where the problem lies. I don't think it can be the quick connects - the problem wouldn't go away after a while if it was.

So if Extreme O2 isn't around is there anyone else that sells the rebuild kits?


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  #6  
Old 2014-01-15, 9:33pm
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I found Extreme Oxy - their website is now http://www.moreoxy.com

I guess I had bookmarked an old site. Gonna call them tomorrow!


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  #7  
Old 2014-01-16, 5:28am
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also check out Available Oxygen here in the vendor section. he sells parts.
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  #8  
Old 2014-01-19, 10:27pm
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I have the same trouble with my M20, but it is intermittent. It started out as hissing, spitting and blowing out the flame, after working fine for maybe an hour. Then it would act up for a minute and be fine after. Then the other day, it acted up right away. I played with it for 15 minutes, but couldn't get it to work right. Then 15 minutes later, I turned it back on and it was fine for 3 hours. Tonight it was fine for an hour, then messed up every 15 minutes or so. One thing I think is different then in the past is it seems to take a long time for the oxygen to bleed off after turning off the concentrator. When I first got the concentrator, if I remember right, it blead off within a minute or so. When the seive beads go bad on a concentrator, does it cause this problem? Something that is confusing to me is the lpm gauge doesn't vary when the flame blows out. But I know the trouble is on the oxygen side. After the flame gets blown out, I turn off the propane and feel the air with my hand blow a lot harder through the torch. I tried several times to call the company I bought the concentrator from, but they didn't answer their phone and haven't returned my calls. It is frustrating, since it is still under warranty.
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  #9  
Old 2014-01-21, 5:59pm
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Have exactly the same trouble with my Ex-15.
I just can't seem to figure out a pattern ... sometimes it works reliably for several hours, then the trouble starts.
I had a look at all kind of variables, like inside temp, outside temp, Propane bottle content, Propane pressure.
I am not able to see a pattern .
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  #10  
Old 2014-01-21, 9:13pm
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Have you ever found a fix Judith? It sounds like my concentrator is behaving slightly better than yours - I have determined that if I turn it on 2-3 hours before I torch it works fine. I did talk to a nice fellow at Extreme Oxygen and described my problem, he agreed that it sounded like either the compressor or the sieve bed (or both) were staring to wear out. I'm going to order the rebuild kit and hopefully it will do the job (fingers crossed!)

Mine is somewhere in the 4-5 year old range, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that it needs some maintenance at this time. At least I've been pretty good about replacing and cleaning the filters regularly.


Aimee
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  #11  
Old 2014-01-25, 12:56pm
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PolychromeBeads View Post
Have you ever found a fix Judith? It sounds like my concentrator is behaving slightly better than yours - I have determined that if I turn it on 2-3 hours before I torch it works fine. I did talk to a nice fellow at Extreme Oxygen and described my problem, he agreed that it sounded like either the compressor or the sieve bed (or both) were staring to wear out. I'm going to order the rebuild kit and hopefully it will do the job (fingers crossed!)

Mine is somewhere in the 4-5 year old range, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that it needs some maintenance at this time. At least I've been pretty good about replacing and cleaning the filters regularly.


Aimee
No, haven't found a fix and haven't found a pattern.
I'm currently thinking about whether I should buy the sieve bed replacement or right away order a new oxycon.
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  #12  
Old 2014-02-07, 11:10pm
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I think and hope I have found a simple fix for the trouble with my M20 concentrator, which I hope will help others fix their trouble. Sounds like Judith has the same trouble. I thought the oxygen was coming out faster when the concentrator was blowing out the flame, but it was blowing out the flame because the oxygen wasn't pure enough. The ball in the lpm gauge didn't vary when the concentrator messed up. That threw me off. When my concentrator was working correctly, the breathing noise was 2 breaths about 6 seconds part. When unpure oxygen was coming out there was 1 breath, then 2 breaths 6 seconds apart. There is a solenoid/valve assembly on top of the sieve bed. When my concentrator would mess up I could press one of the two solenoids and the 1 breath would correct to 2 breaths. The solenoids are gray. They are attached to the the two valves (which is black) with 2 small screws. The screws were a little loose - probably from vibration. I tightened the screws and couldn't get the concentrator to mess up anymore. But, since the trouble is intermittent I'll have to use my concentrator a couple of times to be sure. I did take the solenoid off to check it out. It has 3 small holes in it that match up to 3 small holes in the valve. Around the holes on the solenoid is a rubber seal to make it air tight. I think since the screws were loose the compressing of air into and out of the sieve bed wasn't switching right. But it was tight enough to work intermittently. The part number on the solenoid is SY114-6LOZ. A link is on another thread somewhere on LE where you can download the concentrator manual, which has a good, more detailed explanation of how the concentrator works. The solenoids have an LED on them that light on and off in sync with the breathing. I have another concentrator that doesn't have LEDs on it's solenoids. Be careful if you try this. There is dangerous voltage inside. You can do this with the power unplugged, unless you want to watch the LEDs alternately light up. I wouldn't tighten the screws too much, since the solenoid is plastic.
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  #13  
Old 2014-02-08, 1:47am
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I haven't had that problem, but I wasn't getting enough heat. After reading a tip from one of the current vendors here (Extreme Oxygen?), I started opening the oxy ports on the torch and running the oxycon with the ports open for 15-30 minutes before torching. What previously took me 30 minutes to melt now takes 7 or 8. The vendor said that running with the ports open allows the impurities to escape while pressure builds up in the oxycon.
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  #14  
Old 2014-04-13, 7:27pm
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My concentrator problem came back. So the fix I described previously wasn't the fix I thought it was. When the latest problem came back it was raining outside, so I think it may be the humidity causing the trouble. I checked the solenoids and they are still tight. So that wasn't it. Yesterday I torched fine for a few hours - no rain.
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  #15  
Old 2014-05-08, 11:37pm
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Rachel, this is a great tip! I am disappointed with the heat my M20 and two M5s put out... i will try this next time.
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  #16  
Old 2015-04-21, 6:44pm
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It turns out my concentrator trouble was the seive bed.
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  #17  
Old 2015-04-22, 7:25am
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Tom, how did you come to this conclusion?
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  #18  
Old 2015-04-22, 8:02am
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When I get a chance I will post a new thread on what I went through trying to repair my concentrator. Here is a quick redown - I bought a broken concnetrator for parts and replaced the compressor and that didn't fix it. I replace the solenoid valve assembly. Didn't fix it. I repoured the sieve bed with 5A zeolite 8 X 12 mesh from Delta Absorbents, but that didn't fix it. The 8 X 12 mesh is a bigger size zeolite bead in the concentrator I have. There was less surface area on the bigger bead and generated less oxygen. Then I repoured with Zeochem Z12-07 from Glen Medical Systems from Canton Ohio. Here is a link to Zeochem:http://www.zeochem.ch/dev/html/medical_oxygen.html and here is the link for Glen Medical http://glennmedical.com/glennmedicalsystemsinc/ Glen Medical sold me the Zeolite at $21 a pound. It took about 5 1/2 to 6 pounds, but I ordered 8 to be safe. I posted pictures of the sieve bed apart on talkglass (TMP) and will do that here when I get a chance. Glen Medical repours sieve beds if you want to have them do it, but it isn't that hard to do. When you open the top of the sieve bed, it is under tension from some big springs.
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Last edited by Doctor Hue; 2015-04-22 at 10:28am. Reason: typo
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  #19  
Old 2015-04-22, 10:03am
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Thank you for the great info Tom. I'm a member of talkglass, but just haven't been on there. Time for a change.
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  #20  
Old 2015-04-22, 10:20am
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Thanks for the links Tom.

However I had to tweak the web addresses to get them to function; removing 'and' from the first and editing the second after the 'dot com'.
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  #21  
Old 2015-04-22, 10:30am
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Sorry about my typos. I edited it and links should work now.
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  #22  
Old 2015-11-10, 1:55pm
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ROC View Post
I haven't had that problem, but I wasn't getting enough heat. After reading a tip from one of the current vendors here (Extreme Oxygen?), I started opening the oxy ports on the torch and running the oxycon with the ports open for 15-30 minutes before torching. What previously took me 30 minutes to melt now takes 7 or 8. The vendor said that running with the ports open allows the impurities to escape while pressure builds up in the oxycon.
Are you saying to just turn the oxycon and the open the valve on the torch and just let the oxy flow?
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  #23  
Old 2015-11-10, 6:42pm
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I think so.

Those machines take a few minutes to get the purity levels up and I just turn my oxycon on first ith the knobs fully open then I turn on the kiln, lights and ventilation fan and then make a cup of coffee. I give it a good five minutes before trying to light the torch and then I limit the output to 8 and half on my 10 lpm machine.
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