N20 source

[Darknight]

I see a lot of talk about using nitrous oxide as an oxidizer in the hybrid rockets, but I don't understand where to get n20 in an easily usable form. The cartridges used for whipped cream don't have valves or anything like that, and buying n20 from car performance shops is a little pricey.

[Mike Everman]

I think paintball guns use it.

[Ray]

I think Paint ball guns use C02. But I am not into the sport at all, so I could easily be wrong.

The whipping cream canisters are the expensive way to buy Nitrous. You get a small amount for a dollar, however they are easy to obtain, and no special equipment, ie tanks, valves, etc are required.

Buying from a hot rod shop is the way to go for small amounts. Buy a bottle off of Ebay, look for the metal ones, everybody wants composite versions now, so they buy the composite bottle, and dump the metal one on ebay.

For large qty's you can go to a welding/gas supply house, they should have them in LARGE bottles, and the prices are much better than the hot rod shops.

I guess where you get the stuff is really dependant on how much you want to use.

[Johansson]

Yup, paintball guns use CO2 (or in some cases compressed air).

The cheapest way I know to get nitrous oxygen is from a welding shop, here in Sweden I can buy N2O both as a high grade laughing gas and as a cheaper industrial gas. According to a guy that owns a shop that sells all sorts of welding gas and has dragraced with nitrous injected snowmobiles for several years the industrial version is not as "pure" as the other one and is not called nitrous oxygen but has a special name (cannot remember it now...). He told me that if I intend to use it in vehicles or rocket engines the industrial one is just as good as the more expensive gas, it is just not classified for inhalation or something like that. If you ask nicely and bring your own CO2 bottle they could fill it for you if you are lucky, renting a bottle just for N2O is expensive...

Hope that helps...

//Anders

[El-Kablooey]

Some paintball guns use CO2, the really good ones use nitrogen.

[bob000555]

u can get it verry cheep from a dentists shop....im not sure if it will work cuz its medical grade

[Zippiot]

A hpa paintball tank can hold many liquids, It will set you back around 200 bux but can easily hold nitrous oxide liquid oxygen and many others.

To be honest, a regular co2 tank can be filled with those, but the pressure limit is 3k on those things and no real shop will fill it past that point.

http://www.actionvillage.com/is-bin/INT ... en-systems

play around in there they tend to have the best prices.

Also make sure the thing is outta gas before it crashes, I have seen a tank explode and it took 1/2 the car with it. On that note never leave your brand new 400 dollar full nitrogen tank in the trunk of you car in the sun for an hour or two.