New sphere gas rig.

Buttercup

Buttercup

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Pic of my brand new (not painted yet) sphere regassing rig.
Mark IV developed over 40 years, Features:
No tools loading.
Ultra low lost volume (1.5cc)!
Easy engagement of drive face ( the driver engages on the original Citroen plug top), vertical adjustment of the driver without rotating it.
Plug driver on 7x1 thread, so it remains fully engaged without upward thrust.
16265704677975785314662303363200.jpg
Adaptor ring to mount accumulators.
Compact and portable.
Sphere can be with or without damper valve, with or without front suspension extender.

Downside: only for traditional rebuildable Dee spheres.
(Why would you bother regassing anything else?)
 
Very neat Bob. Nice work.

Would love to see a detail photo of the engagement section, unless it's patented? :)

Oh, and one would like to only need to regas rebuildable spheres, if one had a goodly sotck of them, but one hasn't, so has to put up with welded spheres for the GS.

Cheers, Pottsy
 
16265765150855850054736890392817.jpg

Inside the head
The O-Ring seals on the 15mm diameter neck just below the plug.
You can just make out in the gloom, the 2mm hole for gas entry. There is a similar one opposite for exit.
Both ports have 4mm diameter bearing balls for sealing, located within 4mm of the head chamber, to reduce lost volume to a minimum.
16265774365646802932624146634118.jpg

The plug driver is threaded in the brass carrier with 2 O-Ring seal, which is captive axially in the steel body with 2 O-Ring seal.
So, by holding the driver handle, and rotating the carrier handle, the driver is extended/ retracted vertically, to engage/ disengage the plug. That way the drive face can be aligned accurately and engaged fully without guesswork.
Then rotating the driver handle, it will open/ close the plug remaining fully and precisely engaged, because the driver is on a 7x1 thread exactly the same as the thread in the sphere.
I realise the thread doesn't need to be 7x1, but needs to be 1mm pitch for this to work. My Mark III rig of 25 years ago had a 12x1 thread, but the head design and lost volume were not so good.
 
Buttercup said:
Pic of my brand new (not painted yet) sphere regassing rig.
Mark IV developed over 40 years, Features:
No tools loading.
Ultra low lost volume (1.5cc)!
Easy engagement of drive face ( the driver engages on the original Citroen plug top), vertical adjustment of the driver without rotating it.
Plug driver on 7x1 thread, so it remains fully engaged without upward thrust.
View attachment 134574Adaptor ring to mount accumulators.
Compact and portable.
Sphere can be with or without damper valve, with or without front suspension extender.

Downside: only for traditional rebuildable Dee spheres.
(Why would you bother regassing anything else?)
Click to expand...
Is the regulator output certified for 70-80bar?
I looked into this with BOC and they were quoting over $2k for rated output.
Lost volume in loading unloading is relatively minor...lots of gas in a bottle

Like the loading top. Don't paint it, looks fine as it is, paint won't assist functionality.
 
Yes, I checked out regs with BOC.
Normal nitrogen regs used by refrigeration guys only have outlet pressure of 10 bar/ 1000 kpa.
BOC do one with 60 bar for about $ 360.
They also have a very high pressure one which can supply at.... um.... i think it's about 300 bar for about $1300, but it has a type 51 bottle spigot, not type 50.
The 20mpa bottles supplied have type 50 outlet.

The reg I have is a very old CIG one capable of 150 bar. It is old but in very good order. It's the same one I had on my Mark III rig, but I have adapted the new type 50 bottle spigot, adapted the outlet fitting, and fitted a new 100 bar gauge, as the old one was 2500 psi, and small and old and not giving good resolution to the reading.
 
Last edited:
richo said:
Is the regulator output certified for 70-80bar?
I looked into this with BOC and they were quoting over $2k for rated output.
Lost volume in loading unloading is relatively minor...lots of gas in a bottle

Like the loading top. Don't paint it, looks fine as it is, paint won't assist functionality.
Click to expand...
Lost volume is a loss!
I hate waste. You know I don't throw anything out, and besides I'm concerned by the atmospheric pollution caused by escaping nitrogen.

Paint might not improve functionality but it will reduce corrosion.
I just can't decide if it should be black or green?
Maybe fluro orange, so I can find it in my junk.
 
It looks great to me ... you just need to make about 8 different heads for all the throwaway junk spheres now :D
 
In my experience, if you regas the welded spheres as supplied on GSs, CXs, BXs and rear Xantia spheres when they get down around 20 bar (and certainly above 10 bar), they will last for upto 20 years before the diaphram ruptures.

So I would like to see a regassing rig that caters for all types of regassible spheres.

Cheers, Ken
 
My Mark III rig did all types.
It had interchangeable driver inserts of dimensions to suit all plug styles.
The driver mount socket had 3 x 4mm grub screws that gripped the biggest smooth round ones. The traditional driver tip was held by these same 3 screws.
For me the issue was that the driver socket ended up quite large diameter and needed significant axial stroke, so the lost volume was significant.
I could certainly make rigs to do all types, but you would need to understand that, while I would design it to keep lost volume to a minimum, it is still going to be significant.
Also, because of the variety of sphere body sizes, the sphere would need to be mounted by the thread, and the head height would need adjustment capacity.
 
Ken W said:
In my experience, if you regas the welded spheres as supplied on GSs, CXs, BXs and rear Xantia spheres when they get down around 20 bar (and certainly above 10 bar), they will last for upto 20 years before the diaphram ruptures.

So I would like to see a regassing rig that caters for all types of regassible spheres.

Cheers, Ken
Click to expand...

You can let them get very flat .... AS LONG AS YOU DON'T PRESSURE TEST THEM! .... if you have old or unknown spheres (especially from a parts car). If you put them on you pressure tester, you puncture the diaphragm as it'll hit the back side of the filler plug. If you just regass them you will have much more success :)
 
pottsy said:
That's some very neat engineering there Bob.

Giving me some ideas! Thanks, Pottsy.
Click to expand...
Do you want the 2D cad drawings that explain the head detail?
I can assemble a few views into a pdf page if anyone is interested.
 
Attaching here 3 pages of pdf.
1 general drawing of the head assembly
2 detailed sections
3 key to components

If you can't download them or view them adequately, PM me and I can email them to you.
 

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