Yellow Jacket Hand-held vacuum gauge 69086 Thoughts?

[Outkast]

I bought one about a week ago used it only on new linesets with a shutoff tee that I closed before opening valves. It worked great for about 7 installs. It just started reading error code 4. I just want to know if anyone else has had issues? Should I buy another make/model? Johnstone replaced it but I wanna have something that is dependable as I am doing at least one install a day.

[2story]

Buy a back up, I had similar issue with my YJ they made it right, but a back up gives you the ability to compare the two tools and not be caught with you pants down. My #2 is a CPS I like it too.

[nikolatesla]

These digital guages ,all of them are NOT what you might think . They work only at higher vacuum and any oil on the sensor renders them useless ..untill you clean the oil .

You wont know there is oil so it is best to take as many precautions as you can.

I used the recommended alcohol method and was not successful..degreaser worked much better but Perhaps I was lucky with the particular petroleum based degreaser i used ,be careful with this.

I have both the yellow jacket and the round uei gauge ..they both suffer that same fate ...the uei is not as rugged and if you get oil contamination it wont even start which is very misleading and not mentioned in the manual ...nor is error 3 listed in th yellow jacket manual as OIL contamination.so thumbs down to both of them for not supplying the most basic of customer information...it says "contact your supplier"

The uei has a few useful tools like leak rate and alarm when set level reached

They are way overpriced for what is in them so i predict a chinese knock off in the near future

So make sure that it is always at the top with the inlet facing down at all times with a length of clear tube before the guage . You must fit a valve just before the guage and only take a reading after you are happy that you have a good vacuum already. Having said all this, there is nothing that is as accurate at high vacuum and there are times when too much info may not be a good thing .
But learn to use them and keep them clean you will never look back.
Some body here kindly pointed out that these thing dont measure vacuum at all ..they measure thermal conduction that varies in a a vacuum .

Thanks to all here who helped me with this by posting a few of the clues here .

[earlburnermann]

My sensor became oil fouled on a job and it was nice to be able to just screw in a clean one and keep going. Nice feature.

[hvacrmedic]

Mine acted the same way, same error code and sometimes a different code. Sent it off and it came back with a new, apparently upgraded, sensor. No issues so far except for one occasion of oil fouling. A rinse with alcohol cured that. The cord appears to be permanently attached to the new sensor whereas the old one could be disconnected. I suspect it was a poor connection in the sensor plug causing the error codes.

[71CHOPS]

Bluvac

[agnes]

Yellow jacket vacuum gauge 69086. has "error code 4". is indicating there is no communication between the gauge and the sensor. possible causes are...
1. sensor not calibrated to the gauge.
2. bad connection.
3. gauge turned on before connection is made.
4. connecting cable plugged in backwards into the gauge. the clip should be facing the front of the gauge.
5. connection pins bent or blocked.
6. faulty sensor

[jayguy]

Bluvac

Yup

[joemach]

Again... Bluvac