Kegco KC LH-542 Premium Pro Series Dual Gauge Co2 Draft Beer Regulator, Chrome

I purchased this regulator to make carbonated water at home. We don't drink pop (soda for the non-midwesterners), nor beer. But my kids like H2O type water. So I use this to carbonate 2 liter pop bottles very inexpensively. The first one that I got had a bent faceplate on the low-pressure gauge. This prevented the needle from going any higher than about 30 psi. I carbonate at 40psi. So I took off the cover to that gauge and bent the metal faceplate backwards to clear the needle. It appears that the two little holes for the mounting screws were improperly located, making the faceplate higher than it should be. Then after 2 months, the pressure regulator part started not working correctly. It would keep rising pressure until the relief valve dumped pressure. I knew that this meant that it hit the limit of about 50 psi and then dumped. I emailed the company that sold the product, through the amazon contact seller link, and they apologized and sent out a replacement regulator. I received the replacement regulator within about a week, and this one seems to be working fine. Time will tell if it starts not regulating, but at least this faceplate is not bent and the needle works just fine. But for now, we love having very inexpensive carbonated water around. My estimate is upfront cost of the regulator, the hose, or the ball-lock connector, or the ball-lock 2-liter top, or the purchase of a CO2 tank (i bought a 20lb tank), totals to be about $175. This is compared to a soda stream at about $100. But with a 20-lb CO2 tank, people report they can fill somewhere between 1000 and 1500 2-liter pop bottles of water before having to recharge. Since a recharge is about $20, that brings cost per 2-liter bottle down to about $0.02 per 1.5-liters. Considering that 130-liters of sodastream charge runs about $60, that's about $0.50 per liter! Sure, mine doesn't look as pretty, and can't sit on a countertop, but it sits in our furnace room just fine. I fill about 4 2-liter bottles at a time and store them in the fridge.

I will preface my write up by saying that I am not a beer brewer, so please consider my use is simply carbonating water for use in home bottled soda. I was a soda stream user for a long time and between price hikes and product changes I decided to go another way. Now I purchase either coke bag in box or similar "off brand" Bib syrups from local distributors. I use this with a 5 pound mini tank in my garage and almost exclusively carbonate water. In the last 5 months I've carbonated at least 200 1 liter bottles of water without issue. I have noticed that the emergency release vale can be a little sensitive, i.e. if I bump the tank or tug the line a bit too much while agitating my 1 liter I have a time or two caused the valve to pop. It's a simple quick fix of pushing it back in and I guess realistically I would rather it be too sensitive then fail to function in a failure situation. Other folks have commented about the cheap quality, I honestly don't feel it has a cheap feel but I wonder if folks aren't comparing this to more high end beer brewing equipment... In context that would be like saying a Kia (or even a Honda) is "cheap" because it's not as nice as a Bugatti. As an entry level gauge this thing has performed for me just fine, my unit did not come with any shipping damage and has functioned great for my purpose of carbonating water to be used with soda syrups.

This is really a good quality regulator. Much better than what I had.

So far so good. Works great.

I must have a dud based on the glowing 5-star reviews. My regulator doesn't regulate. When setting the valve, the gauge needle moves very slowly, so you have to guess where it's going to stop. Hope you don't overshoot because bringing it down a couple pounds is impossible. You need to bring it way down and then slowly try to bring it up again. And then, after all the effort to get the setting you want, it drifts over time. It doesn't matter if the pressure is set high or low, it changes after a few hours or a day. The adjustment knob is very difficult to turn. The knob has flats for a wrench which should have been a clue to me before buying this. You really need a wrench to turn what should be a finger adjustment knob. Just the slightest turn of the valve up results in a large increase in pressure, but it takes lots of turning to get the pressure to fall. The relief valve doesn't help much, is unreliable, and will often stick open. There's no repeatability when setting this. It has a bad leak that I can't find. Wasted a whole cylinder of CO2 and more of another cylinder trying to make this work. This isn't my first CO2 regulator but it's my last Kegco. I've used Taprite and Cornelius valves with great success and will stick to them in the future. I wasted a lot of time trying to make this thing work.

My five-star recommendation comes with a caveat. I wish they would have gone more into detail about the locking control for pressure level in the tank. After installing the regulator I attempted to adjust the gas pressure to no avail. I had to look online for other people that were complaining or commenting on it to find out that the unit comes with the locking nut in the lock mode, which disallows you to adjust the gas pressure. Put it in the description so people don't have the same bad experience I had.

Muy buen producto y bien empacado lo q se anuncia es lo q llega.

I used the regulator with a 5 lb CO2 tank for a home made kegerator. Worked fine. I had 200 feet of 3/16 flexible line running through ice water and had to use 40lbs of pressure to push the beer without any foam and it worked great.

Bueno, mide con presicion

Great product and solid fittings

Flawless performance after a months use. It is a tad difficult to make fine increases to the pressure dial when its under pressure. No problem to adjust when it isn’t, but of course then you dont get a reading on the gauge. Very minor complaint, and love it so far