[Vwdiesel] Was Broken Bleeder Valves - now acetylene lore

[Nate Wall]

Wow that's incredible.

Last year I read a story and and saw aftermath photos
of a guy initiating a law suit against a nitrous oxide
bottle manufacturer. He bought a nitrous set-up for
his Maxima and installed it. Evidently electric (12
volt) "bottle heaters" are needed to keep the gas flow
up because, like all gases, the temp. drops as gas is
being bled off. Well he hooked the heater up
incorrectly, so it could be turned on with the
ignition "off", a BIG no no. Well, the bottle heater
got left on and the Maxima was parked in the garage
with a full bottle of nitrous (about the size of a
scuba air tank). The Maxima and the half the house
were demolished when the tank exploded. The pictures
whe amazing.

--Nate
--- "Shirley, Mark R" <MarkRShirley at eaton.com> wrote:
> To give you the idea of the explosive power of
> acetylene,
> and why it should be handled VERY carefully, I will
> relate
> a story that was told on rec.arts.metalworking.  I
> don't know
> where or when this happened, but it goes like this:
>
> A fellow took his acetylene tank down to the gas
> supplier to
> get a refill.  They exchanged his tank for a full
> one, and
> he shoved it in the car trunk and brought it home.
> He pulled
> up in front of his house, where a friend was
> waiting.  They
> decided to go off together and do something.  He
> left his car
> parked in front of his house, and went with his
> friend.  He
> forgot that his acetylene tank was still in the car
> trunk.
> It was a hot day.  The acetylene tank finally heated
> up enough
> in the hot trunk that the pressure of the dissolved
> acetylene
> went above 15 psi.  The acetylene in the tank
> decomposed explosively.
>
> The car it was in ceased to exist.
>
> The house it was parked in front of ceased to exist.
>
> The nieghboring houses were blown off their
> foundations by a foot or more.
>
> Windows were blown out at a radius of up to 3 miles.
>
> That is a *LOT* of energy folks.  Think carefully
> about what you're doing
> with acetylene.  I don't want to hear about any list
> members as a statistic
> or front page story.
> Don't use an acetylene tank that's been laying down.
> Don't use too large of a tip on small tanks.
> Don't let the valves get knocked off.
> Don't heat the tank in any way.
> Don't EVER let the pressure in the tank get higher
> than 15 psi.
> Keep the tank out of the sun.
> _______________________________________________
> vwdiesel mailing list
> vwdiesel at vwfans.com
> http://www.audifans.com/mailman/listinfo/vwdiesel


__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Web Hosting - establish your business online
http://webhosting.yahoo.com