Is this an appropriate regulator?

I want to add another secondary regulator to my keg setup which currently is a dual gauge. A friend offered to sell me one but I'm not sure if it is a correct regulator. The label on the main housing reads "200PSI (1.38Mpa)". Any idea if that is appropriate for kegging and can handle the load of a 10# CO2 charge?

Can't tell from what you've posted, but secondary regulators typically have maximum input pressures of 150-200 psi, so there's a good chance. Another clue: secondary regulators almost always have right-hand threads on all four ports and are feed from the primary regulator.

Thanks for the reply David. The regulator definitely fits. I guess my question really is whether the 200 psi/1.38Mpa sufficient for kegging or do I need something a bit higher then that? I can just picture hooking it up, turning on the main gas and blowing the guts out of the secondary. What other information would you need?

As long as you are hooking the input of the secondary to the low pressure outlet of a primary regulator you should not have a problem. You can not hook the secondary to the high pressure side of a primary (where the high pressure gauge is) because that would be full bottle pressure.

Well, I guess I'm still a little confused, so I am posting the picture of my setup (or link to it if the pic doesn't come through). The one on the right is what I have hooked to my tank. The one on the left is exactly what I can get to add as a secondary. So, how to correctly hook them together...

http://s749.photobucket.com/albums/xx138/scuba779/?action=view&current=REG.jpg&newest=1

From what I can tell from the little tiny picture and your previous comments that is truly a secondary regulator. To use it you will need to connect to the line coming out of the bottom of your primary regulator to ensure you never exceed the 200PSI input (A CO2 tank can get up above 1700PSI in a warm garage and will be above 500 even in your fridge)

Typically what you will want to do is put a Wye adapter in place of your existing output valve, and put the output valve on one branch of the Wye. On the other branch put an appropriate fitting (MFL or hosebarb, etc.) and run a hose to the input of your secondary. In this configuration the secondary can never be at a higher pressure than the primary but you can dispense at two pressures, the connection off the primary always being the higher of the two.

Here's my setup:



The primary regulator is connected to the tank and is set at 35 psi. This feeds two secondary regulators and a line that goes to the soda water keg (below the pair of secondaries). As installed, I keep one secondary around 12 psi and the other is about 2 psi. I use the latter for "real" ales, and still wines/ciders.

OK, this is starting to make a little more sense. I guess my next question is what is it about the three gauge regulators like this (http://stores.kegconnection.com/Detail.bok?no=128) that allow them to effectively be daisy chained together as opposed to what I want to do?

Thanks for the help thus far!

OK, this is starting to make a little more sense. I guess my next question is what is it about the three gauge regulators like this (http://stores.kegconnection.com/Detail.bok?no=128) that allow them to effectively be daisy chained together as opposed to what I want to do?

Thanks for the help thus far!

Scuba said:

OK, this is starting to make a little more sense. I guess my next question is what is it about the three gauge regulators like this (http://stores.kegconnection.com/Detail.bok?no=128) that allow them to effectively be daisy chained together as opposed to what I want to do?

Thanks for the help thus far!

Click to expand...

Those are dual Primaries. Everything on the horizontal line is high pressure which allows the high pressure gauge at the end to work. You could split those apart and connect either to a tank.

The bright light you just saw is the light bulb going off over my head. Now, it all makes sense. Thanks for all the help.

Some thoughts for you.
Both of your regulators are Cornelius brand units.



The one with the 2 gauges is a Primary Regulator. All of its primary ports (Input & High Pressure Gauge) are left hand threaded (the output ports are right hand threaded).



The regulator with the single gauge is a Secondary Regulator. All of its ports are right hand threaded. For you to couple them together (It can be done - but - don't even try) you would need a special LH to RH fitting plus a rebuild kit.

The nice part about the units that you have is that you can leave your co² tank outside of your kegerator and you only need to run one co² line into the unit to have 2 different pressures available inside.



Something like this. The primary pressure passes straight through to the valve on the left. The secondary regulator drops that pressure to its setting and delivers that to the valve on the bottom.



If you want to have co² available outside at your co² tank, you can change the setup on the primary regulator something like this. You can also do something similar on your secondary regulator to serve multiple kegs at their different pressures.

Anyway, I hope this helps you.

david_42 said:

Here's my setup:

The primary regulator is connected to the tank and is set at 35 psi. This feeds two secondary regulators and a line that goes to the soda water keg (below the pair of secondaries). As installed, I keep one secondary around 12 psi and the other is about 2 psi. I use the latter for "real" ales, and still wines/ciders.

Click to expand...

Are you connecting a line from the low of the primary into the high of the secondary?

Nice set up. Looks like what I might end up doing.