We invest so much money in instruments. Last night I was so p***ed I could have threw my vacuum pump and all my **it over the job site fence. I have the 69060, appion access valves (two) A great manifold and every time I hook this complete spider web of hoses, gauges, power cords up, I'm not happy with what I see on my vacuum guage. I'm sitting in front of eleven hundred dollars worth of instruments and I start looking at all these connections. I counted 12 connections external to my line set. Perhaps I'm just frustrated, but I need to check each hose, each connection and my Titan manifold. I want to come up with a better system so I have far fewer connections. I do hook my vac hose directly to my pump rather than use a tree...that would add 3 more connections.

Just looking to see or hear some other set-ups.

I am not sure why you do not use a manifold with black Y/J hoses. I use this

Which I take shrader depressors out and if I need to will use a core tool. I work on transport reefers mostly with multiple evaporators which are a whole lot harder to evac than a residential system. My kid has all kinds of crap like you talk of but yet I seem to get to the micron reading as he does with alot less crap in the same amount of time.

 

Reduce all the clutter and multiple connections, just use your pump, two hi flow vacuum hoses with core tools and your micron gauge. Why do you even need the added possibility of leaks in the manifold set and extra hoses. Try it and I'm sure you will like the simplicity and results, as I was after reading about it on this site some months back.

 

I like to have my vacuum sensor away from the pump. Do you leave yours on the pump?

 

I agree. I have done it on the tree as well, but this seems to cause fluctuations when I valve off the pump. Plus, I do not want to allow all of my connections an oportunity to leak while holding a vacuum. I like to valve off the core remover tools and take a micron reading somewhere else. I still have not found a perfect way to do things. I also don't like to expose the micron gauge to any pressure other than a small nitrogen purge.

 

I'm trying to understand why you're also mad at your pump, since you said the problem is with all those hoses and connections.
I usually try not to pull vacuum with my manifold attached anyway, so if it were me, I would use that vac tree you said you had with two 3/8" vacuum rated hoses along with your access/valve core removers and attach the micron gauge to the 1/4" port on the tree. You can isolate this port from the vac pump with the valve on the tree for a standing vac test. This is my preferred way to do it.

 

I just got home from work, like to see the replies, thanks. I was not frustrated with my pump, just the whole new set-up I'm using.

 

What I should have done and will do from now on is simply ball off my Appions I had on each service port. That would have left my vacuum gauge on the system side to monitor vacuum accurately. This would have gave me a reading with "no" hoses at all, let alone all those connections. :cheers: