In a message dated 2/3/99 2:25:51 AM Eastern Standard Time,
vladimir@austin.rr.com writes:
<< How much did the refill equipment cost you? Do you freeze the bottle
before
filling? >>
Originally when I started filling my own I bought a transfer kit and did
freeze the 10# bottle and used a heat gun to warm the big bottle to around 85
degrees. But I found a used pump and bought it for $300. They have a pump in
NOS for around $600 which runs on air but I couldn't swing it but I stumbled
on this one and call the company to order some seals for it and they sent me a
catalog. This pump is not very old and used very little (was too slow for the
company as they needed to fill several 65# bottles of co2 a day so they went
ot a cascade sysetm of some type) Anyway in the catalog this pump is $2300, I
tink I got a bargain :-) There was no one within 50 miles that filled them and
then they wanted the flat rate price and another local guy asked me to fill
his so over all this unit will make me money and sure is quick and handy. The
transfer kit I think was around $65. You need to be able to support the bottle
upside down though, I made a handy little stand for that. The problem with the
transfer method is that after the big bottle starts to get low it sometimes
takes more than one cycle to fill the bottle. Also you lose about 10 - 15 lbs
of juice with the tranfer method. When it gets to that point it just won't
push anymore out of the big bottle. There is probably someplace out there
where you can get a pump cheaper ??? I just couldn't find anything.
Now there is another snag too. If your going to bracket race and need
consistency then you need consistent temp in the bottle, a gauge works nice
for this (I usually bring it up to 900#). But the problem arises if you need
to switch bottles before the next run. Unless you have a way to preheat the
second bottle then your performance will be off a little. I bought a second
bottle heater and took the battery off the camper and made contraption out of
a 5 gal bucket and a cut off top piece. I mounted the switch and relay in the
cut off cover and set the bottle in the bucket and use the camper battery
torun the heater so if I need the second bottle it will be warm.
Oh yeh there is tinkering to be consistent :-)
Bill
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