My new OA toy!

[taydin]

I have finally installed my new OA economizer. Very handy when working with large pieces that need to be moved around while welding.

Haven't seen this in any of the forums, so I'm not sure if this is available everywhere. Basically, you light the pilot flame and keep it lighted. Then you light the torch and adjust the flame to neutral (or whatever other settings). You do the welding and when you have to reposition the work, you just hang the torch to the hook. The torch extinguishes shortly thereafter. When the work is ready, you just pick up the torch and move it past the pilot flame. Your torch continues to burn with the previous settings

[Arthur.Marks]

Very nice, taydin. I've thought about adding one of those but never have. The ones I know of are called "Gas-savers" and made by Smith: Accessories They sure sound handy! Have fun using it

[metalmagpie]

I got a really small one of those once, made in France by L. Sauvageau. Its ports are labeled E/S (Entree/Sortie) not I/O (In/Out). Its pilot was 100% plugged so I carefully redrilled it with a tiny drill. Now it works great.

Haven't ever used it. :-(

[bborr01]

Taydin,

Looks like a pretty neat setup. Does it use acet and oxy for the pilot? I only saw one knob for the pilot. You sure wouldn't want to just use acetylene due to the ash.

It also seems like I have read that you should not light a torch with both the acet and oxy on at the same time due to flashbacks.

I may do a little research into this.

Brian

[taydin]

Taydin,

Looks like a pretty neat setup. Does it use acet and oxy for the pilot? I only saw one knob for the pilot. You sure wouldn't want to just use acetylene due to the ash.

It also seems like I have read that you should not light a torch with both the acet and oxy on at the same time due to flashbacks.

I may do a little research into this.

Brian

The pilot only uses acetylene. Before installing it, I was also concerned about the "paratroopers". But surprisingly, the pilot flame seems to get enough oxygen from the two holes on the side that it burns very cleanly. It doesn't have the big yellow flare characteristics at all.

Here is one odd thing I experienced. When I first tried to light the pilot, I turned on the valve a few turns and held the lighter to the tip. But it just wouldn't ignite. Some gas was blasting out of the tip, because my piezo lighter flame was being blown apart, but it just wouldn't ignite. Then I tried turning on the valve just a little bit open. This worked. I guess the acetylene is coming from a very tiny hole at a very high speed. So it is very rich in air.

One other observation. I had to increase the acetylene regulator pressure a little more than I normally did. Otherwise, when I hung the torch and later took it off the hook, the pilot flame would extinguish because of the sudden rush of gas to the torch.