Propane question

[joshuabardwell]

I'll try a double crack procedure. It is about a six foot hose, or maybe more. What's really confusing me is I ran the stove for about ten pizzas at home to test it out, no problems at all. And I ran it for a whole day, on and off, at the event, no problem. Then the next morning, bam.

One difference between the tests and two days ago was that the tanks were near empty for testing, and are full now, but the regulator should equalize that, I would think. The stove seemed to be running hotter two days ago, with some orange tips to the flames, and larger flames, whereas during testing, the flames were blue. I halfway wonder if somehow the stove or tank regulator got messed up.

 

[joshuabardwell]

I got an opinion from a hippie handyman who thinks I've checked all the obvious things and it may be the regulator. He's going to see if he can rustle me up a spare two stage for the tank. If it's the stove I'm obviously out of luck.

 

[Midniteoyl]

A little more information, guys: tried opening the valve slowly and no difference. Ambient temp is only 50 degrees, so I'd be surprised if temperature was the issue. The oven burner is rated for 16,000 BTU. Seems like it should really be working.

Is it actually butane? Butane doesnt like cooler temps, thus the reason why we dont use it up here. And, it takes a different air/fuel mix.. Its is cheaper too, some some place like to sell it instead of the the methane mix to save money. After all, they dont expect you to use a 20lb'er in the fall/winter..

 

[farmgirl19]

I would bet that it is Propane. Butane is heavier than propane, and therefore not allowed in most places now, due to increased explosion hazards. Butane sinks and pools, whereas propane floats up. Propane has one less carbon than butane, and that is the difference in weight.

 

[joshuabardwell]

Definitely propane, unless the Flying J has made a colossal screw up. They sold it as LP.

 

[firedog]

most of the 20 & 30 lb cylinders have flow limitations. When I set my 10K genset up for LP, I was unable to test it using a 30 lb cyl. for that very reason. Combine that with the fact that the more you pull from the cylinder the greater the temperature drop on the LP. (latent heat of vaporization) The lower the temp = the lower the vapor pressure, which in turn gives you less flow. It's not uncommon in 100 degree ambient temperatures to freeze a cylinder to the concrete when boiling crawfish (picture a big ol' ice ring around the bottom of the cyl.)

Also LPG = liquified petroleum gas. Butane, Isobutane, Propane are all considered LPG's, and are sometimes sold mixed; 80% propane 20% butane and such.

Also propane is heavier than air with a vapor density of 1.52. Ethane is nearly equivalent to air with a density of 1.038. Methane @ 0.554 and Natural Gas ranging from 0.60 - 0.70

 

[Midniteoyl]

Also LPG = liquified petroleum gas. Butane, Isobutane, Propane are all considered LPG's, and are sometimes sold mixed; 80% propane 20% butane and such.

Also propane is heavier than air with a vapor density of 1.52. Ethane is nearly equivalent to air with a density of 1.038. Methane @ 0.554 and Natural Gas ranging from 0.60 - 0.70

:thumbsup:

 

[Dr Dave]

There are summer mixes and winter mixes, of butane/propane. I had a 1000 gal tank filled in the summer and on the coldest day in the winter, I thought we ran out. The guage showed 20% no flow in the house. I thought the guage had failed. So I had a 500 gal tank with 65% so I hooked it up. In the spring, I cracked the valve on the large tank and had propane. Called the supplier and he said the summer mix has more butane, the reason they sell it cheaper in the summer.

I would recommend you get a 100 lb bottle and eliminate the 20 lb saftey tank hassle. My grill has issues with these, the wife was having trouble and just changed tanks, she thought they were empty. She asked me to refill them in town, when I went to load them, all 4 had propane in them? She now just opens the valves slow and this seams to help.

Dave

 

[farmer2009]

I agree with the bigger tank. The empty tanks had more head room for the propane to vaporize than the full tank look at a 50 or 100 pounder.

 

[joshuabardwell]

BTW... where have you been? I haven't seen any posts from you in a while.

Now that I'm back from the event and in front of a keyboard, I can answer more easily. I've been posting a little here, but I started posting more over on the Everlast forums because they were having a contest. My latest big project didn't get a lot of response when I posted about it over here, but got a lot of response over there, so I've been doing most of my posting over there, just because that's the project I'm posting about.

Manipulating welder output with Arduino