Gas rental question - Regulator rental "Qlixbi" from Energas?

[superclarkey]

Looking to get gas supplied from Energas, but I've been told that I have no option but to go for the Qlixbi regulator on top of the bottle from Energas, it works out per bottle at £5.50 per month, ontop of the monthly rental of £12.80, so that is £18.30 per bottle, per month.

I need 3 bottles with this system, so thats £54.90 a month, or £658.80 in bottle rental alone. Just seems like a ridiculous extra cost when I already have perfectly personally owned regulators. (adds nothing of value to the process).

Has anyone paid the extra for these?

 

[Erie Fred]

Why 3 bottles ?
Are you mixing on site ?
Or just using that much ?

 

[superclarkey]

I should have been more clear, not the same 3 bottles, for different tasks.

Argon N4.8
Arcal Force M21 Ar+C08
Arcal Force M21 Ar+C18

Would have been nice if I only needed one Qlixbi Regulator that I could share between all the bottles, as they are so fast to swap between bottles, presume that is the only benefit I can see.. but fairly sure your forced to have 1 per bottle, and it makes the setup really messy and actually slower with one..currently I just have everything plumbed in, so this adds a step that is completely unnecessary where if I need to use a different gas, I have to stop what I'm doing and change bottle and regs.

On the Argon its dumb, because I have multiple ball valve regs on one main reg for purging etc, so now I would have to have modify my whole setup.

Not really sure the intent of this other than rent generation.

 

[superclarkey]

I believe that is for the basic one that will still require a 300bar reg, not been quoted on the R version.

Request Rejected

 

[Erie Fred]

I made the set-up for mixing argon & CO2 from Ed Craig's website.
a reg. for each bottle, with real flow meters (glass tube with pea)
and Tee fitting.
I put quick couplers on all my machines, and set up what ratio I need.
including the TIG welder, where I set it at 100% argon.

I've since moved up to a Smith mixer, that I picked up used, pretty much same
set-up, but in a small box.

 

[superclarkey]

Yeah I used to the same with my Argon and Helium bottles back In the day when of course helium wasn't the price of gold lol. Little bit of mix of He went along way in Tig Alloy work.

Yes I could mix to a point my Ar + C02 mix, but not reliability, and consistently, also no way of qualifying it without an expensive gauge lol.

The problem I have is not the rental of the bottle or gas refilling, that is fairly standard, it's the rental of a regulator that in theory adds nothing more than you already have or own. basically £200 per year in regulator rental... makes no sense to me.

 

[hotponyshoes]

Yea, the dealers computer says its one regulator rental required.per cylinder.
If you can actually speak to a rep the they might manually key you in a rental as a 'reserve bottle' rental at bottle price only but I don't know if that.would work with different mixes or if they only.let you have a 'spare' of the same mix.

You could read the small print and see what makes the rental period stop.
You might be able go take 3 bottles and regulators then hand 2 regs back in the next day and just use the one.

Or, just stick with the 230 bar bottles and keep using your own regulators!

Or use the albee rent-free. They do 300bar with built-in regulators that work pretty well.
That's if they have the mixes you want as the range is limited.

 

[Munkul]

I deal with energas as a franchisee. We don;t have many people using qlixbii at all.

I have no idea about the regulators but that sounds like a terrible deal. Just get 20l/50l cylinders of regular argon, mig 5 and mig 15. (honestly, why do you need 18%? you have pulse mig, just use mig 5!)
All our own welding is done and qualified using mig 5.
That way you will need only standard regs. remember the 50l cylinders use 300bar regs.
If you need 2% for mig stainless, then invest in a mixing station and use your Ar and mig5 cylinders. It'll pay you back fairly quickly instead of renting a 3rd cylinder.

Energas have a commodity gas trading and cylinder rental business, and are trying to get people to adopt a razor+blades rental business model based on the faulty reasoning and salespitch that "shiny and new = better". It literally saves you 60 seconds per bottle change. It's SOO not worth the extra cost.

Although, based on your previous purchases, you are their ideal upsell customer...

 

[Munkul]

Also just as a side note, if you've been using 18% CO2, you should definitely switch to 5%, it runs soooo much smoother on my Lorch set, far less spatter, and like I say, we've qualified all our steel procedures with it no bother.

I'd been using 15% for the last few years since i started doing structural, but was always envious of basically the same welders making a tidier job on small stuff at work. I chalked it up to their superior skill/experience (which it is, to a point)
Then i ran out of gas and nicked my brother's cylinder of 5%. It was a genuine step change for me, far less spatter and better controllability.

 

[superclarkey]

I currently run BoC Argoshield Light and Heavy (and Argon) which are both Argon + CO2 + Oxygen, so a Tri-Mix.

The new Kemmpi X5 synergic programs are based on ArC-8 and ArC-18 gases, not tri mixes with extra oxidisation properties.

so BoC do SpecShield which has no Oxygen and is just Argon + CO2.

Okey the only reason I was trying Energas was they are the only people to claim to offer M21 ArC-18 in the UK, BoC only offer ArC-20 which is the standard UK gas.

I fully understand arc lenght/voltage can be adjust to make any M21 gas work etc, but I was trying to target the programs dead nuts.

However after reading their paperwork it might be the case they just supply C20 and call it there Arcal Force product. Speaking to the rep he has to look into it as he just said it was an M21 gas so will work... M21 is from C15 to C25 so broad range.

No harm in trying to get the correct gas for my programs if its the same price, but if its more than a few % more then not worth it.

I have always wondered about a mixing station, are they expensive, can't see how you can accurately blend them, but yes a pure argon bottle and CO2 bottle with be amazing and mix to what I need.

BoC is still more expensive for sure, there 50ltr bottles vs Energas are not comparable as boc is only 230bar, and Energas is 300bar, so the 33ltr bottle is only 16% less gas volume at pressure than a 50ltr bottle of boc, and Energss 50ltr is like 35% larger volume to BoC.

If it wasn't for the head rental crap, I would shift my business to Energas, but the £200 head rental problem is the main issue I raised this thread.

however I have had an email back this morning that I would only need to rent 1 head and switch them between bottles, so this makes it slightly better! but not by much. It may still work out cheaper than BOC due to cylinder volume.

Appreciate the feedback, even the bits where you tell me how dumbass I am lol

 

[badabec]

I have no views on the subject except who the hell came up with "qlixbii"?

 

[Munkul]

The new Kemmpi X5 synergic programs are based on ArC-8 and ArC-18 gases, not tri mixes with extra oxidisation properties.

All european pulse migs have the same gas selection, but we prefer trimix with oxygen in UK. Just ignore it, use the closest tri-mix which is 5% Co2, 2% O2 for 8%, and 15% Co2, 2% O2 for 18%. The arc length trims will be VERY close. It's not worth stressing over, or indeed, spending silly money on.

The extra O2 gives a slightly nicer weld than CO2 alone.

 

[superclarkey]

Yes that was my understanding also, and I agree if there was a uplift in cost that would be not worth it, but if the prices where the same I would have at least liked to try them without the Oxygen, as I have only EVER used Tri-mixes, so for self experimentation and learning It would have been nice to have a bottle on hand to try and try back to back.

I overthink everything because thats my job haha, I can't help but deep dive into every subject and learn it so that I understand it, and that is why I get the differences and I know its not that important, but still, doesn't hurt to try it imho.

It's not like I'm working to any WPS, this is just me chasing perfection.

 

[Munkul]

Yes that was my understanding also, and I agree if there was a uplift in cost that would be not worth it, but if the prices where the same I would have at least liked to try them without the Oxygen, as I have only EVER used Tri-mixes, so for self experimentation and learning It would have been nice to have a bottle on hand to try and try back to back.

I overthink everything because thats my job haha, I can't help but deep dive into every subject and learn it so that I understand it, and that is why I get the differences and I know its not that important, but still, doesn't hurt to try it imho.

It's not like I'm working to any WPS, this is just me chasing perfection.

honestly, I bet you wouldn't even notice the difference. On standard mig, you can barely tell the difference between argoshield light and universal.

 

[superclarkey]

Yeah totally, and why I've never put much thought into it until now, but the Kemppi software for the Arc sense capability (WiseThin+) is one of the reason I bought the machine, and you have to remember I have almost no help with the kemppi machines in the UK so its a bit of a trial and error rather than leaning on peoples knowledge etc.

I just speak to my friends who have kemppi in Europe, and they all run the C8 and C18 mixes only. so going off what little info I have with regards to Kemppi programs.

 

[superclarkey]

How do people rate Energas over BoC? Which is going to be the better supplier regardless of costings?

 

[bletchmonster]

I moved from Boc to Energas a couple of years ago. Energas seem fine to deal with, but I've not had any real issues so haven't tested their response to any extent.
One condition of my custom was there is no way I'm having those ridiculous klixy things and that's before considering paying for the privilege!!!! It wasn't a problem for them.

 

[Erie Fred]

.

Yes I could mix to a point my Ar + C02 mix, but not reliability, and consistently, also no way of qualifying it without an expensive gauge lol.

Let's qualify some stuff.
What is the accuracy of mix when buying a pre-mixed bottle ?
What is the accuracy of using a commercial mixer ?

What accuracy is needed ?

How would a mixer be "un-reliable" ?

 

[superclarkey]

Let's qualify some stuff.
What is the accuracy of mix when buying a pre-mixed bottle ?
What is the accuracy of using a commercial mixer ?

What accuracy is needed ?

How would a mixer be "un-reliable" ?

I believe the accuracy is 5% of its targeted value, so C18 would be anything from C16.2-C19.8.

I have no experience with commercial mixers, can't comment.

Closer the gas is to the Synergic Curve and program it was designed for, less modifying is required. In manual mode clearly makes no difference as you can just dial it in, but if the curve is designed to work with a gas say of C18, it has been optimised for that gas, its that simple really.

When I say a mixer would be unreliable, the only ones I know of are the ones where you have a y-join between two bottles and you just flow a bit of gas from each.. I have no way of quantifying the outcome of that process, so can't see how that can be a reliable way, if it was no one would ever buy pre-mixed gases and just buy two bottles and a £50 worth of gear to mix them together.

Fairly sure a gas analyser would be in the thousands range, so doesn't make sense.

 

[Erie Fred]

Lot of assumptions going on there.
Larger shops have gas mixers, to save money.

To make a decision, you need facts....

I did just that, have 2 bottles, a smith mixer, and get on with every process with the turn
of a dial.

Easy to stock as I have multiple bottles of both gasses.