[MarkL]

Correct me if I'm wrong... Kinda doesn't matter what size bottle, either way, half of the argon is being wasted...

You're correct, I had the same concern with my Lincoln SW200. It runs for 12sec when I'm at 120A, which is a common setting for what I do. I pay approx $.01 per minute of argon flowing at 15cfh, that varies a factor of two either way depending on whether I go to airgas on my own and get one tank, or whether I give it to my friend who's a welder and he takes it some place cheaper that he goes to. So I stopped thinking about the extra cost. It's not harmful to the environment, there's already a lot of argon in the air.
I think the benefit of some extra postflow far outweighs the cost of having too little. Heat damages tungsten, which is expensive. Heat damages the torch and torch components, and it degrades the electrical conductor in the torch. If I had a water cooled torch I'd be much less concerned, but with an air cooled torch I've decided to be OK with using the extra argon.

[exnailpounder]

Correct me if I'm wrong... Kinda doesn't matter what size bottle, either way, half of the argon is being wasted...

You're correct, I had the same concern with my Lincoln SW200. It runs for 12sec when I'm at 120A, which is a common setting for what I do. I pay approx $.01 per minute of argon flowing at 15cfh, that varies a factor of two either way depending on whether I go to airgas on my own and get one tank, or whether I give it to my friend who's a welder and he takes it some place cheaper that he goes to. So I stopped thinking about the extra cost. It's not harmful to the environment, there's already a lot of argon in the air.
I think the benefit of some extra postflow far outweighs the cost of having too little. Heat damages tungsten, which is expensive. Heat damages the torch and torch components, and it degrades the electrical conductor in the torch. If I had a water cooled torch I'd be much less concerned, but with an air cooled torch I've decided to be OK with using the extra argon.

Mark...where are you from?...we live close...near Joliet here.

[MarkL]

Mark...where are you from?...we live close...near Joliet here.

I'm near St Charles, in unincorporated DuPage county. I had a friend in Plainfield, so I used to get down that way a fair bit. I don't like going down Rt 59 through Fox Valley Mall area anymore, it's so built up it's crazy busy.

[MarkL]

I pay approx $.01 per minute of argon flowing at 15cfh...

I went back and checked my numbers, this number is not correct. The correct number is: I pay between $.04/minute and $.15/minute for 15cfh flow.
That's based on refilling an 80cf tank for $13 if my welder friend takes it with all his tanks to some place that only works with contractors, or $50 if I take the tank over to Airgas where I bought the tank.

The source of the mistake is that I looked at the wrong figure: the cost for each 12sec of postflow is $.008, and I rounded it off to $.01, but mistakenly thought it was the cost per minute.

[raticus]

my issue isn't the cost, it's the hassle or running out of gas in the middle of something and having to drive to the gas supply store to get another bottle (especially on weekends when I'm doing projects and the gas supply place is closed)... of course having a tiny bottle doesn't help but even if I had a good sized bottle i'd still be pissed that i ran through it twice as fast as I needed to

yeah if I could switch to a torch with a valve that would help but be annoying.. I work with a little scratch-start box that we take to off-site repair or install jobs that has a torch with a valve, and I constantly forget to turn it off (and turn it on)... hate the thing

i do have some old nitrous solenoids i could rig up... hmmmm...

[Oscar]

So what are you gonna do?