Got a bad regulator

So....my first kegging experience last night didn't go as smoothly as planned....but do they ever?

Anyway I bought a 2 keg kit with a dual body regulator. I followed the provided instructions, hooked everything up and pumped about 10psi to the keg to check for leaks. I used my water bottle with soapy water and everything. Initially everything seemed great.

So I siphon my beer into the keg, hook every thing back up, and cranked up the CO2 again. When it got over 10 psi I could hear a leak coming from the Gas line connection to the keg. I sprayed it again and noticed it was coming from the hose fitting to my disconnect. I hooked up the other gas line, and it leaked from the same place. Every time I fixed a leak I found another one. Basically, all 4 clamps on the gas hoses were not tight enough. I was annoyed, but I tightened them all up and thought everything was going to be good now....right? WRONG.

I continued cranking up towards 30 PSI and the low pressure gauge needle was moving up at an unusually slow pace. I've never used a CO2 regulator before so I dismissed the slowness and kept on turning. So what happens next? The friggin' pressure relief valve on the regulator pops open and CO2 comes pouring out. I almost soiled myself as I scrambled to close the CO2 tank.

I take a closer look at the low pressure gauge, and I noticed that the dial (or face whatever you want to call it) was bowed really bad. SO bad that the dial must have been pressing against the needle and not allowing it flow freely. So I basically exceeded the capacity of the regulator. I had noticed that the dials were bowed when I took it out of the box, but figured hey it's a cheap kit, and looks aren't everything. I didn't realize that they were bowed so bad that the gauge wouldn't read properly.

So I'm calling the place today and praying they don't give me any crap about sending me another regulator. Hopefully one that they've verified actually works. I might suggest that they actually do some quality control tests on their hoses too before sending them out too.

Sounds like it's not the regulator, it's the gauges. Apparently those things are pretty fragile and break in transit quite a bit. When I got my first one in the mail from Kegconnection, one of the low-pressure gauges was broken---the backing was bent and the dial was broken off and rattling around in the casing. I called them and they said it was fairly common, and sent me another one post-haste.

But I don't think it sounds like a "bad regulator". And I fail to see how you could have "exceeded the capacity of the regulator", either. Why would a regulator allow you to exceed its own capacity? That makes no sense. Just get them to send you new gauges.

Evan! said:

And I fail to see how you could have "exceeded the capacity of the regulator", either. Why would a regulator allow you to exceed its own capacity? That makes no sense. Just get them to send you new gauges.

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Is there some other explanation for why the pressure relief valve popped open?

Maybe I used the wrong wording. Those pressure relief valves are set to pop open once a certain pressure is reached, right? That is what I meant by "exceeding it's capacity".

rudy0498 said:

Is there some other explanation for why the pressure relief valve popped open?

Maybe I used the wrong wording. Those pressure relief valves are set to pop open once a certain pressure is reached, right? That is what I meant by "exceeding it's capacity".

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Oh, yeah, well, the release valves are meant for you to manually release pressure when you need to. I've never seen one pop open on its own, but yeah, I guess they might be set to release at a certain PSI to protect the regulator housing, etc. But it still doesn't mean the regulator is the problem. I'd bet that, with new gauges, the thing would be just fine.