Multi-Process Welder:

[Yellowtail]

53 minutes ago, sometimewoodworker said:

It is the cost for purchasing the bottle including gas ex factory. Delivery cost depends on location. However the small bottle is under 1 meter tall so will fit into any vehicle.

That's not bad. If you go with the small bottles get two. The small bottles are certainly easier to handle. 

 

Make sure you get the caps, they are almost always missing....

 

 

 

[sometimewoodworker]

1 hour ago, Yellowtail said:

That's not bad. If you go with the small bottles get two. The small bottles are certainly easier to handle. 

 

Make sure you get the caps, they are almost always missing....

While welding is always an individual exercise do you have a rough time you would expect a bottle to last? Either the 1.5Q or the 6Q as I’m not sure of the capacity (what is a Q?) and usual fill pressures 

Given the volume and fill pressure I can work out the time but I am hesitant to keep bothering the supplier. 
 

FWIW as I will probably go to the actual factory I am likely to get the caps with no problem.

Edited August 18, 2023 by sometimewoodworker

[Yellowtail]

7 hours ago, sometimewoodworker said:

While welding is always an individual exercise do you have a rough time you would expect a bottle to last? Either the 1.5Q or the 6Q as I’m not sure of the capacity (wha

 

FWIW as I will probably go to the actual factory I am likely to get the caps with no problem.

You'll likely run about 30 ft^3 per hour I think the 6Q is a 300 ft^3 bottle, so you'd get 10 about ten hours of trigger-down welding. 

 

In production, this might run from 2 days to a week (or more) depending on what you are doing. Tacking and fitting, a bottle will last a week, once it's fitted up and tacked together and you're just welding, two days. 

 

You should be able two lay about 2m of weld bead in an hour. 

 

A full charge is considered (I think) 150 bar. 

 

I think the big bottles weigh about 50kg empty, and they are unwieldy. 

 

 

[sometimewoodworker]

5 hours ago, Yellowtail said:

You'll likely run about 30 ft^3 per hour I think the 6Q is a 300 ft^3 bottle, so you'd get 10 about ten hours of trigger-down welding. 

 

In production, this might run from 2 days to a week (or more) depending on what you are doing. Tacking and fitting, a bottle will last a week, once it's fitted up and tacked together and you're just welding, two days. 

 

You should be able two lay about 2m of weld bead in an hour. 

 

A full charge is considered (I think) 150 bar. 

 

I think the big bottles weigh about 50kg empty, and they are unwieldy. 

 

 

Some of those figures seem a little unusual. I am used to SCUBA tanks and pressures so filling to 150 bar is certainly possible as that will be very conservative my ally tanks usually fill to about 180bar and 220 for steel is possible.

you say “I think the 6Q is a 300 ft^3 bottle” while I assume that at 150 bar is equal to 2 cu ft or 56 litres I think that the bottle maybe  something less than that size

looking at an illustration the small tank could be 15 litres so maybe the big one is 60 litres?

FWIW in the U.K. 200 bar is the supply pressure for welding or non medical O² from one supplier 

 

[Yellowtail]

9 hours ago, sometimewoodworker said:

Some of those figures seem a little unusual. I am used to SCUBA tanks and pressures so filling to 150 bar is certainly possible as that will be very conservative my ally tanks usually fill to about 180bar and 220 for steel is possible.

you say “I think the 6Q is a 300 ft^3 bottle” while I assume that at 150 bar is equal to 2 cu ft or 56 litres I think that the bottle maybe  something less than that size

looking at an illustration the small tank could be 15 litres so maybe the big one is 60 litres?

FWIW in the U.K. 200 bar is the supply pressure for welding or non medical O² from one supplier 

 

I do not understand what is meant by the bolded test above. The 300 ft^3 is the volume of compressed gas the bottle will hold, not the volume of the bottle. 

 

I think a 300 ft^3 argon bottle only has an actual volume of something less than 2 ft^2. 

 

Incidentally, I worked on a project that involved die lubrication for back-extruding aluminum bottles for scuba tanks and whatnot. The project was not very interesting, but watching the actual back-extrusion portion of the process was amazing. 

 

 

 

 

 

[sometimewoodworker]

1 hour ago, Yellowtail said:

I do not understand what is meant by the bolded test above. The 300 ft^3 is the volume of compressed gas the bottle will hold, not the volume of the bottle. 

@Yellowtail By 300 ft^3 do you mean 300ft³ and that you meant the uncompressed gas volume?

1 hour ago, Yellowtail said:

I think a 300 ft^3 argon bottle only has an actual volume of something less than 2 ft^2. 

A BOC supply is at either 230 bar or 300 bar, I would expect that to be relatively standard worldwide so would guess that the Thai pressure would be somewhere between 200 and 230 and since I work in metric that would equate to the second to largest size in my illustration.

 

 While I can easily see why you would work in 1 bar volume as a welder, as a diver I’m much more familiar with the compressed volumes in litres as the 1 ATM volume is virtually irrelevant due to the differences in volume available being almost infinite.

 

I am with you on the fabrication process being of great interest.

 

on a last point do you have any idea of what the ดิว volume actually is  

 

 

Edited August 19, 2023 by sometimewoodworker

[Yellowtail]

1 hour ago, sometimewoodworker said:

@Yellowtail By 300 ft^3 do you mean 300ft³ and that you meant the uncompressed gas volume?

The bottle will only hold about 2 ft^3/cubic feet of uncompressed gas, you can compress 300 ft^3 of gas into the bottle. I think this is what you mean, correct? 

1 hour ago, sometimewoodworker said:

A BOC supply is at either 230 bar or 300 bar, I would expect that to be relatively standard worldwide so would guess that the Thai pressure would be somewhere between 200 and 230 and since I work in metric that would equate to the second to largest size in my illustration.

I don't think the gage on a typical MIG flow-meter/regulator even goes to 300 bar, but I could be wrong. 

 

1 hour ago, sometimewoodworker said:

While I can easily see why you would work in 1 bar volume as a welder, as a diver I’m much more familiar with the compressed volumes in litres as the 1 ATM volume is virtually irrelevant due to the differences in volume available being almost infinite.

I do not what you mean by 1 bar volume. As I understand, bar is a unit of pressure, not volume. 

 

1 hour ago, sometimewoodworker said:

 

I am with you on the fabrication process being of great interest.

 

on a last point do you have any idea of what the ดิว volume actually is  

 

I do not know, but I know the standard "full sized" bottles (what I think is the 6Q) in Thailand are about the same size as the standard bottles in the US, and that that those are ~9" in diameter and are ~60" tall for a ballpark volume of about 2 ft^3.

 

The white coating on the billet is lubricant, and that is the project I worked on.

 

Most of the process in not impressive, but the video just does not do justice to the moment the aluminum starts exiting the dies, it was amazing.

 

 

[sometimewoodworker]

45 minutes ago, Yellowtail said:

The bottle will only hold about 2 ft^3/cubic feet of uncompressed gas, you can compress 300 ft^3 of gas into the bottle. I think this is what you mean, correct? 

I’m pretty sure we now understand, though as I said being both non US and a diver I think in terms of the volume available in the cylinder and in litres. Not in the capacity of gas available at 1 bar from it.

48 minutes ago, Yellowtail said:

I do not what you mean by 1 bar volume. As I understand, bar is a unit of pressure, not volume. 

Abbreviation of volume of gas at 1 bar pressure, whereas US divers and probably other US trades think in the total volume of gas that can be compressed into the bottle or is available from it. 

 

53 minutes ago, Yellowtail said:

I don't think the gage on a typical MIG flow-meter/regulator even goes to 300 bar, but I could be wrong. 

U.K. ones do

even harbour freight ones do

[Yellowtail]

5 minutes ago, sometimewoodworker said:

I’m pretty sure we now understand, though as I said being both non US and a diver I think in terms of the volume available in the cylinder and in litres. Not in the capacity of gas available at 1 bar from it.

Again, I don't know what is meant in bold.

 

A 300ft^3 bottle will hold 300ft^3 (~8500L) at NTP when charged. Knowing the actual volume of gas, you can approximate how much gas you need for per unit length of weld using the flow and feed-rates in the work instructions. 

 

5 minutes ago, sometimewoodworker said:

Abbreviation of volume of gas at 1 bar pressure, whereas US divers and probably other US trades think in the total volume of gas that can be compressed into the bottle or is available from it. 

A welder just changes out the bottle when it's empty or almost empty, I assume it's a bit more of a concern for the diver. 

 

5 minutes ago, sometimewoodworker said:

 

U.K. ones do

even harbour freight ones do

 

Is Harbour Freight the UK version of Harbor Freight in the US? 

 

I like, and the guys typically prefer the floating ball style flowmeter.

[sometimewoodworker]

46 minutes ago, Yellowtail said:

Again, I don't know what is meant in bold.

 

A 300ft^3 bottle will hold 300ft^3 (~8500L) at NTP when charged. Knowing the actual volume of gas, you can approximate how much gas you need for per unit length of weld using the flow and feed-rates in the work instructions. 

 

A welder just changes out the bottle when it's empty or almost empty, I assume it's a bit more of a concern for the diver. 

 

Is Harbour Freight the UK version of Harbor Freight in the US? 

 

I like, and the guys typically prefer the floating ball style flowmeter.

There is just 1 harbour freight it’s in the USA 

the flow meters are just examples, not necessarily the chosen option.

one is from the U.K. one from the USA 

 

with a diver you NEVER never get under 50 bar when starting your assent you should always surface with a minimum of 30 bar anything less and you f..ed up. Due to the different pressures experienced during the dive though your lung volume doesn’t change the equivalent volume of air if it were at 1 ATM can be as much as 4 times more than usual (given non technical diving) this is why the majority of divers outside the USA reference the actual tank volume not the theoretical volume of air that can be compressed into it.

 

naturally since you don’t worry about an emergency reserve and that you always get the same volume of gas out that you put in welders may well have a different view, and don’t need the math that divers find second nature. Though you do have to be concerned if you are regularly getting lower fill tanks than you expect, possibly 25% less.

 

[Yellowtail]

16 minutes ago, sometimewoodworker said:

There is just 1 harbour freight it’s in the USA 

That was a joke...

16 minutes ago, sometimewoodworker said:

the flow meters are just examples, not necessarily the chosen option.

one is from the U.K. one from the USA 

Nothing at Harbor Freight is from the USA. 

 

This is a US flow meter: 

 

 

[sometimewoodworker]

2 hours ago, Yellowtail said:

That was a joke...

Nothing at Harbor Freight is from the USA. 

 

This is a US flow meter: 

 

 

What makes you think that it isn’t manufactured in Asia? 

[DrukenMallardy]

On 8/19/2023 at 5:18 PM, Yellowtail said:

Is Harbour Freight the UK version of Harbor Freight in the US? 

 

I like, and the guys typically prefer the floating ball style flowmeter.

 

On 8/19/2023 at 4:09 PM, sometimewoodworker said:

U.K. ones do

even harbour freight ones do

They also use the flowmeter types here, and they also go up to 300bar (1bar =

1.01972 kg/cm3)

 

[Yellowtail]

7 hours ago, DrukenMallardy said:

 

They also use the flowmeter types here, and they also go up to 300bar (1bar =

1.01972 kg/cm3)

 

Yeah, the Chinese flow meters go to 300 while the US regulators only go to 280 proving the Chinese product is better. 

 

 

 

 

[impulse]

On 8/18/2023 at 10:52 AM, Yellowtail said:

That's not bad. If you go with the small bottles get two. The small bottles are certainly easier to handle. 

 

Make sure you get the caps, they are almost always missing....

I'd suggest you get 2 bottles in any case (if it's in your budget).  I always found myself bringing in a 1/3- 1/4 full bottle for refill just so I wouldn't have to stop in the middle of the next job to slog down to the gas vendor because I ran out of gas.  I ended up buying a small bottle to set aside the big one.  Which also made it easier to work on remote jobs with the small one. 

 

Of course, it depends on how often you expect to need a refill since the bottles aren't cheap...  And in my neck of the woods, you paid a flat rate to refill the bottle, regardless of how empty it is.  YMMV.

 

[sometimewoodworker]

Just an update, I decided that the Jasic MIG160D will be likely to suit my needs and since I don’t like the hardwork of using a hacksaw and my brother has been significantly generous I’ve decided on also getting the JASIC cut 40 the advantage of the plasma cutter is that I’m not restricted to straight lines as an angle grinder or grinding chop saw are.

For the mixed gas I have been in contact with TNO in Khon Kaen and when the machine arrives I’ll be getting a bottle from them. In the meantime I decided to get a bottle of CO₂ (฿1,640) and another of Argon (฿1,645) since they are more easily available and about half the price of the C20 or C25 from Khon Kaen and I may well give TIG welding a try and can use the CO₂ to see if the C25 it needed.

 

I have also got a true colour, huge view area, mask on the way via AliExpress that will be an upgrade on the current self darkening mask I bought over 10 years ago, that was more expensive, I am a little surprised at the advances in technology, though I decided that welding masks that cost over ฿5,000 were all rather more expensive than hobby welding needed.

 

or over   ฿10,000

or even one at over    ฿17,000

[Yellowtail]

Have fun with them!