Pressure gauge on tank blew

[Deleted member 47391]

Hello everyone, new here but not so new to PCP stuff.

Yesterday I was filling my tank and when the pressure was about 2,800 psi the gauge on the tank valve ruptured and the jet of high pressure blasted the tank off the bench and it hit my foot and ankle. Hurt a bit but I jumped out of the way not knowing where this rattle snake tank was going to go. The air hose stayed put and kept things tame. Now I'm a bit gun shy when filling up! Not really. I know eye protection is good to wear for this type of catastrophic failure but that would not have helped my foot. trip to scuba shop tomorrow for a new gauge.

 

[Vskuma]

Yikes. Sure glad you're okay. I had something similar happen to my Yongheng compressors guage recently.

 

[Gerry52]

Like I've said before, the cheap gauges & fittings are more likely to "blow" than the tanks themselves. Glad nothing serious occurred.

 

[Chukar60]

Sooner or later every Bourdon tube will fail. Some sooner than others.
Glad you didn’t get hurt.

 

[Geezerhood]

Having experienced some hose whip in the past, I do get nervous when getting in close to check gauges and for leaks in connections. Funny how the owner's manuals say "Don't look directly into the gauge!" then a few sentences later they tell you to carefully watch the gauge and stop filling as soon as you reach the intended pressure. Pretty hard to read a gauge from the wrong angle at a distance!

After reading this post, I plan on securing my tank with some strong tie downs or in a secured bag or cage, for filling, once it arrives so that any component failures would not allow it to blast off like a missile. I also am considering figuring out some way to read the gauges on the pump easily while standing on the other side of a barrier of some kind so as to not be in harms way if something fails.