onespeedbiker

Well I picked these up in the middle of the road yesterday while on a bike ride, so either someone had a lot of flats and had to use their NO2 cartridges, or something else is going on.

Airburst

Hmmmmm

onespeedbiker

Well that's the thing about good information; it doesn't change over time.

Airburst

And that post about gas dissolving in someone's bloodstream from a can of gas is just as much a load of bollocks now, I agree.

onespeedbiker

Well it looks like google is paying attention to these posts

turbo1889

Darn, litter bugs!!!

I really don't care what they were using them for, if you want to fry your brain by huffing that's your biz and actually helps me in some ways (such as removing you from my pool of competition for jobs that require the employee to have a fully operational brain, etc . . .) and that picture shows six cartridges so if they are the big 16gram size an it was just one person depending on how fast they huffed them a fatal OD is possible and when it comes to people messing themselves over with drugs I consider fatal OD's to be one of the best possible outcomes of their free will choice for the rest of society.

But they should at least have the decency to recycle the cartridges instead of litter bugging with them. Same goes for the nuts who litter mountain bike trails with spent CO2 cartridges. Pack it in, pack it out and one of the good things about those cartridges is that they are made of good metal (often stainless steel for the food service grade CO2 cartridges which are the best ones to use anyway since there is absolutely no oil or other contaminates in the cartridge) which is not only recyclable but has a high value and you can get back a good amount of $ per pound when recycling them. A while back I bought 100 count of the 12g CO2 food service cartridges for about $50 and I got back a little under $10 when I recycled them because they were stainless steel (I use them for a lot more applications then just filling bike tires) so I got back nearly 20% of the purchase price for turning them in as recyclables, that's way better then the refund on pop cans even in the state with an extra nickle or dime bounty on them.

Nerull

It may be worth nothing that nitrous oxide is a strong oxidizer and may damage the tube or tire over time.

It's also worth nothing that nitrous oxide and rubber is also known as hybrid rocket motor fuel. Don't run over anything too hot.

If nitrous becomes contaminated with oil or grease, it can form an explosive mixture, so keep it away from those too.

A video of nitrous oxide not burning:

Monster Pete

*Raises hand*

What's wrong with using air? Air is free.

chuckb

Nitrous Oxide breaks down into N2 and O2 under heat/pressure. The extra O2 is what makes the extra power because you can put in more fuel and still get a stoichiometric mixture.

turbo1889

The CO2 bike tire inflator units that use CO2 cartridges, including the size of the cartridge are usually in the size range of about 4-5 inches long by an inch diameter. You will be hard pressed to find a hand pump that is as small as only being twice that size (as in twice as long and same diameter) much less that small, and if you do you will find it takes like five minutes and several hundred pumps on the handle to get a single tire up to pressure and once you start pumping pressures above about 45-psi pumping can become annoyingly hard with those little pumps.


Long story short, a CO2 inflator allows you to carry something smaller then a pump that will inflate a tire in seconds and makes fixing a flat on the side of a road so much less of a headache. The main annoyance with CO2 being that it is slightly chemically soluble in rubber so if you don’t deflate the tire you patched on the road when you get home and pump it back up with a hand pump (a nice big hand or foot pump in the garage is no issue, its the small pumps that are a PITA) otherwise over a few days time the pressure will slowly go down as the CO2 slowly soaks through the rubber tube.


The best thing of all would be if they made N2 cartridges in the same size as the CO2 cartridges for a comparable price point. Such is not the case but they do make N2O cartridges so that be the kind under discussion as to whether or not they could work and not have the slow soak through problem that CO2 does.


If you want to carry a big frame pump or pump like crazy on a little bitty hand pump (and as a result often cause damage to the valve stem of the tube) instead of carrying a small CO2 unit that inflates quickly and easily that is your option but a lot of us like the CO2 inflator units for flat repair service on the side of the road. Nice and small little things that drop right into an under seat bag or other small bag and the price of a CO2 cartridge or two every once in a while is worth it to us to fix a flat quickly and easily and continue on our way with minimized inconvenience. And if there be a potential alternative in cartridge form with a different gas other then CO2 that will swap right in instead curious minds start to wonder how the other gas would work instead of CO2.

pierce

a 16g CO2 cartridge inflated a nearly flat 700x25 to barely enough pressure to ride, nowhere near the 120psi it should be at.

so you'd need a whole lotta those CO2 cartridges if you have fat tires, whereas that one pump would just work and work and work.

I must say, I do not like those little short stroke pumps. gimme a nice full sized frame pump any day, like the old Silca Imperial on my old roadie. length of my seat tube, with a campy tip for presta valves.

Monster Pete

That makes sense, especially if you're running high pressure tyres. I use 1.9" tyres on my commuter so I can get them to an acceptable pressure with a hand pump is necessary, and am never really far from home where I can top up to full pressure. If you're on a longer journey where the reduced pressure would be a problem then I can also see why you'd want a blast of high-pressure gas.

I don't see why you would have any problems using N2O rather than CO2 in your inflator- it's essentially inert for the application we're talking about here and will pressurise the tyre. The scientific approach would be to inflate a tyre with CO2 and note the pressure loss over time, then repeat with N2O and compare the results.

IthaDan 

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/20/us...-sky.html?_r=0

Medic Zero

None?

Medic Zero

Did you even read the thread?

Airburst

Who cares, rockets!

Nerull

"Extremely flammable in the presence of the following materials or conditions: reducing materials and combustible materials." is not the same as none.

This thread is a wonderful example of why it's a good idea to read the entire MSDS and not just the first line. Pure oxygen is also listed as non-flammable. Oxidizers are non-flammable by definition. That does not make them safe.

SzinNapalm

Listen to this guy he actullt has rhe right answers

Iride01 

In the almost 20 years since that was written, it doesn't seem like any others of us care to listen about the topic. And what you quoted might only be considered a side conversation about the topic.

Welcome to BF SzinNapalm ! Join the present day conversations.

fooferdoggie 

we are running out of it so its not a good idea unless you write happy birthday on your tires.

squirtdad

leave the zombie threads sleeping please, if you are really interested, start a new thread, it will also help your post count

tFUnK

18 years later and we still do not have a definitive report of whether N2O cartridges work well as a CO2 cartridge substitute for tire inflation?

Iride01 

If someone had some N2O cartridges and nothing better to do with them, then I don't see why they wouldn't just try them and see? Absolutely no need to get permission or encouragement from us.

N2O isn't flammable, explosive or a danger unless you get to huffing the N2O from your inner tubes when you take breaks during a ride.

cyccommute 

Definitive answer is “no”. N2O cartridges have too little pressure. They have about 30 psi of pressure in them. CO2 cartridges have 850 psi.