Yescom 2 Gallon Stainless Steel Vacuum Chamber Tempered Glass Lid kit Degassing Urethanes Silicones Epoxies

This vacuum chamber works and seems to be decent quality. However, the price point should be considered a bit high for the small issues I have noticed and experienced using the chamber.The Good: Heavy gauge glass lid. No worries of plastic lid scratching over time. Pot is steel not aluminum, so it should be less prone to dents or damage. High quality hose. Gauge and valve tree seem decent, but not the best by any means.The Bad: The seal is hard to work with. Once on the pot, the weight of the glass lid is not sufficient to close the seal. I have to press down hard with both hands to get it to seal. It's a bit easier to seal if a small bit of lubricant is on the seal, but care must be taken that too much is not used, otherwise chamber contamination as well as a neutral lubricant (light coat of vegetable oil or shortening{Crisco} only where glass meets silicone). To that end, there were no instructions on assembling or handling this chamber. Also, the hose and connectors are designed to remain connected on both sides. This is not practical, so I added quick connectors to the hose and adapted the fittings. Standard pneumatic quick connectors are designed for positive air pressure to lock the seals, instead I used hydraulic fittings which seal on both positive and negative pressures. Dixon Valve makes the components in brass, 2HF2 and H2F2 that work very well. (no leakage; links below). With the valves closed and the seal in place, it did not hold a vacuum for very long. The Teflon washer included was replaced with rubber seals on both sides of the stem for the gauge tree. The vacuum was held longer after this upgrade. I believe the gauge tree itself is the weak point, or the seal of the glass lid to the pot. I cannot yet test these to determine the leak source. At full vacuum, it leaks slowly but as pressure is lost it slows down more. Pressure is almost ambient after 3 hours. I plan to address the seal to find out if that is the leak point, and I plan to eventually replace the gauge and valve tree to higher quality components. I will update this review when I locate the leak source. Hose clamps are low quality. Seems they saved a few pennies here as well. I already have one that the adjustment screw came out of. Still works, but subject to damage with high torque.The Ugly: The steel pot has a noticeable groove from top to bottom that is the apparent weld point of the pot. At that location to the left is also a minor lip imperfection (small dent) that appears to be a production flaw as the dent protrudes from inside to outside, and not outside in, which would be a sign of transport damage. While this imperfection appears to be cosmetic, it may have some bearing on the vacuum seal and how long the pot can maintain absolute vacuum. (Time will tell the remainder of this story when I replace the seal.)Bottom line: Serviceable vacuum chamber for quick work to degauss materials. If you need to hold the vacuum, you may have leakage issues such as I have. I wanted a steel pot with a glass lid, but the seal and the gauge/valve tree seem to be weak points. Teflon washer seems insufficient to hold vacuum. Rubber washer pair would have been better, as I have done. Hose is not convenient at all, albeit a good quality hose without consideration of the hardware. Dixon Valve H2F2-B Brass ISO-B Interchange Hydraulic Fitting, Nipple, 1/4" Coupling x 1/4" - 18 NPTF Female Dixon Valve 2HF2-B Brass ISO-B Interchange Hydraulic Fitting, Coupler, 1/4" Coupling x 1/4" - 18 NPTF Female Thread

Works for intended purposes, (stabilization of wood). Glass lid is thicker than average and gauge seems to be accurate. No issues with sealing.

In the directions that come with the vacuum chamber there is a link to a video of how to properly seal the valve to the glass top.I learned the hard way by going to my local brick and mortar blue lumber store to buy additional nylon and other makes of washers because I thought they didnt send me all the parts and pieces. I couldnt get the chamber to hold a vacuum.I then decided to read the directions and low and behold there is a video they link that demonstrates how to properly wrap the stem with twisted teflon plumbers tape (included) and once I assembled the lid per the video all was right with the world.I've run over 8 gallons of the Cactus stuff and not a problem with the chamber.The seal that goes around the top of the chamber, if it comes off, is PIA to get back on because after use it becomes rather slick and due to its softness does not grip the top lip very securely until it is all the way on. You need 3 pairs of hands to hold every other inch in place until it is completely in place. Once there it's not a problem.

I got this 5 Gallon Yescom vacuum chamber yesterday. Got it put together (which was straight forward) and put it under vacuum, attaining -28.4 inches (I'm at 2300 ft, so that's a very respectable number for a cheap single stage pump, Robinair 15310) and left it overnight in the shop. After nearly 24 hours (pump off) the pot still has -27.9 inches on the gauge. The .5 loss could well be due to atmospheric pressure change and I consider it to be inconsequential. So this chamber holds its vacuum very well, negating the need to run your pump for extended periods.The quality of the kit is very high. All the components are nicely made. The glass lid is very nicely finished on all edges. I thought about building my own chamber, but for the quality of the parts in this one I doubt I could come close trying to piece together all the components.I would highly recommend this product to anyone wanting to start vacuum chamber work. Just get it and get to work, you won't be able to save much money when you consider what you get here. Your mileage may vary of course, but my time is worth something too, and running around town trying to find parts just doesn't make sense for what you might save on a $133 item.

I really like this chamber and eventhough the capacity is closer to 4.5 Gal it's really nice that the vacuum port is at the top to take advantage of that. I found the gage to be accurate and the valves and plumbing seal very well. It holds vacuum for extended periods.Initially i was using a 1/2 HP, 5 CFM pump which proved to be very underpowered. It would take about 50 min to get the chamber down to -28.5". Remember CFM is not equal to ACFM and my old pump just sucked (pun intended). One thing I didn't like was the fitting that came with the chamber/hose was a 1/4" fitting for connecting to a pump. You really need to use a 3/8" fitting on pumps that have both to get higher flow.With my 1/2 HP pump, i had to kneel with all my weight on the lid to get it to seal before a vacuum would develop.I had to upgrade to a 1 HP 12 CFM pump that works awesome when also using the 3/8" port. I pull down to -29" Hg in under 1 minute now. So with a good pump, I don't have to sit on the lid to get a vacuum started, light pressure is all I need.

This is the best vacuum chamber I have ever had. The was a problem with the guage on it but the seller shipped out a replacement very quickly. Great customer service!

Compré esta cámara por el buen precio y aparte compré una bomba de vacío de 1/3HP para un experimento con madera y resina, ha funcionado bastante bien hasta ahora, vale la pena el precio, solo que es necesario ajustar a veces las conexiones porque dejan de estar apretadas.

Me gusto mucho, sirve perfectamente y cumplio mis espectativas. Lo recomiendo

GREAT PRODUCT WORKS VERY WELL MAKE SURE YOU USE A GOOD VACUM PUMP AND YOU WILL NOT HAVE ANY PROPLEMS.