DIY Containment System Suggestions Needed

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Anyone taking the time to build extra safety into a system deserves the highest praise. Just imagine one of your kids working with this new thing for eight hours a day, getting tired and careless.

Or I suppose it could be my kid.

Anyway, if you end up using steel pipes, try to line the steel with PVC or some other material softer than the paint or the aluminum of the tanks. The fill monkey / operator will be lifting tanks in and out continuously on the weekends. It is bad customer service to scar up the pretty tanks.

If all eighty cubic feet of air come out of the tank at once in the middle of an empty cow pasture, the grass will flatten and the sky will shift a half a millimeter, but no one will care. The entire county will hear it, but really, no one will care.

If all eighty cubic feet of air come out of the tank in an enclosed area, the walls will be moved back until the pressure equalizes. If this happens inside your trailer, your trailer will be peeled open like the foil around a burrito, and chunks of your trailer will be flung at astonished onlookers at high subsonic speeds.

Eighty cubic feet may not seem like a lot. It's about 22 or 23 military footlockers in volume, appearing in a few milliseconds. Things will quickly move out of the way, even very heavy things. Make sure nothing important is in the way. Blast injuries are sharply increased by immovable barriers behind the victim(s).

I have seen pegboards with tools hanging on hooks around the tank filling area. High quality steel tools can be blown through common building materials like drywall, aluminum siding and cinder blocks. After they are traveling at high speed in the great outdoors, they can embed themselves deeply in people you care about.

Again, you have my admiration. Best of luck.
 
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tested to 100cf at 6100psi. Nice and safe

Sent from my galaxy S5 Active.
 
Nothing like having a thick, reinforced-concrete wall between you and the cylinders.....
 
Fire extinguisher shops are always getting 70lb. CO2 cylinders from refurbish jobs and/or bank testing. Some of them are scrapped because they fail hydro or are too rusted to re-service . The inside diameter of these cylinders will accommodate up to a 130cu.ft. Faber with the boot. Offer them .25lb and they will probably take it. $50bucks. Take them to a welding shop and have them cut the cylinder in half. Have them torch a hole through the bottom for a drain. Depending on how you want to use them, you can ether drill and bolt or weld into position. Turn an old cylinder boot upside down and place it in the bottom. To get the right height if you are using different cylinders, cut blocks of wood and attach to a rope so you can drop them in on top of the boot. They will be deep enough to "hide" the valve below the rim. Now you have a "cut and run" fill station.

---------- Post added September 5th, 2015 at 10:30 PM ----------

Remember Jaws? I had a couple of cylinders that did not pass Hydro a few years back. I pulled some steel jacketed 30 cal. rounds from some military ammo and reloaded to a 300 win. mag. I filled each to 110% of capacity and took them to a field, propped them up with a "v" notched board at the valve. I hit both of them just below the shoulder and nether one exploded, they just flew around on the ground until expended. A 2-1/2" exit hole in the aluminum and a 3/4" exit in the steel. Jaws lives, but with a bunch of teeth missing and a great big headache.
 

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