Bad experience today

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brett

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Well, I decided to build a kegerator (standard 2 homebrew kegs, sanyo 4912). So for the past few weeks I've been purchasing all the kegs, CO2 cylinder, regulator, etc.

Today I had all the required parts, except for two things:

  1. My CO2 tank is empty of course, since it's new.
  2. Still needed to buy the 4912 fridge at Best Buy.

Over lunch I went to my local air supply shop (Praxair) and exchanged the CO2 cylinder for a full one. Then after work I swung by Best Buy and bought the fridge.

Got home, hooked up the cylinder to the regulator, opened up the valve, and.... nothing. ****, they gave me an empty cylinder!? OK, maybe I'm just an idiot or something... let's get out the fridge from the box.

Open up my brand new shiny nice awesome $220 Sanyo 4912. Looking at it, so shiny, so new, so.... dented in the top right corner?!? WTF. Now I'm sitting there, no CO2 pressure, dented fridge. I have the SWMBO call Best Buy customer service (the store is now closed by the way), and get a guy on who says to talk to the store tomorrow, but because it was a new item they may not be able to replace it, since I could have done the damage to the fridge!

Oh dear, it's a good thing I wasn't on the phone. I'm not really mad though (yet)... and I cannot say that I've never been through this kind of thing before.

Here's my questions:

  1. Is there anything I'm missing with the CO2 cylinder? Should you just be able to open up the valve with no regulator attached and hear gas coming out?
  2. People with Sanyo 4912s: does the fridge make any sort of sounds when running, or is it completely silent?

Very depressed. We'll see how things go. Have a homebrew for me.
 
The Sanyo is quiet. I can only hear it when it is open for couple of minutes. I would think it might depend though on where it is located. Mine is in a corner of the kitchen and it might be a bit noisier in a dining room. I also have mine set to less than 1 and the beer is dang cold.

Is you regulator valve open? Mine arrived closed so check that out before you take the tank back.
 
I know on larger cylinders that you can open the valve and gas will come out with nothing attached. It is not like a propane cylinder where you have to have a connection. (I have two of the 20lb CO2 cylinders)
 
Thanks for the info.

I adjusted the regulator valve and tried everything with the bottle, etc. Nothing. Pretty sure it's empty.

As for the fridge, we plugged it in and it's very quiet, though when I open the door I can hear slight "running water" like sounds (very faint though)... it cools down really nice though, the back of the inside is frosty cold. It looks to me like it's functional, though I don't know if something may happen down the road....

When I go back to the air supply store, should I crack open the valve on the new CO2 tank to test if it's full? That would work, right?
 
If you want to know for sure if the tank is empty, take the regulator off and weigh the tank. Then subtract the tare weight from that (it's stamped on the tank, the number that starts with a T or TW).
 
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