fa Explosimeter - for those who want to weld or work in areas that might be dangerous

I ended up, kinda to my surprise, with a just refurbished explosimeter - this is a current production item, factory serviced/calibrated 11-24-09 - I set the ebay start price at about 10% of new, figuring that anyone who could use it would jump at it but I wouldn't risk giving it away for 99 cents - here's the link http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item00375335943
And, yes, it's metal, and we were discussing welding gas tanks of various kinds - this could be very helpful for that to see if the contents are explosive or not - or for those who work in confined spaces - or ...
At least read the instruction manual (link on the auction page) that is pretty interesting - it uses a platinum filament to measure combustibility

    --Hey this is something I've always wanted, but in the form of a solid state sensor with a much smaller footprint; is there such a beastie??

geez, I don't know - the sensor itself seems pretty small - about 1/2 inch in diameter - how small a foot print do you need?
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    --Wellll I was thinking of putting one inside a potato gun; I've got one equipped with various sensors but explosive gas mixture is hard to figure. At the moment I'm using a modified toy (I got from Sharper Image or some similar outfit long ago) called a "Fart Detector" which has a heated grid; temp variations caused by it being in a non-pure-air environment trigger a silly recording. Trouble is many non-pure-air situations are non-explosive, too; i.e. unvented carbon monoxide from previous firings..

the explosion from the potato gun will probably destroy the sensor - you need to isolate it from the gun through a thin tube to block the shock wave
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steamer wrote: I was thinking of putting one inside a potato gun; I've got
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Did you check Figaro?
figarosensor.com
Kevin Gallimore

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    --New to me; thanks!

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You could use a TGS 813 sensor: http://www.figarosensor.com/products/813pdf.pdf
They're available as replacement parts for gas detectors (they wear out).
Eg.
http://www.professionalequipment.com/combustible-gas-detector-replacement-sensor-tip-8801/gas-detector-accessories / http://www.allgasdetectors.com/products/g278.shtml
Circuit to use them is dead simple, as you can see. They have a heater that draws about 0.8W from a regulated 5V supply.

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They always were... see
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_lamp

On Sun, 6 Dec 2009 22:13:53 -0800, "Bill Noble"
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Gee! (No, GTE.) Used to use one of those puppies every day...
Of course, I had the full kit - the leather over-case to keep from baging it up too bad, the pressboard suitcase, the aspiration tube adapter and several lengths of special tubing for sniffing down into manholes, and the Draeger Tube adapter for checking the presence of other nasty things that can collect in confined spaces like carbon monoxide or nitrogen sulfide...
I'm guesing you just have the bare meter. Whoever buys it has to get all that other stuff together - at least the aspiration tubes and adapter, you aren't allowed to even crack the lid off the manhole without checking that first.
--<< Bruce >>--