Is there such a thing as a small oxygen generator?

SAG 180 · Jun 10, 2009

I've been looking at some of the new oxygen generators available that use a membrane to separate nitrogen/argon from oxygen and run off air. Is there a small unit made for welding commercially available?. With only the air filter to replace and the extortionate cost of gas and compulsory cylinder rental in Australia, it might pay for itself.

tmt · Jun 10, 2009

I am not sure if this will meet your purpose or not. http://www.ogsi.com/cfp_15_1_cylinder_day_.php

Don't know the price, but they have a similar unit that produces 12 psi, if using shop air the max is 30psi for less than 2K US.

SAG 180 · Jun 11, 2009

Thanks TMT, that's the sort of thing I'm looking for

adama · Jun 13, 2009

Got to watch the oxygen quality. From reading around the web even a small decrease from 100% o2 realy hits the max flame tempreture.

JacobS · Jun 16, 2009

For small quantity use, look into used medical oxygen generators. The medical industry here wants everything to be brand new, so you should look for a good price. A friend ganged up 3 or so and uses it for oxy-propane spot heating for sheet metal work.

Check around online, but I know there were discussions on www.armourarchive.org a while back. This was about using the setup for shaping heavy sheet metal into complex curves.

anchorman · Jun 16, 2009

for electrolysis generated oxygen, you might want to see if the cost of running the thing is actually more (kwh used) than the price of having a set of bottles around. no idea what that might be, but I imagine it is well cheaper to manufacture oxygen in bulk than to make it at home/in shop.

Doozer · Jun 17, 2009

I have one of those oxygen generators that patients with a breathing mask use. I think it is called LifeLine or something. I use it with the Bernzomatic Oxy-Propane torch kit, the cheesy one the hardware store sells. For fuel I use Mapp and for the oxygen I use the LifeLine oxygen generator. It has a fowmeter, and it puts out 5 CFH. I am not sure of the torch tip size, but I think Bernzomatic only gives you one choice. The torch works really well for small brazing and soldering. It surprises me how hot it will heat up medium size pieces of metal red hot. The torch is of course, a toy compared to a real brazing torch, but I guess it is like an aircrafter size torch or a small Henrob size torch. It has a very fine flame, way finer than a pencil point propane-air torch. And no rip-off priced small oxy tanks to buy at the hardware store!
--Doozer

Flute Maker · Jun 17, 2009

We've been using an AirSep for multiple silver soldering stations for almost 20 years. Separates oxygen from compressed air.
The only maintenance is a small intake filter. I was changing it once a year, but it was so clean that I even gave that up. I think we had to change a regulator once.
Good luck.
You wouldn't believe the billing problems we've had since the big guys bought out the medium sized suppliers around here. We had an account with them both and they can't figure out how to combine them. We got billed at different rates depending on which account was used. A big ripoff! Here's the link to AirSep.
Payson.
http://www.airsep.com/

Nitrous · Nov 19, 2020

SAG 180 said:
I've been looking at some of the new oxygen generators available that use a membrane to separate nitrogen/argon from oxygen and run off air. Is there a small unit made for welding commercially available?. With only the air filter to replace and the extortionate cost of gas and compulsory cylinder rental in Australia, it might pay for itself.

If you only want relatively low concentration oxygen, membranes will be fine. But for >90% oxygen, you’ll need PSA or VPSA.
You can even build your own and scale up. If you need high pressure, you’ll need to add an oxygen safe compressor.

Check out OxiKIT for details

Doug

dalmatiangirl61 · Nov 19, 2020

I looked at the home medical oxygen concentrators a few years back, did not like the idea of building a bank of them and the subsequent repairx3 problem. Looking into how they work it appears fairly simple, 2 chambers filled with a medium (forget name), and it operates similar to a dual chamber desiccant dryer, only you get o2 instead of dry air. If I ever find the time I might try to build one.

johfoster · Nov 19, 2020

I built a shelf a year or two ago to stack the concentrators on, for someone I know who blows glass. They bought a setup marketed for that purpose that uses a bank of oxygen concetrators (medical ones) feeding into a 60gal compressor. I know for their purposes it was going to be cheaper, but if I remember correctly it was more about not having to go exchange K tanks regularly/never running out in the middle of something. They seemed happy with the setup. It probably took up around 2x6 feet of floor space.

Conrad Hoffman · Nov 19, 2020

It's common for glassblowers to use one or more surplus medical concentrators for the low pressure torches. You can recondition or replace the Zeolite 13X they contain.

M. Moore · Dec 7, 2020

I have a PSA unit that is about 4'tall and can produce a lot of oxygen. I bought it used for $100 without any storage tank.
When I did the research I found out that oxy/acet cutting needs nearly pure oxygen for the cutting jet to do its thing. The PSA unit I have will put out about 95% pure oxygen and you need 99%+ for gas cutting.
Having said that I found an unused 60 gallon compressor tank to use for storage and have never hooked it all up and tested the system. I was thinking maybe I could use the generated gas for the preheat flame and bottled gas for the cutting jet. (two separate hoses on my cnc torch)

Now would be a good time to get busy on that project as my workload is down 35-40% this year.
If you do get set up with a system please post your results for the record.

Michael

Strostkovy · Dec 13, 2020

M. Moore said:
I have a PSA unit that is about 4'tall and can produce a lot of oxygen. I bought it used for $100 without any storage tank.
When I did the research I found out that oxy/acet cutting needs nearly pure oxygen for the cutting jet to do its thing. The PSA unit I have will put out about 95% pure oxygen and you need 99%+ for gas cutting.
Having said that I found an unused 60 gallon compressor tank to use for storage and have never hooked it all up and tested the system. I was thinking maybe I could use the generated gas for the preheat flame and bottled gas for the cutting jet. (two separate hoses on my cnc torch)

Now would be a good time to get busy on that project as my workload is down 35-40% this year.
If you do get set up with a system please post your results for the record.

Michael

Have any specs on that system?

Mainly what media is it filled with and what are the pressures and cycle times?

I doubt I will ever find one at that deal so if I want one I'll have to build one.

M. Moore · Dec 13, 2020

I will see if I can find the manual. I am pretty sure I printed it out after the OEM sent me a copy.

DDoug · Dec 14, 2020

M. Moore said:
I have a PSA unit that is about 4'tall and can produce a lot of oxygen. I bought it used for $100 without any storage tank.
When I did the research I found out that oxy/acet cutting needs nearly pure oxygen for the cutting jet to do its thing. The PSA unit I have will put out about 95% pure oxygen and you need 99%+ for gas cutting.
Having said that I found an unused 60 gallon compressor tank to use for storage and have never hooked it all up and tested the system. I was thinking maybe I could use the generated gas for the preheat flame and bottled gas for the cutting jet. (two separate hoses on my cnc torch)

Now would be a good time to get busy on that project as my workload is down 35-40% this year.
If you do get set up with a system please post your results for the record.

Michael

Air compressor tanks are sometimes painted inside, and sometimes rustproofed inside.

Might want to look inside there before putting an oxidizer under pressure in there.

Scottl · Dec 14, 2020

Doozer said:
I have one of those oxygen generators that patients with a breathing mask use. I think it is called LifeLine or something. I use it with the Bernzomatic Oxy-Propane torch kit, the cheesy one the hardware store sells. For fuel I use Mapp and for the oxygen I use the LifeLine oxygen generator. It has a fowmeter, and it puts out 5 CFH. I am not sure of the torch tip size, but I think Bernzomatic only gives you one choice. The torch works really well for small brazing and soldering. It surprises me how hot it will heat up medium size pieces of metal red hot. The torch is of course, a toy compared to a real brazing torch, but I guess it is like an aircrafter size torch or a small Henrob size torch. It has a very fine flame, way finer than a pencil point propane-air torch. And no rip-off priced small oxy tanks to buy at the hardware store!
--Doozer

I had one of those years before I had Oxy-Acetylene. It worked great but went through expensive oxygen cylinders way too fast.

At one point I even had a rig that burned pellets to create oxygen but it suffered from variable pressure and short working time.

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Is there such a thing as a small oxygen generator?

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adama

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JacobS

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anchorman

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