Pressure Regulator question

It's actually one of the burners on that site I was looking at to build. The EZ-burner or the burner it's designed from looked pretty good. Thanks, though.

-Will

This site will direct you to a vendor for high pressure regulators:

Brady Austin, TX

A "high pressure" regulator, the type that has an adjustment, such as on most turkey fryers, will work fine. Got a bunch at Wal-Mart on fall clearance once.

The more common regulator for a grill is very low pressure output, measured in inches of water column, not psi. Those won't work.

**** warning , cheap and dangerous inside****

I have used (and still do use) a BBQ regulator that I modified to give me adjustable output. Caveat is that it will only work on the regs that have a threaded cap over the center of the diaphram. I removed the cap and replaced the spring with a bit of aluminum tube, press fit into the adjuster nut. The tube now presses on the diaphram, rather than the wussy little spring. I have a nail through the tube as a handle. I can adjust from "unable to read on gauge" to "off the scale" on the $2, 0-20 psi pressure guage that I have on the burner.

Pretty much any fuel gas regulator you will be able to find will work for your application if it is adjustable pressure. IIRC the typical red propane reg goes to 40 psi tops. You will not need that much pressure. If your turkey fryer burner is adjustable, it'll probably be just fine.

All the fittings I ran across were either 1/8 or 1/4 npt except on the gas hose, and it used the same fittings as the ones on my Oxy-acet gas lines. YMMV

I built one of the EZ burners and it worked pretty well. I used the basic drawing of the mini-mongo and made an even simpler burner (4 parts) of same proportions, but nor screwed together pipe fittings. My version uses a turned bushing with the nipple running through the center and all held in with a single 1/4" bolt.

Cheers Trevor Jones

Interesting, but doesn't this simply turn the regulator into a needle valve? I thought the spring was needed for regulation. Your idea would make more sense to me if the screw adjusted pressure on the spring. I fully admit, though, I'm no expert on regulators. This is just what makes sense to me in my present level of ignorance.

Jim

I got the idea looking at other regs. The adjuster in them was just a threaded rod pushing on the diaphram. Figured it should work the same and it did. The spring I removed was about as strong as a bic pen spring, with an adjuster nut bearing on it to fine tune the (low) pressure. You may be right. I may well have converted it into a complicated needle valve. I use a ball valve shut-off between the tank and the reg, so it has not caused me any trouble. It was/is a cheapass solution that has not given me any greif so far. YMMV

Cheers Trevor Jones

I would be truly amazed if the fryer regulator would work. If there is a farrier supply shop in your area, they will likely have a suitable one.

Ted

Jay Hayes ( snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net ) has a full line of propane forge supplies. He's good people and a fellow metalworker in his own right. (Blacksmithing variety.) :)

Nothing amazing about it. The typical turkey fryer (Cajun cooker, crab boiler, etc) burner is quite similar to the Reil type in pressure/volume characteristics.

I checked the regulators I got at Wal-Mart: Package sez "King Kooker" brand "high pressure regulator & POL", model #00502. The casting of the regulator itself sez "Marshall Gas Controls Inc" and "Model 350". It is

2.5" dia by about 2.5" overall high, with 1/4" NPT female fittings for in and out (with brass POL nipple on the "in" side). The adjustment projects through a red plastic cap, being a 1.75" long roll pin inserted into a 3/8" dia projecting shaft.

I got these a year or two ago on clearance for $5/each. This year's crop I expect will have the outside-type propane tank fitting instead of the POL nipple.

I've used these with various sized Reil burners I've made, from 3/4" pipe to 1-1/4" pipe, with great success.

That sentence perfectly describes my setup. (G) I had no regulator, so I used a needle valve for flow control, in line with a ball valve for shutoff. It works well enough for me. Actually, there are two needle valves. The second one is in an idler circuit, in parallel with a second ball valve that bypasses the idler for the full blast. It's what I had on hand at the time, and it's worked fine for a couple years now.

Jim