Mangudai

One of my neighbors has an old refill station(its like..150 oz) thats been sitting around in the attic for a good 4 years now. He was showing me his old stuff and he even filled up one of his old CO2 tanks. It has this..i guess valve on it so im guessing it was a on/off valve. I was thinking about buying the refill tank but I wanted to know if there was a proper way to fill up CO2.

I know its best to fill a cold tank of CO2 because he threw the CO2 in the freezer before he filled it. How would I know when the tank is fll? I noticed when he was filling it i could hear the the air rushing in there and it slowly got quieter then it stopped making noise..would that mean its full?

My other question is, is there anything bad about buying a old CO2 tank? It has a on/off valve i guess..

Thanks.

HP_lovecraft

Is the on/off valve HUGE?

If so, then its a thermal-valve. Thats what people used for Tippmann invented the pin-valve we all use today.

Some fields won't fill them because the ASA is a little different. Most thermal-valves did not have an oring on the threads. It was on the ASA, so you would need to drop an 0ring into the fill station in order for it to work.

But.. how to know when its full? YOU NEED A SCALE.
If its a "10oz" tank, then weight it when its empty.
Then weigh it when its full. It should be about 10oz heavier. If its more, then dump a little out.

If you over fill the tank, there is a chance that it will blow the safety-valve. Or worse.

Good news is that those old tanks were small enought that they didn't need to be hydrotested. However, the fill-station probobly does.

Nick

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Mangudai

Thanks a LOT or the reply man. BUt what is this hydrotested you speak of?

Javaman

It's a *slightly* destructive test that several places do for a small fee in order to certify that the tank is safe to fill or use. The first step is usually a basic lookover of the tank with the valve removed. They look for cuts, nicks or any type of damage on the outside and inside of the tank. The actual hydro part is done with a water filled pressure chamber. They fill the chamber and the tank completely up with water then pressurize the water inside the tank to whatever the testing pressure should be.... Probably around 2x-3x the working pressure of the tank. They measure the amount of water displaced out of the pressure chamber to determine how much the tank swelled with the excessive pressure. If the tank swells too much it is considered unsafe and discarded or destroyed. One problem with hydro testing is that once the tank has been overfilled for the testing it never regains it's original size having permanently stretched out a tiny bit. Since the amount is small it isn't noticable to the naked eye plus hydros are done only occasionally so this usually isn't a problem until many have been done.

Different tanks are supposed to be hydroed at different intervals. I think Steel and AL Co2 ones are done every 5 years and fiber HPA tanks are done every 3. (I could be mistaken though. Be sure to check your tank for more info)

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