Building a DIY Pressure Tester
Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2021 5:30 pm
AKA How to burn a $50 Amazon Gift Card
I finally broke down and built a pressure tester. OK, built may be a little strong as it only has an off the shelf housing, 2 adapters, a pressure gauge and a valve. Everything was purchased from Amazon, but you may be able to save some money on the parts that aren’t the filter housing if have a Home Depot nearby.I had Teflon tape, wire for a holder, wrenches and an old bike pump so this was well under $50.
A cheap AliExpress pressure tester would be about $100, so I figured this would be a good route to go.
I am glad that I did this as the thing works well. I have found that my stainless MK1 that is rated at 30m passed a 90m test! I had expected that the actual water resistance of this watch was more than 30m, but I didn’t expect it to be 3x the listed rating. 9bar/9atm/90m is where my bike pump tops out, but this is fine for my needs
I basically followed the instructions from an old WUS thread (https://www.watchuseek.com/threads/diy- ... 0.4319282/). If you have a compressor, then you can get a fitting for that instead. Read the original thread and you will see what I mean.
For my build I used the following parts:
Pentek 158110 3/8" #5 Slim Line Clear Filter Housing $21
Powermate Vx 032-0025RP Pressure Gauge $6
Milton (S-684-4) 1/4" MNPT Male Tank Valve $6.75
KOOTANS 4pcs Heavy Duty 3/8 NPT Male Thread to 1/4 NPT Female Thread Brass Reducer $10.75
Total $44.50
I finally broke down and built a pressure tester. OK, built may be a little strong as it only has an off the shelf housing, 2 adapters, a pressure gauge and a valve. Everything was purchased from Amazon, but you may be able to save some money on the parts that aren’t the filter housing if have a Home Depot nearby.I had Teflon tape, wire for a holder, wrenches and an old bike pump so this was well under $50.
A cheap AliExpress pressure tester would be about $100, so I figured this would be a good route to go.
I am glad that I did this as the thing works well. I have found that my stainless MK1 that is rated at 30m passed a 90m test! I had expected that the actual water resistance of this watch was more than 30m, but I didn’t expect it to be 3x the listed rating. 9bar/9atm/90m is where my bike pump tops out, but this is fine for my needs
I basically followed the instructions from an old WUS thread (https://www.watchuseek.com/threads/diy- ... 0.4319282/). If you have a compressor, then you can get a fitting for that instead. Read the original thread and you will see what I mean.
For my build I used the following parts:
Pentek 158110 3/8" #5 Slim Line Clear Filter Housing $21
Powermate Vx 032-0025RP Pressure Gauge $6
Milton (S-684-4) 1/4" MNPT Male Tank Valve $6.75
KOOTANS 4pcs Heavy Duty 3/8 NPT Male Thread to 1/4 NPT Female Thread Brass Reducer $10.75
Total $44.50