Energas bottle emptied itself overnight, should it?

[LeeW]

I get a new bottle of argon from energas at the weekend, I'd used a small amount but yesterday I somehow managed to forget to close the bottle after finishing welding, the bottle had about 200bar in it when I had finished. When I got home from work today the bottle was empty. Now kicking myself that I'd stupidly left the valve open but should a bottle have leaked about 2k litres of gas in 20 hours? Or is my regulator or welder faulty? What is the best way of finding leaks, I cannot hear any leaks comming from the regulator or welder or pipe between.
I also seem to have used a large amount of gas for relativly little welding, I've made about 3/4 of a soapbox cart and used a full energas mini bottle of argon (about 2.4k litres). My flow rate is set to about 8l/min on the regulator, Is this normal?

 

[craigthewelder]

I've had a couple of problems before with Energas bottles. I had a argon bottle that i knew was at least 1/2 full but the valve wouldn't let any gas out.

 

[the snooper]

at the rate you had the flow set could the trigger have been trapped if so would be empty in about 4 hours or so if not then a leak in you torch or connections, use a soft paintbrush and a little washing up liquid in water around the joints if theres a leak it will blow bubbles

 

[pedrobedro]

It's a cylinder and if you left the valve open it's nothing to do with it and must be something you had connected to it. My Energas cylinder is filled to 300 bar which gives you more gas than some other suppliers but if your regulator is not good enough it may be under spec for the pressure. If I had a faulty cylinder valve it would be back at the depot double quick and replaced if it still had gas in it.