Set up in D for life now
Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2010 8:13 pm
Here's the sad but true tale on what it takes to get really serious about this fusor game.
We had to jump though a few regulatory hurdles, but we managed. I think we were probably raped fairly bad on the empty cylinder price (as it's about 5 or more times what I pay when I do this with welding gas on larger tanks, and the cylinder wasn't new, just newly hydro tested) but to be honest, the expensive regulator was a bargain according to some of my chemical engineer friends who buy this kind of thing for big outfits, and the gas really is research-grade pure -- I measure 99.999% on my own gear after anything bad I pollute it with (being careful not to, but contamination never goes out of things, only falls in, it seems). That is one less 9 than they claim -- decent. I can recommend that regulator (a two stage that goes to below atmosphere and has a leak tight shutoff valve on the output) as the best I've ever touched in a long life -- and I have a shop full of good ones, but nothing else even close to that good.
As usual, click the pic for a larger view.
On second thought, what I go through to transfer this to smaller tanks is a heck of a lot of work to do right and not lose purity, so maybe even that wasn't a bad deal. If I valued my time at minimum wage for the tank cleaning, refurbing, vacuum baking, valve fitting and so on, it would come out about like this. Forgetting all the gear it takes to do that needing to be amortized.
Next time some old timer says you can get D for a hundred bucks (and there they are talking about 97% pure, not that good for fusors as we have tested here by deliberately contaminating the pure stuff to see the effects) -- remember that maybe they got a deal through their job, did it decades ago, or just are boasting of their scrounging prowess -- none of them would sell it to me at the prices they claim they got, or anything close, or at all.
This is a more than lifetime supply -- the fixed costs were enough to justify getting more gas, as the price at the margin wasn't that much more. Here I transfer it to little lecture bottle sized tanks for real use -- and for a run, I open the main tank valve for a second, then run all afternoon on what's in the tiny volume in the tank->regulator pipe. In fact, I can maybe do that about 3-4 afternoons worth without having to open the main tank valve again at all. I put about 400psi in the tiny tanks as they are modified small hospital O2 tanks with new hydrogen CGA valves, aluminum tanks, and I just don't want that much volume at risk in case of some accident (or I stupidly leave some valve open and lose it to some leak).
We had to provide a safety plan, an operating plan, a use justification, a security plan, and an emergency response plan. As luck would have it, I have a part time policeman working here, and a paramedic next door neighbor, so it was mostly a matter or writing up some stuff in advanced corporatese (had to give names and phone numbers), which as an ex-CEO was a simple exercise for me. And yes, C-Lab is my company, legitimate all the way, in operation for decades, pays taxes and all that stuff, which didn't hurt a bit. Neither does a name with "lab" in it hurt when trying to buy certain odd things.
For what it's worth.
We had to jump though a few regulatory hurdles, but we managed. I think we were probably raped fairly bad on the empty cylinder price (as it's about 5 or more times what I pay when I do this with welding gas on larger tanks, and the cylinder wasn't new, just newly hydro tested) but to be honest, the expensive regulator was a bargain according to some of my chemical engineer friends who buy this kind of thing for big outfits, and the gas really is research-grade pure -- I measure 99.999% on my own gear after anything bad I pollute it with (being careful not to, but contamination never goes out of things, only falls in, it seems). That is one less 9 than they claim -- decent. I can recommend that regulator (a two stage that goes to below atmosphere and has a leak tight shutoff valve on the output) as the best I've ever touched in a long life -- and I have a shop full of good ones, but nothing else even close to that good.
As usual, click the pic for a larger view.
On second thought, what I go through to transfer this to smaller tanks is a heck of a lot of work to do right and not lose purity, so maybe even that wasn't a bad deal. If I valued my time at minimum wage for the tank cleaning, refurbing, vacuum baking, valve fitting and so on, it would come out about like this. Forgetting all the gear it takes to do that needing to be amortized.
Next time some old timer says you can get D for a hundred bucks (and there they are talking about 97% pure, not that good for fusors as we have tested here by deliberately contaminating the pure stuff to see the effects) -- remember that maybe they got a deal through their job, did it decades ago, or just are boasting of their scrounging prowess -- none of them would sell it to me at the prices they claim they got, or anything close, or at all.
This is a more than lifetime supply -- the fixed costs were enough to justify getting more gas, as the price at the margin wasn't that much more. Here I transfer it to little lecture bottle sized tanks for real use -- and for a run, I open the main tank valve for a second, then run all afternoon on what's in the tiny volume in the tank->regulator pipe. In fact, I can maybe do that about 3-4 afternoons worth without having to open the main tank valve again at all. I put about 400psi in the tiny tanks as they are modified small hospital O2 tanks with new hydrogen CGA valves, aluminum tanks, and I just don't want that much volume at risk in case of some accident (or I stupidly leave some valve open and lose it to some leak).
We had to provide a safety plan, an operating plan, a use justification, a security plan, and an emergency response plan. As luck would have it, I have a part time policeman working here, and a paramedic next door neighbor, so it was mostly a matter or writing up some stuff in advanced corporatese (had to give names and phone numbers), which as an ex-CEO was a simple exercise for me. And yes, C-Lab is my company, legitimate all the way, in operation for decades, pays taxes and all that stuff, which didn't hurt a bit. Neither does a name with "lab" in it hurt when trying to buy certain odd things.
For what it's worth.