A domestic
acetylene lighting plant can be managed quite satisfactorily without a
meter, and as a multiplication of parts is undesirable in an apparatus
which will usually be tended by someone not versed in technical
operations, it is on the whole better to omit the meter in such an
installation. Where the plant is supervised by a technical man, a meter
may advisedly be included in the equipment. Its proper position in the
train of apparatus is immediately after the purifier. A meter must not be
used for unpurified or imperfectly purified acetylene, because the
impurities attack the internal metallic parts and ultimately destroy
them. The supply of acetylene to various consumers from a central
generating station entails the fixing of a meter on each consumer's
service-pipe, so that the quantity consumed by each may be charged for
accordingly, just as in the case of public coal-gas supplies.
There are two types of gas-meter in common use, either of which may,
without essential alteration, be employed for measuring the volume of
acetylene passing through a pipe. It is unnecessary to refer here at
length to their internal mechanism, because their manufacture by other
than firms of professed meter-makers is out of the question, and the user
will be justified in accepting the mechanism as trustworthy and durable.
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