Putting propane in R12 ac system?

[Cougsfan]

If there痴 an actual safety concern based on fact, voice your concerns.]
I know a Bic lighter can take a leg off of a welder back of this..Somebody had told me that the welder had a Bic lighter in his pocket as he was doing some welding, and some of the melting steel fell down into his pants pocket , where the Bic was at and melted into it a causing a bomb like explosion taking his leg 2/3 off, later had to have it removed. He went on to say that a Bic lighter is about equal to a 1/4 stick of dynamite.This is all hearsay ..but if in a wreck with that in your system and burn that rubber hose full of it..That would be the one reason for me not to have it in there..

That story seems like total BS to me. A typical Bic lighter holds under 1,000 btu's of energy. (one btu is pretty much equal to the energy released by burning 1 wooden match completely) I could imagine it burning a substantial and rather serious hole in his butt, but blowing 2/3 of his leg off??? If the BIC were to come in contact with hot steel and the steel melted a hole in it, the butane most certainly wouldn't even be released in a manner that would allow for anywhere near stoichiometric combustion conditions where 100% of the fuel burns in one simultaneous explosion. (You couldn't get enough air to it quickly enough under any circumstance to have a sizable explosion) The math of comparing the explosive energy of TNT to fuel burning in air is not straight forward and highly variable, but the numbers I look at suggest this claim is fairly absurd under any condition.

 

[Jstpssng]

That story seems like total BS to me. A typical Bic lighter holds under 1,000 btu's of energy. (one btu is pretty much equal to the energy released by burning 1 wooden match completely) I could imagine it burning a substantial and rather serious hole in his butt, but blowing 2/3 of his leg off??? If the BIC were to come in contact with hot steel and the steel melted a hole in it, the butane most certainly wouldn't even be released in a manner that would allow for anywhere near stoichiometric combustion conditions where 100% of the fuel burns in one simultaneous explosion. (You couldn't get enough air to it quickly enough under any circumstance to have a sizable explosion) The math of comparing the explosive energy of TNT to fuel burning in air is not straight forward and highly variable, but the numbers I look at suggest this claim is fairly absurd under any condition.

I've always believed that story about a welder who's leg gets blown off when a piece of slag melts his butane lighter. It wasn't until this thread that I actually took the time to think about it. Here's what Snopes has to say on the subject;
FACT CHECK: Exploding Lighters

I don't consider them to be as reliable as they once were, but this is somewhat believeable.

 

[Zebrafive]

As I stated earlier only licensed/certified refrigerant handlers can legally buy, sell, or dispense bulk containers of R-12. Below a certain amount, that sold in consumer one time containers, are not regulated. This now applies to all refrigerants. Used to be the fine was $25K if caught w/o proper license or not maintaining a proper log of buys, sales, dispensed. My old log is around somewhere, maybe. An HVAC or refrigeration company can guide you to how legally get rid of it. A lot of R-12 has been burned. The change over happened too fast to use up all the residual stock. Maybe one of our TBNers currently in the business can bring us up to date on this subject.

Ron

IIRC I have 12oz cans. Is there any restriction on me selling? What about shipping? USPS OK?

 

[4570Man]

Legally they can only be sold to someone holding the proper license to handle it. But I don’t think you’re going to go to jail for selling a couple cans of R12