Finally getting around to buying a butane torch with a tightly focused flame to quickly eradicate spurious stringing. I had always thought Butane was Butane was Butane. i.e. it’s all the same, so just buy the cheapest source. Turns out that’s not true. Turns out there’s different levels of filtering for removing impurities in that butane, so they’re not all the same, and (or so I’ve read) that can translate into black scorches on your nice white prints if you’re using the cheap stuff.
Anyhow, just throwing that out there in case anyone has anything more to add. Does it make a difference in practice? Is it worth paying extra for the higher purity?
Ha, I was under a similar delusion at one point. I didn’t even go cheap really, just a different brand (the blue one vs. black). Nope. Thought my torch had died all of sudden – wouldn’t light well, if at all, or burn evenly when it did. Then wondered if it was the butane, bought another can of the Bernzo black, et voilá. Haven’t repeated the experiment since then (stuck with Bernzo) and the torch is still going strong after 20 years or so.
I ended up ordering Purofine (claims 15 parts per million of impurities) off amazon at an insane price for a small quantity to get started. Well, I’ll see how long it lasts. If it lasts long enough maybe it doesn’t matter.
I’ve seen this too. The lighters at my local menards calls the stuff that comes prepacked in them as “Nitro butane”
When I refill them with regular-■■■ butane it burns a lot less enthusiastically but still works. I think the nitro stuff has higher vapor pressure.
I have researched 0.00percent more, but there’s definitely grades.
Because of the white, if you really want to not scorch, soldering hot-air reflow wands work well too. Not as satisfying and a little more time/benchspace, but won’t discolor if you set the temp appropriately. I dont have a good one to recommend, but the chinese ones all look like this and work similarly mediocre
Just trying the butane to get a feel for it. Most of the time it’s not an issue, and I can just brush off the cotton candy. However, lately I’ve been printing these:
and the little wisps are deep into all these little crevices that are hard to reach. I can’t just brush them off like I would on a smooth print.
Therefore, what I’d like to find is a precision micro-torch on the end of a long tube, so I can maybe insert it down inside and zap. I’ve not seen anything like that though, so I guess torching from a distance must be the norm. Dremel Versatip seems quite popular among 3D printing enthusiasts. I settled on MT-51, which I hope will be as good at half the price. However, if anyone wants to suggest something different, I’m all ears, as I haven’t received mine yet and could change my mind.
I have a hot air soldering station along the lines of the one pictured and a couple of years back I built a Voron printer. First I started using the iron side to install heat set inserts, then the air side to clean up white from the ABS prints. Barely use it for soldering anymore.
By the way, noticing that Neon 11x is considerably cheaper than the Purofine. You get get a dozen 300ml bottles of the stuff on Temu for around $30, which would probably be a lifetime supply. It claims 3ppm purity (about 5x more pure than the Purofine), but who knows whether or not that’s just marketing BS, because who among us has the equipment to verify such a claim? Then again, being Temu, who knows whether its even the real deal or a counterfeit? However, maybe someone here has tried it and can comment based on experience? Maybe aim it at a white porcelain tile or something and notice how much soot develops in a typical touch-up blast? We’re far from making Crème brûlée, so it’s not like you’d need to dwell for long.
Buy now before the Hormuz price shockwave propagates to retail butane, if it hasn’t already. Current spot prices up 20% from the February average.
Unfortunately, when people refer to the color of their butane bottle as an identifier, I don’t know what that means. Maybe that’s an old school designator? Looking around these days, even the same brand can come in a range of different bottle colors.
Did a bit more surveying and it seems that the Colibri Premium 11x (<6ppm impurities) is the gold standard in this category for trustworthy performance without seeking something laboratory grade.
I think I get it now: it’s not just the black soot that’s the issue, but no less the higher propensity for micro torches to clog over time from impurities that’s in play.
They may be impurities but butane is a distillation fraction out of a refinery. It’s a number of different molecules that have similar boiling points since that’s how the fractions get separated. Butane will be the major fraction (hopefully) but they tend to be mixtures.
Hydrocarbons are generally mixtures and you can pay out the wazoo to get more pure kinds. But the different collections of molecules will burn differently. It’s why if you monitor gas milage in a car you get variations filling up at different brand stations. They can control yields and emphasize different kinds of fuels by how wide or narrow of a range of boiling points get called propane, butane, regular, and premium, etc. There are standards but there’s ranges in those standards.
About all you can do if you have a demanding application is pay for the purity you need or, the burner head style may be able to minimize the issues.
But what you are seeing is real. Not all hydrocarbon products are the same and some can be pretty nasty.
Anyone wanting to know more can look up gas chromatography of light hydrocarbons and look at the graphs. There are typically groups of molecules that all have similar characteristics and are somewhat similar to the different boiling fractions out of a distillation column. They tend to be mixtures. Getting more pure gases and liquids takes more processing so are more expensive.
in that it can reach down into those “hard to reach” places without being stopped short by a large butane storage. I’d still rather that it have the large storage but just extend over a long pipe to get the reach, but not sure if anyone makes anything like that. Also, I’d want to be able to trigger it on and off very quickly, and I’m doubting this is that. The search continues….
It’s quite different from all other micro-torches I’ve seen, because it can be powered either from the refillable fuel cell that it comes with, or it can be powered by a generic disposable butane lighter:
though, in light of the thread above, I rather doubt a generic disposable butane lighter uses ultra filtered butane, so maybe that’s just asking for clogs sometime down the road. Then again, internet buzz says its easy to clean if it did get clogged, so there’s that. ]
Sorry, that was me assuming. And yes showing my age. I think some brands do grade by color, but in this case I was referring to Bernzomatic brand as the “black” and I couldn’t remember what the “blue” brand was… and can’t even find it now… there’s a sea of “blue” brands. Local hardware stores carried one or the other, usually. I see now the online world of butane brands has expanded considerably… lol. I’m mildly surprised it can even be shipped through normal mail.
Anyhow, https://www.bernzomatic.com/products/5-6-oz-butane-cylinder is what I was referring to. They don’t claim any PPM figures, just “5x filtered.” Reading the SDS, interestingly it’s actually butane, isobutane, and almost a third propane. Wonder how that compares to other brands.
FWIW my 20 year old torch is also by Bernzomatic (the “Detail” model, looks like), who are kinda the “OG” of handheld fuel torches around these parts. Got a couple of their propane and map torches also. It’s hard to tell who copies whom these days, but I think a lot of the designs out there originate with them. I find the “hot air blower” tip very useful, usually more so than an open flame (basically like a mini heat gun). And yea the refill cans last a very long time but I’m often wishing the torch itself could hold more at once. Gotta wait a good few minutes after refilling it before it can be used again.
Had no idea they got that cheap, either. Last time I gawked the cheapest were like $1500 range. $150 for renewable clean fire forever [till it breaks lol]. What a crazy time to be alive. To compare that ■■■■ to something like a 2bedroom’s worth of rent.
That’s partly what led me to the MT-51. It claims it can run 2 hours continuously on a full charge of butane. At $25 you can justify switching if that fits what you’re looking for.
Current spot prices up 20% from the February average.
