Does anybody have recommendations for a drink carbonator? (like a sodastream)

My partner likes fizzy drinks. I want to get something that will last, and won't lock us into a single vendor for refills or replacement parts.

I looked at making our own custom one - like this. We might still do something like this, but I'm also pretty clueless with this stuff and don't want anything to explode or poison us :)

Our priorities, ordered by importance, are:

  • No lock-in (adversarial interop is fine)
  • Well built/long-lasting
  • Convenient, safe, easy to use

Any suggestions?

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[–] 16 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

My all plastic soda stream broke after 10 years of daily use. I switched to the all metal Aarke and I've been really happy with it. Uses the same bottle and carbonator size as soda stream.

https://aarke.us/products/carbonator-3-matte-black

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 child)

    Thank you for the recommendation! After deliberating back and forth over whether to go with this or a DIY solution, I ended up buying this one.

    I saw a tildes comment talking about this adapter. I'm thinking that, once we finish the first couple of refills, we can decide whether we want to get a bigger donor cylinder to refill them through this.

    And then, if this ever does break, we can switch to a full DIY solution at that point, since we'll then have more hands-on experience with the larger cylinders. So, we can gradually ease into a more DIY approach once we've shown we'll stick with it, and have a bit more confidence.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago

    After I got my sodastream it tasted a little off, but good enough. When I got my adapter and a 20lb co2 tank, it suddenly tasted sooooooo much better. Not sure if it'll happen to you, but I kept the refil that came with mine as a backup for when I'm recharging my main 20lb tank.

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