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  #11  
Old 26th February 2020, 08:36 PM
John King John King is offline
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It is not the actual cost of the spray you have to consider, but factor in the cost of transporting it from the dealers to your home. The one from fotoimpex may be one of the cheapest but factor in sending it from Germany may tip the balance by quite a bit.
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  #12  
Old 26th February 2020, 09:45 PM
Mike O'Pray Mike O'Pray is offline
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That sounds right Dave and again, it seems to me, on that basis the amount of gas needed to cover the surface of the container, say a bottle or Nova slot should be the same irrespective of how heavy the gas is. As long as the gas is heavier than air then it should take no more gas even if argon is lighter than propane/butane, - at least I think this to be the case

I am in danger of thinking myself round the bend here but I have just looked on my can of Protectan and while it doesn't give a net weight of gas contained when it turns back into a gas from a liquid state it does give what looks like a volume of 400 ml.

All very fine but when I calculate the volume of the cylinder which it is in, this comes to just over 500ml so I presume that in its liquified state there is a "head " which accounts for this 100ml difference

Protectan makes no mention of gross or net weight just a volume of 400ml. To muddy the waters, in the Q&A section on Amazon in response to a prospective buyer's question, an existing buyer mentions the height, width, and diameter of the can. The weight is then mentioned as 100g but no explanation as to what this refers

Having rambled on, none of this will matter if both yours and Mike Heller' statements are correct and they both sound OK to me

Mike
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  #13  
Old 26th February 2020, 10:47 PM
John King John King is offline
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I have found that gas spray had no appreciable affect on the longevity of chemicals so after several failed attempts I gave up using it. With my Nova I cover the slots with cling film. Although this will not stop oxygen getting to the surface of the developer, if carefully placed over whilst the chemicals are still warm and a seal made, this will form a partial vacuum when the chemicals cool. It will also drastically slow down any evaporation of the liquid. RA4 is one chemical that seems to have an almost indefinite working life so long as it is kept up to par.
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  #14  
Old 26th February 2020, 11:01 PM
John King John King is offline
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If you are insistent on Protectan sparay AG are pricing it at £19.98
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  #15  
Old 27th February 2020, 07:50 AM
Collas Collas is offline
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You only need a very small amount of the argon as it forms a barrier that sits on the surface of the liquid preventing contact with the air above it.
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  #16  
Old 27th February 2020, 12:18 PM
MikeHeller MikeHeller is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeHeller View Post
Presumably both needs a sufficient volume to displace all the air in the bottle above the chemical to work effectively. In which case you would need the same volume of either? I think I will try the argon when my Protectan runs out!!
Cheers, Mike
I would expect that there may some diffusion of air through the gas especially if it wasn't full and there was any movement (temperature change?) in the chemical being protected.
Mike
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  #17  
Old 27th February 2020, 01:02 PM
Terry S Terry S is offline
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Thanks for all of the recommendations, points and links peeps.

On the front of the can of Protectan, it states that it contains 400ml. And then looking closely at the small print on the back of the Protectan label, it says the following:

'Within about 5 s (seconds) 250ml of air expelled. Content is sufficient to expel 100 litres of air.'

Now I don't know how many sprays and for how long each of them were, but I did put a date of purchase on the label, with it being Friday 26/10/18, meaning that it lasted me about 16 months, which feels like a lot shorter period than my first can, which lasted many a year...?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike O'Pray View Post
On Amazon there is a can of stuff called Wine and Food Preserver for £11.99 with postage under £3

Mike

Further to Mike's link, which brought to my attention another product that I didn't know of, I then went and looked up the product on ebay as well. Here I found two sellers, being one company under two different names(???) selling it for £11.99 with FREE p/p. :

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Wine-Food...e/323711813681

It states that it's pure argon, which is something I've been looking into for a while. Apart from this product though, I have only managed to find HUGE tanks of it, as it's meant for welding, so it only comes in large amounts with pricey adapters etc. Lakeland plastics do a similar and much smaller product, for wine preservation, but it costs a lot more and works with much smaller canisters of argon, so Mike's recommendation seems the better deal by a long way, so thanks for that Mike.

I've put an order in today and when it arrives I'll be dating it and try to keep count of the amount of times used, to see how it compares time-wise etc. with the original can of Protectan.

Terry S
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  #18  
Old 27th February 2020, 02:11 PM
Collas Collas is offline
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We use Argon at work, in massive cylinders, hundreds of them, for the fire suppression system to the computer rooms. I don't think that it's pure argon, though.
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  #19  
Old 27th February 2020, 02:13 PM
Quendil Quendil is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry S View Post
Thanks for all of the recommendations, points and links peeps.

On the front of the can of Protectan, it states that it contains 400ml. And then looking closely at the small print on the back of the Protectan label, it says the following:

'Within about 5 s (seconds) 250ml of air expelled. Content is sufficient to expel 100 litres of air.'

Now I don't know how many sprays and for how long each of them were, but I did put a date of purchase on the label, with it being Friday 26/10/18, meaning that it lasted me about 16 months, which feels like a lot shorter period than my first can, which lasted many a year...?


Further to Mike's link, which brought to my attention another product that I didn't know of, I then went and looked up the product on ebay as well. Here I found two sellers, being one company under two different names(???) selling it for £11.99 with FREE p/p. :

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Wine-Food...e/323711813681

It states that it's pure argon, which is something I've been looking into for a while. Apart from this product though, I have only managed to find HUGE tanks of it, as it's meant for welding, so it only comes in large amounts with pricey adapters etc. Lakeland plastics do a similar and much smaller product, for wine preservation, but it costs a lot more and works with much smaller canisters of argon, so Mike's recommendation seems the better deal by a long way, so thanks for that Mike.

I've put an order in today and when it arrives I'll be dating it and try to keep count of the amount of times used, to see how it compares time-wise etc. with the original can of Protectan.

Terry S
Thanks for the link I may try this when my protectan runs out. I use argon for welding on my old cars but the bottles are no good for the darkroom

David
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  #20  
Old 27th February 2020, 03:39 PM
Mike O'Pray Mike O'Pray is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry S View Post

On the front of the can of Protectan, it states that it contains 400ml. And then looking closely at the small print on the back of the Protectan label, it says the following:

'Within about 5 s (seconds) 250ml of air expelled. Content is sufficient to expel 100 litres of air.'




Further to Mike's link, which brought to my attention another product that I didn't know of, I then went and looked up the product on ebay as well. Here I found two sellers, being one company under two different names(???) selling it for £11.99 with FREE p/p. :

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Wine-Food...e/323711813681


I've put an order in today and when it arrives I'll be dating it and try to keep count of the amount of times used, to see how it compares time-wise etc. with the original can of Protectan.

Terry S
Terry, I hadn't spotted the bit about how much air the can will expel and should have done as it is on my Protectan label as well now I look more closely. This would seem to be the key to finding a common standard by which to judge the value for money comparison between the two products so I wonder if the Preservintage can gives the same information?

Let us know Terry

A 100 litres of air sounds a lot but if you store a lot of liquids in 1L bottles and use the spray each time you say decant 250ml stock for film development or at least 100ml of say paper developer for each session then the usage of Protectan can mount up.

As John King, I think, has said there is a good argument for placing stock film developer into 250ml bottles and using all of it each time. There is then the one time but only one time cost of say buying maybe 4 or as much as twenty bottles of the developer gets made into 5L of stock


Mike
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