Here's a deal for the more inventive among you.
2.6KG Gas Cylinder filled with carbon dioxide. Just what the hell would you do with a cylinder full of CO2 you ask?
Well, there are many uses. You could hook it up to a piece of pipe and use it to shoot off projectiles (paintball works this way). You could make an attachment to join it to aerosol cans, and allow you to fill them back up so you didn't have to waste that last little bit left inside. Or you could connect a lance directly to the tank, and use the whole thing as an extra large air duster.
There are many uses if you're creative enough, but for most consumers there are two big ones: Dispensing beer out of a keg, and making drinks fizzy.
We're going to concentrate here on the second one: making drinks fizzy
Option 1 (Already have a Sodastream)
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Buy this for $48
It will go from the gas tank directly to your sodastream, and you won't need to do anything else. Super simple. -
If you don't have a sodastream, you can by a knockoff from Spotlight. They have them on clearance for $39 currently
Note: according to post here there may be issues using sodaking -
Total Cost including gas cylinder: $117 plus postage ($156 if you need to buy the sodaking)
Option 2 (Starting fresh)
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This is a little trickier, but more flexible. You can carbonate to whatever pressure you want, making drinks extra fizzy or only slightly fizzy as your tastes demand. It also allows you to carbonate 2L Coke bottles directly, which in my mind is much better.
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You will need the following items
Regulator - $40. Needed to reduce the pressure to working level.
Plastic tube - $12. 12 meters long so plenty of line if you want to hide the gas bottle somewhere else out of the way.
Clamps - 70c each (3 needed)
Ball lock $2.60. Joins the gas line to the carbonation cap
Carbonation cap $8.90. This beauty is the key to the whole process. It allows you join your carbonation setup directly to a standard soft drink bottle, which has a very unique and hard to match thread, and pressure it with gas. -
Total cost including gas cylinder: $134.60 plus shipping.
Given that Kmart exchanges sodastream gas cylinders, and each cyclinder contains 400g gas carbonating 60L of soda water, this tank is equivalent to 6.5 refills. At $19 a refill, thats $123.50 for the gas alone. Where this really saves money is on the second refill. To refill a 2.6KG tank, most places charge $25-$30. That's $30 for the ability to drink a litre of soft drink every day, for a whole year. Not recommended, will probably kill you, but damn if that isn't a cheap way to do it.
Postage
Kegland is based in Melbourne, so postage rates vary. For me (melb) it was $12 for the cylinder alone. For Sydney it goes up to $18.
Some other considerations I didn’t want contaminating the main post:
Safety – there are dangers around doing this. The pressure of the gas in the tank is very high, which can cause injury and sent things flying as projectiles if it is released uncontrollably. Then there’s the gas itself which is heavier than air and will asphyxiate if it fills up a room. This isn’t too big an issue for adults as you’ll feel the sensation of not being able to breathe and run outside, but for babies it would be lethal.
Even at normal price this is very cheap. Most places charge $120 at the cheapest. Check carnyturbo’s post for an idea of what things were like only a year ago.
Not all gas dispensers will refill these. No idea why. Check this map to see if there is an approved refiller near you.
For heavy users, they may want to wait until the 6KG is back in stock. 2.3x the capacity for an extra $30+ shipping costs is pretty good
I linked to the easier to use clamps to keep things simple, but kegland actually recommend using these for a better seal. You will need a tool to crimp it though. Bunnings sells these that should do the trick for $17
You can buy gas regulators cheaper on ebay, in the order of $20, but I don’t know how much faith you want to put in something like that.
The regulator I listed only seems to be specified for up to 50psi. This is more than fine for soft drinks, but for other uses might not be enough.