Baby oxycons

[turtles]

Just wondering... are any of the myriad £150 small oxycons currently available on eBay, any good?   I know the flow rate will be lower than the larger ones, and 80-90% rather than 95% 02, but still- they're cheap, small, what's not to like?
Anyone tried one?

[Redhotsal]

Haven't actually tried one but was also interested in the ones that are Chinese and sell for around £200.

Basically you need a flow rate of around 5l/min for standard beadmaking, you're not going to get a good flame out of 2l/min, so I asked the seller whether you'd still get good purity of oxygen at the top flow rate. They basically said something like this:

1 litre/min = 95% pure oxygen
2 litre/min = 75% pure oxygen
5 litre/min = 25% pure oxygen.

Considering that "normal" air is around 21% oxygen anyway I find it pushing the boundaries of credibility to claim that such a machine is capable that a flow rate of 5 litres/minute of "pure" oxygen. If you operated the machine at its top flow rate you'd basically be pushing fresh air around rather than oxygen and this simply won't work for bead making. (They didn't supply this information on their listing by the way - I had to specifically ask them!)

Sadly, I had to conclude that the baby oxycons won't work for beadmaking and to be honest wonder just how good they'd be for emphysema sufferers either.