Re: CO2 regulator problem

[Shireen Gonzaga <whimbrel at comcast_net>]

Eric Wahlig said:

>but you may have 
a problem with the gage only. The regulator itself may be O.K. 
What I would do to test this is plumb the six valve outlets into a jar of 
water using six pieces of tubing and weigh them down using a twist-tie wire 
and a small weight of some type. Open at least one valve. Attach the 
regulator to a either a full tank or a tank that still has a decent amount 
of CO2 left in it. Unscrew the regulator adjusting screw until you can't 
feel it pushing against the spring/diaphragm inside. Don't remove the screw. 
Slowly turn on the tank valve. The high pressure gage should read the tank 
pressure while the low pressure gage should read zero and you should see no 
bubbles in the jar of water. If this is the case and the low pressure gage 
reads something other than zero then the gage is defective (or stuck). If 
you are getting bubbles in the test jar then the regulator is defective.<


Thanks, Eric. I did a similar test to the one you described.
There was no bubbling until the regulator adjusting screw was 
in quite a ways. At that point I got a lot of bubbles, and the 
low pressure gauge moved to indicate higher pressure. You and 
Douglas are most likely right about it being a gauge defect. 

Another question ... when things were working well, the outgoing
pressure was set at about 15 psi (as recommended by M3). I had
good needle valve control for a tank next to the cylinder. But 
a couple of months ago, I connected CO2 to a tank 15 feet (20 feet
of tubing) from the cylinder, and found it quite difficult to
control the bubble rate (too rapid, even with the needle valve
almost closed!). I may have a defective needle valve on my 
hexa-manifold (will test that theory when the system is back) 
but I was wondering if the performance of a needle valve is 
dependant on the distance of the aquarium from the cylinder 
(for a given output pressure value)? 

Sorry for the naive questions. I'm somewhat technically-challenged.  :-)

cheers,
	shireen


-- 
Shireen Gonzaga
Baltimore, MD