Fire Extinguisher Co2 Bottles

[happy benno]

Hi all, my mate is getting into kegging and has scored a good deal with a fire extinguisher, what dose he need to do before connecting it to his regulator is it true the dip tube needs to come out first and needs to be refilled i cant help him out as i bought my co2 bottle from the home brew shop.

cheers Benno

 

[raven19]

I believe it needs to be kept upside down when in use until the dip tube is removed - but I have had mine removed so cant confirm this.

Just need a suitable pressure safe nipple fitting inbetween your Regulator and FE. I am still to source one for myself, waiting for my BOC bottle to finish first.

Note: Do not use tapered threaded fittings - they will fail...

2c.

 

[beerbrewer76543]

Does anyone know if fire extinguisher bottles are designed for cyclic loading?

Sure they are designed to hold the pressure but are they designed to cope with pressure cycles that will inevitably cause work hardening of the vessel and potentially lead to fatigue failure?

AS1210 covers the design standards but I'm guessing it should be ok as the bottles will only see a relatively small number of cycles during its lifetime in a home brewery and as such fatigue shouldn't be an issue

I just felt like whoring out the thread

 

[KGB]

One thing I can say for sure - do not use tapered threads just like Raven said, they will fail.

Using a fire extinguisher is a bit of a budget way to go and there are several degrees of dodgy-ness involved with connections, filling, diptubes, handles/taps. I use one myself and have never had any problems with it. Maybe I'm lucky but I feel I have enough knowledge and sense to know when to draw the line, some people don't. The problem with common sense is, its not always that common!
I've used mine with the dip tube in but will have it removed at the first refill.

I suggest you read and search on here a lot. The most important thing, IMO, is if you can't get an adaptor to make a good, safe fit between the reg and bottle then splash some cash and get a proper adaptor machined up.

L-bomb: I have no idea TBH but like you said, the relatively infrequent cycling is most likely not going to be an issue. The pressure test certification/stamping) would expose any weakness anyway I hope.