Compressor gains pressure (about 20 lbs) then quickly drops back down to about 5 lbs.

by Scott
(Houston)

My regulator has a red ring at the bottom that I originally thought WAS the regulator. So I began rotating it back and forth, not noticing any change in the pressure.

Eventually I noticed that the black piece could lift up and rotate on it's own...so I rotated it completely counter clock wise and all pressure was lost.

Then, I made sure the red ring on the bottom was completely tightened and after that I began tightening the black piece until the pressure shot up to about 30 psi...then quickly it fell back down to 5 psi. What am I doing wrong?

---

Bill says...

It's a bit hard to be sure without seeing the unit, but I think the red ring you speak of is the adjustment lock, and the black knob is what you use to actually set the downstream air pressure.

The air pressure isn't lost, what's happened is that you have shut off the air flow from the compressor and therefore, the downstream air pressure has dropped to zero. The air pressure is still there as the air regulator normally has nothing to do with the operation of the air compressor. It's sole purpose is to allow you to set the pressure that's flowing to your application below the tank pressure.

Try loosening off the red ring completely, adjust the pressure back up to what you want your operating pressure to be, and see what happens.

Thanks for writing in, Scott.

Bill