Heeeeelium

I buy a lot of Helium (for technical diving). Usually you go to a welders supply and rent a tank. You pay a fixed amount for the Helium itself (it's expensive) and then a small amount per day for renting the tank.

>>1097956
http://www.airgas.com/helium

Welders supply sounds good, can you tell me any rough estimate of the price?

Airgas does not show prices without logging in and requires US phone number for registration. So far I need a budget estimate..

Just call them up and ask, sheesh.

$80-$100 for a full tank $5/day rental for the tank

>>1098190
Last tike i bought a tank a few years ago it was $225 .

>>1097956
Don't waste helium, op, fill the balloon with hydrogen. It's cheap and we are not running out of it

>>1098223
This. We're wasting a lot of it and we can't easily produce it. However be careful not to make Hidenburg part two

>>1098190
>>1098210
thank you guys!

>>1098260
yes, I considered hydrogen but there is the Hindenburg problem.. not defendable in this project unfortunately

>>1098286
do you plan on lifting anything that is spontaneously combustible? Hydrogen is cheap and would be pretty easy to shield.

>>1098286
what do you plan on lifting?

collect balloons after a party and then "siphon" the gas out
heh heh

>>1098286
unless you are planning to use it indoors there is nothing to be feared about hydrogen

Your local welding supply can furnish regulators and anything else you need along with the cylinders.

If you are filling a full size weather balloon you don't need a regulator because cylinders have shutoff valves, you only need a nut, nipple and an appropriate length of HIGH PRESSURE hose.

I would obtain the high pressure hose at a hydraulic shop who can easily make a hose to connect to the 1/4" NPT nipples.

If the balloon is quite large, say hot air ballon size, you should order multiple cylinders on a pallet, connect them with a spider hose, then run your fill hose to the balloon.

Western make spider fittings for under a hundred bucks and the connecting hose cost depends on number of cylinders. You won't want to fill the balloon slowly because leakage.

http://westernenterprises.com/enterprises is the US standard for industrial gas equipment. Local welding supplies carry or can order their stuff.

https://www.airgas.com/p/WESMB-70 = "spider" manifold

https://www.amazon.com/Western-Enterprises-Regulator-Nitrogen-Stainless/dp/B002A5WC0O = Nipple and nut, one per cylinder and one per manifold connection. One will be required at the manifold to feed your balloon filler hose.

Example "pigtail" to connect cylinders to spider = https://www.amazon.com/Western-Enterprises-PF2-4-18-Stainless-Connection/dp/B002BW9NBW

Prices vary and you can order online but you'd be better off discussing your needs with your industrial gas supplier on the spot. All these parts are common and used in the welding industry.

Calculate your helium needs and have more than you expect to need.

Welding toolroom guy here.

>>1099384
BTW price different grades of helium before committing. You don't need high purity as required for welding shielding gas, but you need to calculate lift for different grades which I know nothing about.

>>1098654
Not OP but thinking of a similar project. How cheap is hydrogen and where can I get it?

>>1099436
>How cheap is hydrogen and where can I get it?

Visit your local welding/industrial gas supplier(s). Prices vary by location and dealer.

>>1098223
And it's much lighter.

>>1099517
More to the point, hydrogen cheaper and not violently explosive. What you see in the Hindenburg vidya is a shitload of HIGHLY FLAMMABLE doped fabric and some hydrogen.

More people escaped the Hindenburg than would survive an airliner crash from that height.

A weather balloon is in no danger of ignition so OP could save considerable money using hydrogen. Not my money, not my problem, but the gas handling gear and cylinders are similar either way.

Key difference is CGA nipples:

http://catalog.superiorprod.com/viewitems/filters-nipples/regulator-nipples-for-hydrogen-methane-natural-gas?

Your supplier can easily supply either gas.

OP should poast pics of the launch.

>>1099462
you could see if there is a PRAXAIR store near you, they sell all gasses

>>1099929
the Hindenburg was basically made of thermite

>>1099929
>CGA nipples
What, tits with magenta nipples and cyan areolae?

>>1098128
why helium and not argon?
Helium can only be dug up while argon is a side product in the liquid nitrogen production.

>>1098260
> we can't easily produce it

You mean we can't produce it, We had a bit of a stockpile but its almost all gone. The only way to get it is to filter it out of natural gas.
Its produced when radioactive isotopes decay and emit an alpha particle. This takes a while, it took the earth thousends of years to make it and we used most of it in under a 100.

Once you put it into a balloon it floats away into space, never to be seen again.

If we keep using it at this rate we are out of it in 2035.

>>1101677
Helium is used to replace part of (or all) nitrogen in the breathing gas. This accomplishes two things:

1: Lowering the fraction of O2 in the breathing mix (too high a partial pressure of O2 causes O2 poisoning -> leads to seizures and drowning).

2: 1: Lowering the fraction of N2 in the breathing mix (too high a partial pressure of N2 causes "Nitrogen narcosis" -> similar effects as alcohol - not fun 90m under water.

Argon is even more narcotic than Nitrogen, so it is not used as a breathing gas. It is however used to fill dry suits in cold water, since it has good thermal properties.

Using Hydrogen instead of Helium would be even better, but Hydrogen/Oxygen mixes are very dangerous (can easily undergo explosive combustion). But there have been tests in the commercial sector (very deep diving).

File: BadFeel.jpg (35KB, 593x460px) Image search: [Google]

35KB, 593x460px

>>1101680
crazy. kids of the near future will never know the fun of inhaling helium during a party or even just not having to worry about putting a party balloon near a candle or getting a balloon animal at a fair that wont have a chance to horrifically burn them

>>1101680
>space

Kek

>>1102131
Hurr. Helium, not the balloon.

>>1101680
Maybe it becomes cost-effective to separate it from air at some point.

>>1102137
There is so little He in air that it would be cheaper to get it from reactors or the upper atmosphere of Jupiter.

The severity of the situation is sufficient that it was headline news on BBC World Service when they found a new He source in Africa. It is irreplacable in many applications such as diving and cryogenics as used in many machines in hospitals.

>>1101762
>But there have been tests in the commercial sector

The guy who tried that must have needed one hell of a BCD, to keep his enormous brass balls neutrally buoyant. I can't even begin to imagine the horror of my lungs potentially exploding.

>>1102137
>Maybe it becomes cost-effective to separate it from air at some point.

its way more effective to get it out of natural gas where it was generally regarded as a worthless contaminant

>>1102142
>There is so little He in air that it would be cheaper to get it from reactors or the upper atmosphere of Jupiter.
There's more helium in air than xenon or krypton and around one third of the amount of neon. Well, afaik neon is also a byproduct of natural gas production, but xenon and krypton are separated from air. Yeah, they certainly cost a lot, but much less than reactor-produced stuff.

>>1102156
That's why "at some point". Certainly it isn't cost-effective now and with current methods.
Afaik it is still considered as a worthless contaminant in many places.

Helium exit stratospheric baloon?

>>1102142
Damn that's pretty spooky. I'm not very knowledgeable about physics/gases, what makes helium irreplaceable in these applications?

Alternatively where would you start looking for a new helium source in space?

>>1102348
Helium's boiling point is the lowest of all gases and it won't freeze even at absolute zero, unlike everything else. So, it's pretty useful stuff for anything operating near absolute zero, like magnets of MRI machines or particle accelerators.
It's not that all of the current cryogenic applications using helium absolutely need it, but using other gases like hydrogen or neon (that is, running at higher temperature) would lower the performance and/or require bigger, more expensive machinery.

It has several other unusual properties too.

See >>1101762 for diving uses and replacements.