Liquid Argon

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Im looking for information from anyone who have experience with liquid argon. We have four welding stations all using argon. Currently we use cylinders and go through approximately 5 per week. Is it worth switching to the liquid, from a financial and quality point of view, or stick with the cylinders.thanks
Reply:If you go through 5 per week (roughly one 6 pack) then yes you could probalby make the argument.  We go through about 1 argon dewar a week plus 4-5 6 packs of helium (I'm glad I'm not paying).anyways the formula for such would be to calculate your current draw rate per day in cubic feet, and figure out the price difference between a dewar and the equivalent amount of k bottles volume wise. Figure about 2% loss per day if you don't draw off from it, but that's temperature specific. Dewars make sense if you  weld regularly enough that it won't pop off, even then it has to pop off quiet a bit to make you lose money.If you're a production shop using a K bottle a day of AR a dewar would be a net savings in my guess without doing the math. I
Reply:go liquid man.. all the way!.. one duer bottle (i think i'm spelling that right.. then again, i could be wrong..lol) is equal to about 15-17 bottles of gas.. on decent sized jobs, it's all i use.. the trick is, there's a booster valve that hardly anyone ever uses (or they turn it on.. always on).. anyways.. it's labeled.. and when you think you're runnin out, or ain't got enough pressure, that's when you turn it on.. other than that, run a "spider" off the main, and you'll be waaaaay happier..if you're not livin on the edge, you're takin up too much room..
Reply:Yes it is worth getting away from the bottles. We have 9 welding stations and 5 guys welding 10hrs a day and they use a bottle a day. After having constant problems with the bottles we went with a micro bulk tank but only Air Gas had a truck equipped to fill a micro bulk tank, and the price is getting expensive so after five years we are looking at purchasing our own tank and we are going with a small bulk tank. There are more companies with that can fill small bulk so for us thats the way to go. With micro bulk we are paying $6.22 per 100scf and with small bulk $2.95 per 100scf. We use between 20 and 25 thousand scf per month so we are looking at substanual savings.Sorry for the long post.
Reply:At my old manufacturing job we had 4 of us welding aluminum and we went from using 6-packs to using a small liquid tank and we had the gas supplier come swap out the tank about once a week or so depending on production.  It was a big savings over using 6-packs, according to the manager.  We spidered all the machines off the one tank and it worked fine, except for the machine farthest from the tank when it started running low, but we had the same issue with the 6-packs so nothing new there.MM350P/Python/Q300MM175/Q300DialarcHFHTP MIG200PowCon300SMHypertherm380ThermalArc185Purox oaF350CrewCab4x4LoadNGo utilitybedBobcat250XMT304/Optima/SpoolmaticSuitcase12RC/Q300Suitcase8RC/Q400Passport/Q300Smith op
Reply:Originally Posted by cajun welderYes it is worth getting away from the bottles. We have 9 welding stations and 5 guys welding 10hrs a day and they use a bottle a day. After having constant problems with the bottles we went with a micro bulk tank but only Air Gas had a truck equipped to fill a micro bulk tank, and the price is getting expensive so after five years we are looking at purchasing our own tank and we are going with a small bulk tank. There are more companies with that can fill small bulk so for us thats the way to go. With micro bulk we are paying $6.22 per 100scf and with small bulk $2.95 per 100scf. We use between 20 and 25 thousand scf per month so we are looking at substanual savings.Sorry for the long post.