Not clear on how to adjust pot pressure blaster

Despite having used it a lot, and having watched a lot of videos, I'm still not clear on how to adjust the choke valve and the media valve on my pot pressure blaster.

When adjusting the choke valve, what exactly are we trying to achieve?

And when adjusting the media valve, same question?

Thanks, guys.

The media valve controls the rate at which the blasting media is fed into the hose-nozzle. Too much media and it will not move through the hose to the nozzle. Too little and you are just blasting air.
The choke valve balances air to and through the media with air directly to the nozzle. With my pot blaster you want some air going to the pot, but most of it feeding to the nozzle.
Regardless of where the air pressure is, with my blasters, cabinet and pot, the biggest contributors to getting the media to feed without blockage in the hose is having really dry air to the blast system and really dry media.
When I blast with sand, I dry it prior to using in the oven using a couple of large turkey pans. A couple of hours at 275 F with a couple of stirs. The black beauty blast media I do not dry. But I sift it to remove the sand, fines, chips and chunks of what was blasted free.

Brilliant explanation, my68barracuda. Thanks a lot.

May I ask a follow-up question? It takes about 10 seconds after I open my cougar valve before media starts flowing out of it. That wastes quite a bit of air. What do you think would be causing this?

Bill Crowell said:

Brilliant explanation, my68barracuda. Thanks a lot.

May I ask a follow-up question? It takes about 10 seconds after I open my cougar valve before media starts flowing out of it. That wastes quite a bit of air. What do you think would be causing this?

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It is taking a moment for the media to start dropping from the tank, and get through the media valve, give the tank a kick or a rock as you open the blasting valve. The media stacks up and locks together in the tank so it needs to break free before it can move. If you will be doing a lot of blasting putting a vibrator on the tank down low by the discharge will save a lot of aggravation.