Story & Product Details
I was having lunch one day at my friend’s pizza parlor and he was complaining to me about the Valve Caps that come on the CO2 bottles. He said that they didn’t work very well and that everyone that used them hated them. I decided this might be a great opportunity and shortly thereafter set out to address these problems and redesign these caps completely. The original design of the most common CO2 Valve Cap consists of a simple plastic cap with a retaining ring a ring on the other end. The ring slides over the threaded outlet of a CO2 cylinder to keep it attached to the bottle when the cap is off. Then when the bottle is filled, the hanging cap may be grabbed and slid over the threads. A one-time-use fiber washer is supplied with every bottle refill. These washers may usually be tied onto the caps with a rubber band. This is something that is very labor intensive for the gas companies. They literally have a man sitting at a station in the shop tying these washers on all day. This is expensive and tedious. The number-1 complaint for both the gas companies and the end users is the unreliable rubber bands. They often break and the washer is very commonly lost during delivery and storage. People with big fingers hate fiddling with and trying to untie these. The gas companies will often have to send a driver out just to replace a single 1-cent washer that has been lost. The gas companies also regularly complain about not being to tell if the gas bottle has been used or not. It isn’t necessarily fraud that concerns them but rather simply knowing if the bottle is empty, or full, or somewhere in between. Many convenience stores have a high turn-around rate for their employees and this often causes much confusion in identifying which CO2 bottles had been used.
I went to work and came up with a new and improved cap that no longer needs to use a rubber band to attach the fiber washer. To go a step further, a new premium nylon washer was also designed to replace the common, low-end fiber washer.
The new premium washer is precision injection molded from nylon. This change in material from fiber (fish paper) to nylon in itself is significant in the washer’s ability to seal. The washer has a sealing ring molded on each side that further aids its sealing ability. Also, three small, thin fins were added to the perimeter. These fins self-center the washer in the CO2 fitting and help to hold it in place while the fitting is being coupled to the CO2 tank. This exact positioning ensures a gas-tight seal every time. These improvements addressed all of the complaints I had heard from end users in regards to these washers. Ensuring a perfect seal every time is also extremely important because these tanks can cost $85 or more to refill, not to mention that an empty tank can mean lost business for end users. Leaks are very costly. Premium washers are not.
The CO2 Valve Cap was redesigned to house the washer in a cup shaped area opposite the existing thread protector cup. The washer is now placed in this area and then covered/sealed to keep it in place. The cover/seal serves a few different purposes. It seals the washer keeping it free of outside contaminates. It also provides a canvas for advertisement and branding. An overhang was designed at the perimeter of the cap that makes it now much easier to grab and remove even with gloves on. Our new design is easy to use either with or without gloves. The retaining ring on the end opposite the cap was split so that it may be installed and removed much more quickly. Last but not least a one-time-use tear-away tab was added onto the cap. This allowed for the retaining feature inside the cap to be made much more positive and hold the cap firmly in place. It does not come off until the tear-away tab is pulled. Then it may be easily removed. This shows when a bottle has been used which is becoming a key factor in FDA compliance as well as in loss prevention.
This new patent pending design will save both suppliers and end users alike countless dollars in lost revenues caused by miscommunications, failures, and compliance issues. These new products are clean, simple, innovative, and incredibly cost effective. They will change the industry forever.
