CO2 refills from Paintball stores good or bad?
- Thread starter oyashare
- Start date
I am sure that any place that sells compressed CO2 will sell it to you as long as they have the ability to hook up the compressor system to your tank. But since I don't use a compressed CO2 system on my tank I haven't tried to get a paintball place to fill it for me.
As a paintball player myself, I asked this very question a while back on this board and was told to do the soda bottle thing.
I tried doing this with a 20oz w/ on-off. It's very difficult to regulate even when using a remote and other stuff. It's cheaper to do it with a soda bottle and yeast, and easier I might add as well.
Another problem posed is if the tank gets knocked over or if there is a tube in the bottom, liquid CO2 can get in your tank... definately not good.
HTH
I tried doing this with a 20oz w/ on-off. It's very difficult to regulate even when using a remote and other stuff. It's cheaper to do it with a soda bottle and yeast, and easier I might add as well.
Another problem posed is if the tank gets knocked over or if there is a tube in the bottom, liquid CO2 can get in your tank... definately not good.
HTH
Liquid CO2 getting into your tank!? 
In order for CO2 to stay liquid, it needs to either be at a very low temperature (lower than anything the average person can achieve), or it has to be under a tremendous amount of pressure. As soon as CO2 leaves its CO2 tank, it will convert to its gaseous form. There is _no_ risk of liquid CO2 getting into your tank.
If you're having problems regulating CO2 output from a CO2 tank, you don't have it setup right. You need at least 4 things before a pressurized system will work:
1.) A pressurized CO2 tank
2.) A regulator
3.) A needle valve
4.) Silicon tubing (or CO2 resistant tubing)
The regulator should have its output regulated at around 15-20psi, use the needle valve to do fine tuning of the bubbling rate.
Every plant keeper who uses CO2 injection in their tanks will tell you, a pressurized system is much better than a yeast system. Though the initial cost is quite high, the system will more than pay for itself over time. I spend about 20 bucks Canadian a year on my pressurized system. Every 6-7 months, all I need to do is unhook my CO2 tank, take it to a welding shop, swap it for another tank, and hook it back up to my tank. Pretty much a plug and forget kind of system. Looking at how much I'd have to spend on something like sugar, jello and yeast, plus the time I'd have to spend every 2-3 weeks replacing the yeast system, I'd much prefer a pressurized system.
-Richer
In order for CO2 to stay liquid, it needs to either be at a very low temperature (lower than anything the average person can achieve), or it has to be under a tremendous amount of pressure. As soon as CO2 leaves its CO2 tank, it will convert to its gaseous form. There is _no_ risk of liquid CO2 getting into your tank.
If you're having problems regulating CO2 output from a CO2 tank, you don't have it setup right. You need at least 4 things before a pressurized system will work:
1.) A pressurized CO2 tank
2.) A regulator
3.) A needle valve
4.) Silicon tubing (or CO2 resistant tubing)
The regulator should have its output regulated at around 15-20psi, use the needle valve to do fine tuning of the bubbling rate.
Every plant keeper who uses CO2 injection in their tanks will tell you, a pressurized system is much better than a yeast system. Though the initial cost is quite high, the system will more than pay for itself over time. I spend about 20 bucks Canadian a year on my pressurized system. Every 6-7 months, all I need to do is unhook my CO2 tank, take it to a welding shop, swap it for another tank, and hook it back up to my tank. Pretty much a plug and forget kind of system. Looking at how much I'd have to spend on something like sugar, jello and yeast, plus the time I'd have to spend every 2-3 weeks replacing the yeast system, I'd much prefer a pressurized system.
-Richer
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I also like the idea of swapping the tank out. It means that you don't personally have to get it hydro tested or visually inspected every year. That falls on the welding company.
For future search reference, no paintball store I have called will fill a 5lb tank. They all told me 24oz is the largest they will fill. I dont know why but my only guess is they probably use a 5lb or similar sized tank to do thier actual filling.
No it is probably due to having the correct fittings. Those smaller paint ball containers use a small fitting to fill. Bigger 5lb and up tanks require something compleltely different and it would be a cost that wouldn't bring in a lot of return.
Oil in CO2
If there was oil in the tank, it'd probably clog the prefilter on your first stage. They might use a little plumbers grease on the fittings to fill though. Paintball guys usually change tanks pretty often w/o using teflon tape, so some kind of grease sealant might be appealing.
If there was oil in the tank, it'd probably clog the prefilter on your first stage. They might use a little plumbers grease on the fittings to fill though. Paintball guys usually change tanks pretty often w/o using teflon tape, so some kind of grease sealant might be appealing.
A couple of things to consider on the oil in the tank thought. Oil floats on liquid, not on gaseous Co2, When the tank is standing upright, the liquid all sits in the bottom of the tank, As the pressure drops, the ratio of gas to liquid increase inside the tank (liquid level drops) so the chances of the oil escaping are pretty slim to begin with even if the the tank has oil in it which is usually not the case. CO2 is used widely for metal inert gas welding applications, If oil came out throught the gas in these processes it would ruin the welds. therefore this being a primary use for this gas, I imagine some precautions are taken. In the heavy equipment/mining industry that I work in Co2 is viewed similar to nitrogen, what comes out of the bottle needs to be inert, and contaminate free at all times. I have never seen it otherwise. I wouldn't hesitate to pump gas from a welding shop or a paintball shop either one directly into my tank. If you are truly concerned get it from a soft drink vendor, but I would not be.
The valves and hose fittings at the bottle are typically brass in order to prevent a need for any type of sealant. If you look at any torch set, nitrogen kit , mig (metal inert gas) or TIG (tungsten inert gas) setup you will not find any sealant or lube on the fittings, I am not at all familiar with the paintball set-ups, but anything large enough to be considered industrial doesn't use sealant at the tank valve. The fittings away from the bottle are often sealed, but this doesn't come into play at a refill facility.
