KegcoKC 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.

worked right out of the box, very accurate

I've been using this regulator for a few months and it worked great out of the box. I removed the hose barb to replace with a duotight fitting very easily and have not had any leaks. The dial seems accurate compared to other regulators I have and fit perfectly on the CO2 tank. It feels like it's pretty durable and I don't foresee any issues with quality

I will directly quote another review that explains exactly what happened to me right out of the box. Do yourself a favor and buy something made in the USA for a few bucks more. This thing has cost me more CO2 than what I paid for the regulator in the first 3 months. Honesty, if I could give this thing a negative star review, it would be a -10.Review:The line pressure on this regulator creeps while you are using it. But worse, every time you close and then open the tank valve, the pressure will be wildly different from the last time it was open. This means you have to adjust the pressure control, which is very tight and has no handle. Each time I use this, I have to adjust the pressure with a wrench. So that's a big design flaw - most regulators have a handle, knowing the pressure needs to be regularly adjusted to the line.Second, the emergency relief valve randomly engages at line pressures well within the line gauge limit. When opening the tank with the regulator at 45psi, you could either get: a) normal operation, b) random spitting of air out the release valve that sounds like machine gun fire, or c) total relief of the valve and hurricane force gas coming straight out of the side of the regulator. I can't find any reason for this and the only way to get around it seems to be turning the pressure valve way down to a minimum after every single use and then turning it up to operational pressure during each use. ALL WITH A WRENCH, because of the lack of a decent handle.This product is terrible, just awful. 110% Horrible.

Just like several other people that gave a review, the regulator knob is very hard to tun, but I solved this with a #30 wrench socket that gives me more grip (see picture). It's fairly easy to turn it by hand now (I don't need the wrench by the way).I also noticed the gauge gradually loses pressure after I close the main Co2 tank valve, which means that the gauge is slightly leaking somewhere. However, for me that's no problem because I only use it to carbonate water and soda beverages, and I close the main tank valve when I'm done. But, if you need to use continuous pressure, I have my doubts about this gauge, and I would recommend a better quality gauge and regulator.

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.