I had a cheap air pressure regulator/water filter mounted on the wall from the air compressor. Yesterday while the pressure was building up I heard an air leak so I wander over to check it out and felt it leaking at the bottom of the trap. Decided I should go ahead and disconnect it. As Im reaching for the hose BOOM, and felt it hit my knee. Son of a beach that hurt. Had a pair of worn out jeans with holes in them so I tear em open a little more and find two pieces of what was left inside my pants. Counted eight cuts and punctures on my knee and shin but thankfully nothing serious, feel pretty lucky about that. I sure am glad it didn't go when I had my hand cupped around it. Here's most of the parts I found in my quick search, found a few more later. I'll never use one of these again.
Man, that's spooky. I'll never be able to trust mine again. Lucky it didn't catch you in the face/eyes. It'd be hard to draw those *****en illsutrations with no eyeballs!
Yeah, that hurts all right. I had an airline oiler, similiar design, blow the fill plug out into my face years ago. Lots of oil, dirt and pieces of plug in my face, good thing I had safety gl***es on so no damage done. Be thankful you still had the outer shield in place over the bowl. Without that, it could have been much worse. I see lots of these things without the shield and it's just not a good idea to take it off.
Yeah, what brand. I was going to buy a couple $19.99 ones at Harbor Freight this weekend, so my air stays dry in the sandblaster. Now I'm not so sure that's a good idea.
I think this one was a HDC unit, Air Filter-Regulator-Lubricator unit. It looks like Harbor Freight has the same one just a different color, item # 42035-OVGA for $29.95. I've had this one installed for about a 1.5-2 years. The shield and bowl are plastic, go for a metal one! In another line I have an all metal regulator then a metal filter down line for several years and have never had a problem with it. I'm going to do the same thing in this line.
Was that trap in a cold location? I had a metal trap blow last winter when the temps dropped very low. It was in a corner where it didn't get enough heat; and the trapped water froze and fractured the housing. (yeah, I know, should drain them more often) It spread pieces all over the shop; fortunatly no one was in the shop when it happened. I now have an appreciation of what a hand grenade does!
No, it was warm that day and never gets below freezing in the winter. I think the air pressure forcing the plunger closed caused the plastic bowl to start splitting, built up a little more pressure and BOOM.
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