I'm just a hobbyist so these questions will probably sound very simple.

1) OK, so first, do you buy a new helium tank when it gets empty, or are there places (where?) you can get a tank refilled.

2) How many balloons can you fill with a full tank? Say you have a 50 lbs tank and 11 inch balloons. Around how many can you fill?

3) Say I want the balloon to rise slower when released in open air. Can I mix air with helium for that. How should I do that?

First Question from me is where are you, as I may be able to help as to where you buy it from......

1) OK, so first, do you buy a new helium tank when it gets empty, or are there places (where?) you can get a tank refilled.

We never buy the tank, we only ever rent them..and pay for the balloon gas(helium) inside

What happens is you open an account to purchase helium from a stockists..... if you go direct to BOC or Air products you will pay a lot as they sell on price = volume purchased.... you can open an account with them via qualatex, which brings your price down.. or you can buy from a local wholesaler close to you......

Usually you pay a deposit (of approx £100... depending on terms you may get this back after so many hires or its on deposit till you return you last bottle and close your account)

you then hire the tank pay the fee and get monthly hire invoices for the time you have a tank... You have to buy your own inflators

If you buy from BOC depot you will be charged collection fee for you to collect from them ...local wholesalers do not usually charge this fee

2) How many balloons can you fill with a full tank? Say you have a 50 lbs tank and 11 inch balloons. Around how many can you fill?

Back of the Qualatex catalogue has a chart showing balloon sizes and numbers from various tanks... you can also get these from BOC and Air products websites


3) Say I want the balloon to rise slower when released in open air. Can I mix air with helium for that. How should I do that?

NO!!!....... air is heavy and will make the balloons sink.... other than that I dont know what you mean by slower!!!

quite often if you inflate the balloons and leave them for too long they will go off slower...but that is bad practise and you will end up throwing them to get them going up into the air

If you are going to do a balloon release.... ALWAYS follow the industry code of conduct..... you will find it on the bapia site...
//http://www.bapiaonline.com

Hope this helps

Pam
xx

Thanks Pam.

Quote from: "Pam Pearce"First Question from me is where are you, as I may be able to help as to where you buy it from......

Armenia.

QuoteO!!!....... air is heavy and will make the balloons sink.... other than that I dont know what you mean by slower!!!

Right, maybe here I'll show how terrible I am at basic physics, but this is what I mean:
If I fill a balloon with a mix of helium and other heaver gas (like just air), will it rise slower than if I filled it with "pure" helium (same volume in the end)?
This is why I was asking. Balloons "fly" pretty fast when released in the air. I was just wondering if I can change that a little and if there are standard tricks ways to do that.

QuoteIf you are going to do a balloon release.... ALWAYS follow the industry code of conduct..... you will find it on the bapia site...
//http://www.bapiaonline.com

Thanks, I wasn't aware there was a thing like this for balloons.

So am I wrong about the effect of mixing helium with air?

Yes...

on a release you should only up to 12" balloons maximum

60/40 only works on 16" upwards

and then it reduces the float time overall , rather than the floatability

Pam
xx

Thanks.

What do you mean by "on a release"?

In the UK we no longer use pure helium in our tanks, hence why it has been renamed Balloon gas

its is already a mixture of helium and other gases (mainly oxygen to try and help keep alive those that breath it in)

BOC also recycle helium that has been used by the NHS in the UK into balloon gas for party industry use

In Armenia it may be different...

A release is a mass of balloons being released and floating off in the air for promotions, events and balloon races to see how far they go

Pam
xx

Thanks.