Regulators For Idiots

[Beer:30]

I don't know much about regulators (isn't that a song?) And I am trying to put a few secondary regs off of my primary so that I can force carb and serve from inside my fridge at the same time. Well I hooked them up (see photo) but think I got it wrong. Adjusting the screw on the primary reg is adjusting the flow on the second secondary. Uhhh, I know I probably have it all messed up. Suggestions??

 

[EdWort]

Adjust your flow from your primary to say about 15 psi. Then throttle back the first one to what you want to carb at, then the second one to what you want to dispense at.

 

[ajwillys]

With the way you have it, the second and third will only have as much pressure as the first since you put the second and third off of the low pressure end of the first. If you want them all to be able to use the max pressure, you need to take the high pressure gauge off, add the other regs to that port, and add the high pressure gauge back on the end of the string of regs.

See this link:

http://www.micromatic.com/draft-keg-beer/regulators-pid-642-Battery.html

EDIT: Ed's quick with the updates. His solution works if you don't want to fix it but with three regs, I'd think you would want three usable pressures available.

 

[Beer:30]

I tried this. The first secondary reads pressure, and the third nothing. So I back off on the first secondaries screw to try and get the pressure up on the second secondary, and it ends up blowing air out of the little hole in the front. Is it possible that I have the ports switched somehow? Is that possible?

 

[EdWort]

Turn the second secondary's screw clockwise to see if you get at least what the first one is showing.

 

[ajwillys]

Yeah, you are probably using the wrong ports. On the back, what do the labels say for the ports? The high pressure ports usually either say IN or PRI and the low pressure ports usually say OUT or SEC.

 

[Hustler]

With the way you have it, the second and third will only have as much pressure as the first since you put the second and third off of the low pressure end of the first. If you want them all to be able to use the max pressure, you need to take the high pressure gauge off, add the other regs to that port, and add the high pressure gauge back on the end of the string of regs.

See this link:

http://www.micromatic.com/draft-keg-beer/regulators-pid-642-Battery.html

EDIT: Ed's quick with the updates. His solution works if you don't want to fix it but with three regs, I'd think you would want three usable pressures available.

Actually you cannot do that with secondary regulators. They are designed to accept a lower pressure from their high pressure port. Only primary regulators are designed to accept the high pressure from the bottle. So either you run a battery of primary regulators, or you run a battery of secondary regulators off a primary regulator hooked to the bottle. He has the setup right for what he has. The thing is like you explained, you set the primary regulator to a psi acceptable for the input on the secondary regulators. You lose that regulator unless you can tee off the primary regulators low pressure port and always have whatever the highest carb'd beer on that port, so that you can set the secondary regulators to even lower pressure than the primary.

If you could just run secondary regulators like a primary, why would they even need to name them differently?

So to answer the question, from your picture, set the primary regulator to like 60psi, then set your secondary regulators accordingly. You need to set the primary higher than either of the two secondaries. Then adjust the secondaries individually.

 

[Beer:30]

Thank you all for taking the time to read and explain. I will hopefully find time tonight to fiddle with it more. It's good to hear that maybe they are hooked up right, I have no leaks, so I'd love to leave em together.
Thanks for your patience.

 

[Donasay]

http://picasaweb.google.com/DonAsay/UntitledAlbum/photo#5234083767191449442

I drew you a picture to help you know what to do:

 

[camiller]

Check and see if there are any markings on the back that give the maximum input pressure they handle. If what you are using as secondaries are rated for primary pressures you can do what Donasay suggests. If not, then they are true secondary regulators and the way you have them hooked up is correct.

 

[Beer:30]

Update-
The problem was that I had the primary reg down too low, and it was not enough to register on the secondaries. A little tweaking and they work well. Thanks all.

 

[bad coffee]

+1.

thinking of doing the same thing.

 

[Beer:30]

Picasa Web Albums - Don

I drew you a picture to help you know what to do:

Can you possible re-post the picture that you send me? I am still having difficulty, and I want to trouble shoot my regulator set up.
Thanks!

 

[Gonefishing]

Why wouldn't you want a T between the primary regulator and the first secondary? That way you could set the primary to say 30 and actually use it... the way it's set up now it seems to me you're wasting a regulator. I'm thinking you'd want it like this....

 

[kirscp]

You should set your primary at a higher pressure, under 200lbs. You will then set the secondaries at the pressure you want.

The purpose of a secondary is to allow multiple pressures / CO2 supplies at a location away from the CO2 tank, like a C-store would have. This then allows them to run one CO2 line to their secondary bank, instead of running several CO2 lines. Secondary regulators are also less expensive.

From the picture, you have yours set up correctly. You just need to have your primary set at a higher pressure, I'd say 50lbs, just nothing over 200lbs.

My setup is 3 Primary regulators.

 

[Beer:30]

I got it to work. I Y'd of the primary to take advantage of the higher pressure for force carb, then the second to dial down to serving pressure. Thanks again everyone!

 

[Bobby_M]

If you could just run secondary regulators like a primary, why would they even need to name them differently?

I don't think anyone has conclusively confirmed that the regulator bodies are physically different when used as primaries or secondaries.

I do believe that the term secondary simply implies a lower input pressure which allows you to run a bank of them a distance away from the tank and primary. The beauty of it is that you can use cheap tubing and hose clamps to run 30psi for as far away as you want. If you tried the same thing using banked primaries, you'd either need a high pressure hose set or run individual long hoses off of each secondary pressure port.