scott air pak to CO2 tank ?

[lone gunman]

i got my hands on four scott air pak tanks from work for free, we were going to toss them out and i snagged them. so now my question, can they be converted to a CO2 tank or should i just use them as an air tank ? and if i use them as air tank do you think they would hold enough air to fill a few tires or ? three of them are metal tanks and one is fiberglass. and yes i know i will probably have to have them re-certified.

 

[bigassbike]

Those are about the same size as my 15#. I don't know if they are safe, but if they are, you can fill a sheet load of tires with one.

 

[DomSmith]

Our Survivair cylinders at work hold 45 cubic feet of air at 4500PSI. If I recall correctly the Scotts are low pressure (2200PSI) cylinders but should do the trick. I have an old Scott bottle at home that I had planned on setting up a regulator on, but after installing OBA I haven't needed to.

EDIT: Now I see the 2216. Scott 2.2 bottles. Scott 3.0's are 3000PSI and 4.5's are 4500PSI. Not sure on the cubic feet though.

 

[calstyl2]

They will work, you can used a regulator from a CO2 system or a Air Regulator, both cn be found at a welding or gas supply place, I had one till I went to a CO2 system,

 

[lone gunman]

thanks guys for the replies so far, so from what i gather they wont work for CO2 but will work as an air tank and at 2200 psi they should fill a few tires then. better then nothing since the price was right.

 

[FF LC FREAK]

Like you said, you can't convert them to CO2. They are designed differently. The difference between CO2 and air tanks is the pressure inside. CO2 will only get about 900lbs (IIRC) of pressure as opposed to the 4500 that the air cylinder will. A puncture on a CO2 tank will not catastrophically explode like an air tank will. For this reason, many people shy away from high pressure air. The other down side is, an air tank will only fill up 3-4 tires depending on tire size. A CO2 tank can fill as many as 12-15 tires.

Like you, I can get surplus cylinders at work, and I can fill them for free. But, the downsides just aren't worth it for me. If you haven't seen the video of the Detroit fire engine that had a cylinder explode (probably 4-5 years ago), you should look for it. The damage was pretty impressive. Luckily, the rig was sitting in the truck bay and no firefighters were in it at the time of the explosion. For $150 or so I can get a CO2 setup from the local Airgas (I got the quote, I just haven't pulled the trigger yet).

Good luck!

 

[calstyl2]

Like you said, you can't convert them to CO2. They are designed differently. The difference between CO2 and air tanks is the pressure inside. CO2 will only get about 900lbs (IIRC) of pressure as opposed to the 4500 that the air cylinder will. A puncture on a CO2 tank will not catastrophically explode like an air tank will. For this reason, many people shy away from high pressure air. The other down side is, an air tank will only fill up 3-4 tires depending on tire size. A CO2 tank can fill as many as 12-15 tires.

Like you, I can get surplus cylinders at work, and I can fill them for free. But, the downsides just aren't worth it for me. If you haven't seen the video of the Detroit fire engine that had a cylinder explode (probably 4-5 years ago), you should look for it. The damage was pretty impressive. Luckily, the rig was sitting in the truck bay and no firefighters were in it at the time of the explosion. For $150 or so I can get a CO2 setup from the local Airgas (I got the quote, I just haven't pulled the trigger yet).

Good luck!

having done both, I agree, after a few trips to fill the air(and I had a fill station at work) you will rather have the CO2 system

 

[lone gunman]

well i dont want anything to explode, thanks for the info. maybe i well wait and just get the CO2 set-up.