FlyingDutchman
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2012
- Messages
- 53
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If you just want to see what I am asking and skip all the drama just scroll to the last sentence.
Sorry about the long winded story here, I just gotta' vent though because I think I got shafted. I just got my first co2 tank, keg, etc... from a new lhbs that is considerably closer to me. So I purchased everything I needed from them and bought 5# of co2 as well for $15. They filled the 5# tank for me and sent me on my way (not the most friendly or even well educated people, I ended up showing them the proper way to set up a keg which is a rather scary since there is no way a rookie first timer should know more than the "experts" but I digress).
Anyway, I took the tank home, hooked it up to the regulator, and opened up the valve to discover the pressure was only about 740psi or so. I did a little research online where I discovered that a fully charged 5# tank should read about 846psi at 71 degrees. However the best way to find out how much was in there was to weigh it and subtract the tare weight of the tank and a little bit extra for the valve. It should be close to 5#. Well duh, this made perfect sense to me so I set off to weigh my tank. It came back at 8.69# total. The tank weighs 7.55# so it appeared to me that I only got about a pound of co2... Upon finding this out I quickly left for the shop to explain this to them. When I got to the store, I explained to them that I thought it was short. They promptly hooked it up to their tanks and gave it a charge. Then they hooked it up to a regulator (which they struggled to figure out how to get on) and said it was reading 850psi. I asked if they could weigh it and they told me that the weight never came out right anyway so there was no point. So I just took my tank and left. Lesson learned I will continue driving the 1.5 hours to the next closest lhbs and find a welding supplier for my gas. An I completly off base here?
So I guess my question is what is the most reliable way to determine how much co2 is in a tank? Do I look up the temp/pressure on a chart, or - after subtracting the 7.55# canister - should I be somewhere in the 5# range?
Thank you very much for your time.
Sorry about the long winded story here, I just gotta' vent though because I think I got shafted. I just got my first co2 tank, keg, etc... from a new lhbs that is considerably closer to me. So I purchased everything I needed from them and bought 5# of co2 as well for $15. They filled the 5# tank for me and sent me on my way (not the most friendly or even well educated people, I ended up showing them the proper way to set up a keg which is a rather scary since there is no way a rookie first timer should know more than the "experts" but I digress).
Anyway, I took the tank home, hooked it up to the regulator, and opened up the valve to discover the pressure was only about 740psi or so. I did a little research online where I discovered that a fully charged 5# tank should read about 846psi at 71 degrees. However the best way to find out how much was in there was to weigh it and subtract the tare weight of the tank and a little bit extra for the valve. It should be close to 5#. Well duh, this made perfect sense to me so I set off to weigh my tank. It came back at 8.69# total. The tank weighs 7.55# so it appeared to me that I only got about a pound of co2... Upon finding this out I quickly left for the shop to explain this to them. When I got to the store, I explained to them that I thought it was short. They promptly hooked it up to their tanks and gave it a charge. Then they hooked it up to a regulator (which they struggled to figure out how to get on) and said it was reading 850psi. I asked if they could weigh it and they told me that the weight never came out right anyway so there was no point. So I just took my tank and left. Lesson learned I will continue driving the 1.5 hours to the next closest lhbs and find a welding supplier for my gas. An I completly off base here?
So I guess my question is what is the most reliable way to determine how much co2 is in a tank? Do I look up the temp/pressure on a chart, or - after subtracting the 7.55# canister - should I be somewhere in the 5# range?
Thank you very much for your time.