Linking Oxygen Generators

[Davis Anderson]

Hey guys. Maybe i'm just new and idiotic, but my master says that when you link oxygen generators, only the lpm's are cumulative, not the psi's. I'm not sure if i understand this concept. I'm running a GTT lynx on two ex-5's (5 PSI, 5 LPM each.) But when i use my ex-15 with the lynx it seems much less powerful. And when i hooked up three ex-5's to the lynx, the third concentrator won't take all the oxygen. Someone please help. :twitch:

[metalbone]

when hooking up multiple concentrators, they should have the same psi rating, and only the lpms add to increase to overall volume.

i.e. two 5 psi 5 lpm oxycons will produce 5 psi oxygen and somewhat less than (5 lpm + 5 lpm) total oxygen volume.

If the psi on that 3rd oxycon is less than the other two, then that oxycon will not contribute much to the total volume.

[Davis Anderson]

You seem like a knowledgeable artist, what should i do about moving a GTT phantom from the lynx? I love GTT torches so there's no doubt in my mind that its what i want, but for oxygen what should i do? Im not sure if tanked oxygen is quite in my price range. But I could run two ex-15's to start out with or five ex-5's. The reason I'm so confused is because of my experience with the lynx, it seems much much hotter with two ex-5's then with one ex-15, which leads me to believe that GTT's like more LPM's and are more forgiving on PSI's. But some other posts say that phantoms like to be run at 30-40 PSI? I'm stuck in a rut once again. But thank you for answering my first question, metalbone.

[Flaming Balls]

This is what you should do. Compress your own oxy from your generators. See the pics of my 60 gallon setup. 2400 liter of oxy on hand. I can rage on my delta for 2-3 hours and not use all of it up from 2 Ex-15s

[metalbone]

If the 2 ex5's are better than the ex15, sell the ex15 and use the money for something more usefull, like a K tank or two. You can still use the 2 ex5s on the centerfire of a phantom, although it will be lacking compared to tanked on teh centerfire.

To run a phantom, especially the outter fire, forget the concentrators, many here have already tried that and found that tanked, LOX, or the trey cornette O2 holding tank pressure booster system are the only way to go. 30-35 psi on the phantom is good.

Do a search for Homefill II and you'll see the O2 system I have, which easily handles inner/ouuter of the mirage, phantom, or top/main of the redmax. Trey's system offers a good cheap (relatively speaking) way to go but you will have to do it yourself and scrounge for parts.

The quickest way out of that O2 rut and the cheapest is to just decide to rent one or two K tanks, pay the oxyman a $20-30 bucks per fill, get a cheap oxy regulator from harbor freight for $30, and fire it up. You can do that this weekend with less than $150. Then your oxygen problems and rut will then be in the past. This really is the simplest way to go with the lowest cash outlay.

[Davis Anderson]

The guy I work for has linked three ex-15's on a phantom and seems to be doing fine. Is he just running it no where near full capacity?

[n3rd]

flaming balls, care to share more details on your setup there?

[metalbone]

flaming, nice friggin set-up. Which oiless are you using? Can you also provide details (plumbing and parts) on the pressure control system?

[Flaming Balls]

I'm using a Gast 1/2hp which is too much ummpphh for the job should have gone a size or 2 smaller as the 16 LPM from the EX-15s caused it to starve for air and heat up more than it should. Also the smaller ones would be a tad quieter as this one was pretty damn noisy till I shock mounted the compressor and isolated the feet and bolted em to the floor. Now its real quiet till it starts straining for air but its still much more livable.

[Flaming Balls]

The plus on the extra HP is the compressing to 135 PSI in a 60 gallon tank is unbelievable reserve. Trey gave me a few heads up so i figure I owe it to pass on what I can. I'm thinking about making a 20, 30 and 60 gallon version for sale because I love the concept so much.

I just hated dragging K tanks into my basement and out at 2-3 a week (I can't get delivery here at a residential address ) driving 20 miles swapping etc. I haven't used a tank in 2 months and love it. Made a 2 1/2" boro marble the other day and took the 60 gallon pressure down to 50 after 2 1/2 hours of raging torching.

[metalbone]

Not bad! Been toying with the idea myself, have the compressor but still looking for a tank, 30 gal is more the size for me.

[Flaming Balls]

30 gallon is nice cuz you don't have to bolt it to the concrete, but the reserve sucked me in. Which compressor did you get? Also be sure you follow the cleaning protocol to the letter. And if you find some fittings with oxy threads on one side and 1/4" NPTM on the other grab some for me or let me know where to get them. definitely something hard to find so far.

[metalbone]

i've got a thomas 688 series. can you explain the cleaning protocol?

If you are talking about the holding tank, I figure a couple rinses of solvent to remove any oils followed by complete evacuation/vaporiztion with the compressor and air only. Same for the fittings and hoses. Once vacuated and oil free, then i can move to O2.

On the fittings, my local airgas has a wall with tons of brass fittings, i recall seeing a "b" for oxy and 1/4" npt.

It's the pressure control system for turning the compressor on and off that I'd like info on. Care to elaborate?

[Flaming Balls]

The pressure control is pretty easy. You need a pressure control switch that shuts off at 100PSI (or where ever you want it to shutoff) make sure it has an unloader on it or you'll burn the compressor up really quick. Then connect your 120 / 220 lines to the internal fittings, you will probably need spade compression fittings to do this. Run those out to a 4 gang plastic 120 outlet you can put on the floor or mount on the wall and thats your on / off for your generators. Make sure you have a one way adapter from your pressure side of the compressor to where it goes into the tank.

Cleaning is like this 1 cycle of Denatured Alcohol, 1 cycle of Acetone, one cycle of paint thinner. Follow those up with 3 rinses of HOT soapy water, 2 rinses of warm warm and you are good to go. You will need about a gallon of each. Pour them in swirl them around by spinning the tank 50 - 100 times you need to get a stick and a scrub brush to stick in the hole in the tank and scrub the inside on each cycle. Watch that you get brush not effected by the solvents. Clean all you parts in the same thing, put it all together fire it up and you pretty much have it.

[metalbone]

FB, u rock! Thanks.

Dichro, sorry for the highjack.

[Icarus]

Damn, FB, I wish I could rep you again. Thanks for all of that really helpful info.

[Flaming Balls]

Oh and just to be clear this is just a blog of how I did mine. If you do yours wrong and blow yourself up don't call me :) I don't endorse doing this yourself nor does my lawyer :)

[metalbone]

Ha!

[CripSkillz]

for sho looks good to me but i hate compressor sound other wise id think bout it

[n3rd]

very repworthy, props FB! would be pretty rad if you posted more pics of your setup along with all those awesome details. there are a lotta folks that would benefit from the knowledge you're kicking down here, kudos!

[STROKER]

for sho looks good to me but i hate compressor sound other wise id think bout it

get a rotary screw and that problem is solved.
that is what i did and you would shit yourself to hear how quiet it is when running.

i can stand right next to it and have a conversation with out ever raising my voice one bit.
i run mine all night long without waking up my wife who is only 40 feet from the wall it sits at when she is sleeping.

i got mine from eaton, and have seen some great deals on ebay on used ones.

plus they can run 24 hours a day 7 days a week with no problems.

best investment i ever made. i have never, ever not once had to fill an o2 tank since i first started melting, and that is very nice indeed.

[Flaming Balls]

What you using for a generator? also what HP and CFM does your compressor have?

[STROKER]

What you using for a generator? also what HP and CFM does your compressor have?

i have the pro8 from onsite.

i use an eaton 10hp- 45cfm at 100psi compressor.

absolutely love the set up but i would like to add a reserve tank to have extra o2 when i am raging my outer flame. as of now i have about 10 minutes of full blast when pro8 is full then i have to back off a little to let machine catch up.

i could run a few lynx torches all day at max but the delta really likes that o2 when its putting out a light saber of a flame. you know that already though since you too use the same torch.

i have an extra 120 gallon tank from my old compressor and a gast vacuum in my shop sitting around so if i can make it work it should not cost too much more.

what kind of set up are you getting o2 from? i need to get the specifics for the high pressure stuff and the release valves that are needed for safety.

this is a very interesting thread for sure. i hope i can upgrade my o2 system.

thanks, jay

[smutboy420]

On the last couple of custom jobs making them reserve tanks with the pressure boosters. I add one more thing in to the design that makes em work just a tad bit better.

What I do is wire in a delay timer on to compressors pump. So that when the system turns on and it supplies power to the outlets to turn on the generators. Then after a short delay the compressor kicks on. So that way it gives the gens some time to start up and be running before the compressor kicks in.

[Flaming Balls]

If you are doing that to increase the purity of the oxy from the generators then you have to consider there is 1000s of liters in the tanks and the few liters that is less pure really don't change the chemistry of the oxy in the tank in any significant way.

[EastTutor]

Flaming:

Do you have specifics on your O2 compression setup?

1) Can the 60 gallon tank be purchased without a compressor/motor and at what cost?

2) What is the model, make and cost of the compressor you are using?

3) Assume that your tank cleaning instructions also apply to any purchased air compressor to make sure that all oil is removed from the tank and fitting.

As a side note, can one of the standard Home Depot CH oil less compressors with tank be used in place of your setup?

Presently using one 5 LPM concentrator with a GTE Cricket. Looking at the new Scorpion that should be available in February which requires more oxygen to run.

Thanks,

Jim

[Flaming Balls]

Jim No need to compress stuff for a cricket or Scorpion and just buying a EX-15 is a lot simpler choice. And way less expensive. The cleaning for these is a couple days hard work. Smut boy if he's making these can tell you what a pain it is to match everything up. This is not a tinkering type project. Seriously don't try any of this if don't study it thoroughly.

[LooseSeal Baller]

best o2 making thread!!!

[FifDeez]

Fifdeez here. I have a shitload off experience with this issue. First off if it ain't an invacare give it back. Second of all run the same LPM and models together on one manifold. Use one manifold for inner one for outer fire. I have been using this setup with a delta for six years and work 30 a week. I rage my flame and have no significantly noticeable difference between k tanks and my concentrator setup. But I now pay around 5$ in electricity or less a day versus the 60$ I shelled out every single day to run my delta! I run one 10 LPM invacare for my lynx and seven 5 LPM invacares on the outer delta . and if u are smarter than the average bear ull wire ur setup to a light switch to turn on one concentrator on the delta manifold so u can run those sweet GTT triple mix flames and a second switch to turn on the other six concentrators. THIS REPLACES the total RIPOFF of a 400$ foot pedal with two 1.50$ light switches from the local hardware store. And if ur not electrical savvy plug em into surge protectors and use its switch and BANG no more trips to the oxy supply store and nomore unnecessarly expensive pedals. With this setup I typically do 8 inch long tube pulls on 65x9 so after I add 7 mills of color and 10 mills of clear I still have the flame power to melt er down like butter on the hottest day in summer in Phoenix. How u all have problems I don't understand. But I'll give u some pointers to fine tune us setup and dial er in like mine. DONT EVER buy different brand concentrators for same manifold AND lower the hours the better. Higher hour concentrators paired with newer lower hour ones will result in low lpms total because the older concentrators inner seals and or bellows leaks at best case or in worst cases u can actually have the new one back flow thru the weak old one. I actually had this happen when I paired a 25000 hour concentrator with a group of 5000hour ones. The 25000 one was blowing oxy out its inlet filter. So I craigslisted her to a new home and learned my lesson. Never had any issue ever since and I would NEVER go back to tanks even if they were free cause of the hassle loading em driving ,gas to town etc. So once u go manifold u never go back. And psi doesn't matter at all with my setup. Lpms is really WHERE its at.

[FifDeez]

O ya and I have exactly 1550$ in my concentrators and the electrical i use with no compressor . I made my manifold outta PVC pipe and she's air tight . just don't buy the first oxy concentrator u find on craigslist. Take ur time and buy only the ones with low hours(5000) and for under 200$ . I will tell ya tho when u see the post jump in ur car with money in hand or I'll beat ya there and buy it myself. I'm planning on stocking up on em so I have a safety umbrella if one or two goes out. But after 6 years of solid 30hour a week work I'm still waiting to see the first sign of failure yet!

[Swim]

O ya and I have exactly 1550$ in my concentrators and the electrical i use with no compressor . I made my manifold outta PVC pipe and she's air tight . just don't buy the first oxy concentrator u find on craigslist. Take ur time and buy only the ones with low hours(5000) and for under 200$ . I will tell ya tho when u see the post jump in ur car with money in hand or I'll beat ya there and buy it myself. I'm planning on stocking up on em so I have a safety umbrella if one or two goes out. But after 6 years of solid 30hour a week work I'm still waiting to see the first sign of failure yet!

in my shop, we keep a thre k-tank bank filled with 2 homefills and never run out, and they are easy to work on. invacare platinum plus are dope as fuck. We run a mirage and a 40 mm every day, ten hours a day. rarely does it get low enough that we have to give it a day of no work to let it catch up.

[snoopdog6502]

I dont run on oxycons all the time thanks to a homefil but I can use my 8LPM 15psi on my Phantom center fire and 2 Invacare on the outer fire.

I turn the pedals oxygen bypass wide open so the pedal is just turning on the outfire propane and it works perfect.

Its not the wicked hot flame of tanked but is still pretty fucking hot.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziF_M1dFSJY