Relieving air regulator relieves continuosly the lower I set the air pressure.

by Mike santiago
(Thousand oaks, ca)

I have a Quincy air compressor which provides 170psi out of the tank. I also have a Quincy air dryer after the compressor followed by 2 air filters and then a coalescing filter.

The air is then sent throughout my building to different locations with pressure regulators set at different pressures depending on the application.

Since the air compressor puts out 170psi and the most pressure any of my application need is 90psi, I decided to put a pressure regulator between the compressor and the air dryer.

Everything worked fine for a couple months but now the regulator is relieving pressure constantly.

The only way to prevent this is to raise the pressure. I've done this 3 times now and the pressure is up to 135psi and still relieving. Is this a case of a defective pressure regulator?

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Bill says...

Since you have regulators at each of your applications, I question having the regulator in the position described above. I'd probably remove it, as it's redundant, and could cause an air starvation situation downstream, even if the pressure needed their is 90 PSI. Compressed air flow is both pressure and CFM.

Nevertheless, the regulator shouldn't relieve all the time.

Either you have something downstream of the regulator that's causing a pressure spike back to the regulator, or the regulator is failing.

I'd pull the regulator from that location entirely, and solve the problem that way.

Cheers,

Bill