Oxygen gen flow meter red line

[franklin sankar]

Is there any problem in ramping up the flow control on my oxygen generator to max , where the ball in the guage is sitting just above the top which has a (red) line ?
Manual has no warning but its a red line and you dont mess with red lines.
Franklin

[LooseSeal Baller]

I think it can damage the seive beds in the machine

[kq9ak]

It won't hurt machine, but purity will get lower. The lower the flow the higher the purity.

[LooseSeal Baller]

Stupid towel

[samoth890]

Jack at unlimited o2 recommended me to leave my flow knob at full and control the flow rate with the torch knob, unless I specifically needed higher oxy purity which just makes for a more oxidizing flame i guess.

I use a hurricane ans usually just leave mine open,my sieve beds are doing good as far as I know, and I don't notice a lot of difference in the flame when I turn down the flow max on the machine. But my hurricane only runs my bravo center.

[byron3]

A sieve bed is comprised of a chemical called zeolite

How oxy cons work, picture ......................
http://www.sequal.com/corp_tech_comparison.php

What is in a sieve bed :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeolite

If you understand how an oxy con works and what zeolite is, then you can answer your own question.
I would give you the answer, but knowledge is priceless .......................

[kbinkster]

It won't hurt machine, but purity will get lower. The lower the flow the higher the purity.

Actually, the short term result is poor purity (because the air is not sitting in the sieve long enough to get fully separated into nitrogen and oxygen with trace gases), but running it like that will eventually damage the machine. It overflows the sieve material and breaks it down and it overruns the compressor.

[byron3]

Most compressors have 35 psi pressure relief valves and will run continuous whether they are pressuring up the system or venting............. make no differnece.

Zeolite does not "break down" with improper use from over pressurization in a sieve bed, it is a crystalline structure and short of altering that structure with heat, mechanical compression, etc ................. you can not harm it!!

[franklin sankar]

Thanks for the replies. My glass is turning brown so I need more oxygen. If I turn it down I get more purity ie more oxygen content but if I increase the flow I get more flow of a lower purity. I assume the red line is there to warn you not to cross it. Whatever the reason I will not cross it.
I would like to ask one more. If I get a higher flow as described above, will I get a hotter flame compared with the lower but more pure oxygen?
I tried it but can't tell the heat as well as some of you more experienced people. The higher flow produces a slight hiss. And I feel like I am getting more heat. If you use tank gas how do you get more flow? Open the valve, but you also get more pressure which makes my flame get narrow. How do you get a fatter flame? Bigger torch?
Thanks Byron3. Very interesting read.
Franklin

[kbinkster]

Most compressors have 35 psi pressure relief valves and will run continuous whether they are pressuring up the system or venting............. make no differnece.

Zeolite does not "break down" with improper use from over pressurization in a sieve bed, it is a crystalline structure and short of altering that structure with heat, mechanical compression, etc ................. you can not harm it!!

Excessive vibration cause dusting. Sieve material grinds against itself.

[samoth890]

If you run the machine at full but don't open the torch enough to get up to the red line, do you think the unit is still getting unnecessary vibration? :o

[kbinkster]

If you run the machine at full but don't open the torch enough to get up to the red line, do you think the unit is still getting unnecessary vibration? :o

When you run a small flame and are allowing little flow to come out of the machine, you're slightly back-pressuring the machine. It shouldn't be a problem as long as the ball is not resting on the bottom of the flow meter. Running more feed air through the sieve than it was designed to handle (which is what you are doing when you run the ball over the red line) is a different situation.

My previous comment about zeolite was directed at the statement Byron made "you can not harm it."

[funksizzle]

The fatter flam you want is a bigger torch, with a wider diameter/spread of jets. As well as tanked oxy to feed those jets. I want a wider flame too! Thats why one of my crossfire/two torch setups will be phantoms right beside each other with as straight of a angle as I can get. Or 1 facing away from me, one facing me, with flames roughly 1 inch from each other. So, roughly a 2 inch heatspan, just in different spots on the glass cylinder/rod/figure/etc

So, two ways to do it, with two torches.

You might also want a ribbon burner, 3 row.

Those are the options for wider flames. Torch flames dont really get much wider than their barrels, maybe a little.


As far as flow line. Just below the max flow is a good spot. That way the machines purity stays normal. I think some machines work better than others, and the levels are different on different machines.

[franklin sankar]

I was. Thinking about a ribbon burner and a blower instead of another torch. I use soft glass.
Franklin

[somewhere]

Most compressors have 35 psi pressure relief valves and will run continuous whether they are pressuring up the system or venting............. make no differnece. Zeolite does not "break down" with improper use from over pressurization in a sieve bed, it is a crystalline structure and short of altering that structure with heat, mechanical compression, etc ................. you can not harm it!!

Interesting thread.

My understanding is water can damage the zeolite bed. I'm not sure how that ways in these small concentrators but on large oxygen generators dry air is considered a must.

[franklin sankar]

The humidity is high where I am so I put a dehumidifier in a big cabinet/box with the oxy gen. just to make sure the air is dry. Seem to work well so far.
Franklin

[byron3]

Why yes Sky, you are correct!!

As stated in the material provided, zeolite is a micron seive ...................

Look let me break it down for you, the chemical engineers constructed a molecular crystalline structure .............................
This structure is designed so that "smaller" nitrogen and argon molecules will "nestle" inside the structure, the oxygen molecules are "too big" to fit ...........
Zeolites have cation properties or fewer electrons than protons giving them a positive charge, water is an ion and will bond to this cation, thus rendering it ineffective ......................
Baking the material will break the bond ...........................

So to expand on over pressurization, it is not like the nitrogen or argon is bonding to the outside of a sphere and that high pressure will collapse or distort that sphere to where it will not work ..............................
TFC, or thin film composite membranes are used in water purifiers, they have a membrane that has small enough pores for the water to flow through, but not impurities or dissolved solids.
Now on a system like that you have supply water on one side and filtered water on the other, over pressure on the supply side would "rupture" the membrane essentially wrecking the system.
Our filter is a substance that is hollow and has a crystalline structure similar to a parking garage, you can only park nitrogen and argon( small and compact cars) into it, no oxygen( big trucks)
So when the hurricane blows, our structure sees the same pressure inside and out ......................

Now if you block the entrances with water or debris then you can not use the structure!!

B3