CO2 Regulator Question

I've come to this forum for help with my CO2 regulator. I have google searched for days trying to find information and all of the bits of info I come up with are taking me to brewing forums (funny how it always comes back to the beer).. So it sounds like I'm asking the co2 experts.


I am powering a piston bottle filler. (fills mead wine bottles and its used to fill honey jars).. So basically its a cylinder that uses CO2 to move the ram in and out.. acting like a syringe. The problem I'm having is that it takes 40-60 seconds for the pressure to build back up in the regulator after a cycle. Is that normal?? I release the pressure into the ram, then I have to wait 40 seconds or so to fill another bottle or jar, that just seems like a really long time. I bypassed the co2 and used regular air from an air compressor and it worked like a champ; the ram would shoot in and out instantly.. over and over. We're trying to power this with CO2 so we don't have to have a noisy air compressor on in the house while doing this. I've got a 20oz paintball tank connected to this regulator. http://www.kegkits.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=JO300-K4H6BC&Category_Code=HPREG

Any help on why the re-charge time is so long would be appreciated. Thank you

More than likely the problem is with the small CO2 tank. The CO2 does not vaporize into a gas instantly and the colder it is, the longer it will take. Your sudden releases of CO2 are causing the tank temperature to drop substantially. The solution would be to get a larger tank. You may be able to warm the smaller tank for improved performance, but I doubt that it will ever match the air compressor, cycle time wise.

It should be working better than that... I've used a similar regulator for air tools with no problems on a 20lb tank... a beer regulator wouldn't provide enough flow. First I would check that you have the pressure cranked up to the appropriate level... I'm going to guess that the paintball tank might be the limfac in this instance... 20 oz of co2 isn't a whole heck of a lot, or there is some major restriction in the line from the tank to the regulator... My suggestion would be to get a longer hose for the air compressor, move it out to the garage or outside. This seems cheaper than refilling co2 if you use this very often...

Thank you for your reply. Ideally what size tank would you recommend?

I figured the paintball 20oz tank would work since it can fire a fully automatic paintball gun for a long time. I guess I'm just using more air than the paintball gun will use.

ckrantz said:

Thank you for your reply. Ideally what size tank would you recommend?

I figured the paintball 20oz tank would work since it can fire a fully automatic paintball gun for a long time. I guess I'm just using more air than the paintball gun will use.

Click to expand...

You are using a lot more CO2 with the bottle filler thing than your paintball gun uses. Get the largest tank you can. A 20 lb tank would be the best bet. It's generally more economical to fill the larger tanks.

that or you need an expansion chamber for the paintball cylinder.

i played a lotta paintball a dozen years ago, and to maintain CO2 pressure and shot velocity, you wanted a gun with an expansion chamber so the CO2 could convert from liquid to gas in that chamber, THEN be released as energy on the bolt action. Especially for remote CO2 setups (bottle on hip with a gas line to the gun).

probably easier to get a 5-20lb CO2 cylinder though and a regulator that can handle your specific task.

Do you think if I incorporated a 2nd 20oz paintball tank on the low pressure side, that it would be enough to provide instant pressure? Thats about 20 times the amount of expansion as a paintball gun expansion chamber.