Hi all,

This is my first post here since I’m not American and we have our Ukrainian welding forums. The problem that made me to inquire your advise was that the standards of Argon regulators’ connections are different throughout the World and our Ukrainian argon-filling stations do NOT deal with tapered connectors like CGA-580 (they deal only with threaded flat faced connectors), which is common in the US, while I’ve bought a US Smith flowmeter, which has a CGA-580 connection. So, I have this flowmeter and a ¾” NPT threaded valve that should be coupled with each another. I’m looking for the proper adapter from CGA-580 to ¾” NPT.
I’ve seen Western connectors and I am a bit confused with the connector I need. This is because Western have two main groups of adapters for CGA-580 standard. One group comprises adapters with part numbers 15-3 through 15-11 (this group is named as “CGA-580 FOR ARGON, HELIUM & NITROGEN” at the Western web-site), and another one comprises adapters with part numbers B-70 through B-72 (this group is named as “MALE NPT OUTLET ADAPTORS FOR MANIFOLD PIPELINE”). Both groups comprise adapters from CGA-580 to NPT, so what is the difference between them? And please suggest which connector should I buy that will fit my needs?

Also, there are no spares for the second group. And the first group has some spares - 615-O (O-Ring Replacement) and 615-PT (Soft Tip Replacement). Could anyone clarify what the 615-PT (Soft Tip, Replacement) is used for? Is this spare similar to that which is installed inside of the CGA-580 male connector of my flowmeter (it looks like a cylinder piece of foam aluminum)?

Thank you in advance for your advices.

Sincerely yours,
Alex