Wait, what? I am in Canada and I have a couple of 5pound CO2 canister for home brewing and a modded sodastream to accept any CO2 canister. Where did you find this information?
I even get it filled up at the corner store lol.
I don't know if it's true today, but back when I had a SodaStream (~5 years ago), a "purchased" SodaStream CO2 canister came with a printed copy of this: https://www.sodastream.ca/en/assets/ulc.jpg
Re:Hacking Portable Air Conditioners
by nucleardog on Sunday August 02, 2020 @04:00AM
(#24027159)
Yeah I don’t think that has anything to do with the government. That’s just them trying to prevent you/scare you away from refilling the containers yourself.
Paintball guns run on CO2. You don’t need a special permit to own a paintball gun. You can pick up a paintball tank on eBay and run down to Canadian Tire or any paintball field and they’ll happily fill it up for you. Or at least they used to — it’s been a while for me.
That happens worldwide, they are just trying to contractually drm the canister business.
Re:Hacking Portable Air Conditioners
by userbinator on Saturday August 01, 2020 @10:05PM
(#24025713)
You can already buy some refrigerants legally without any license, and somewhat amusingly (or sadly), even contribute to global warming by releasing as much of it into the atmosphere as you want! It's not marketed as a refrigerant, because that would make the EPA regulate it, but of course the chemical itself doesn't care about such trivialities and will cool the same when it evaporates. If you want to go down a rabbithole, search for "duster spray AC recharge".
R290 is just propane, and it has a low Global Warming Potential. I see a lot of the new portable A/Cs use it. Apparently it's also more energy efficient. Obvious downside is that it's flammable.
In Canada, you need to be a licensed something-or-other to purchase or own compressed CO2 canisters. This put SodaStream in an awkward position when entering the Canadian market, since their whole business model is built on selling people CO2. But they figured out a workaround: in Canada, you don't buy their CO2 canisters; instead, you "join a club" that allows you to borrow CO2 canisters (and/or refills the ones you have), and then charges servicing fees for "their" canister equipment. (Sort of like how a catering company would rent a helium tank.)
I wonder if something similar could be done for refrigerant-supply licensing in the US.