Digital Zeus™ HVAC Tool & Instruments Journal

Zeus’ Gauge Gallery « Digital Zeus™ HVAC Tool & Instruments Journal

Got a unique, special or lucky set of guages?  Analog, digital doesn’t make any difference, if it’s a set that you’re proud of or just attached to for whatever reason we wanna see them.

Send an image of your favorite set to digital.zeus@yahoo.com and we’ll include it in our Gauge Gallery.

Below is a brief excerpt from the Digital Section of the exclusive HVAC PROTech.com®  publication Manifold Gauges: [ΦThe Definitive Guide] available Spring of 2008. The most comprehensive online Guide dedicated completely to the manifold gauge digital and analog, manifold body configurations, hose selection options and benefits, the Bourdon Tube, the diaphragm, transducers. It’s all here. Reserve you Adobe® PDF formatted copy today.

Additional differences in design fundamentals between generations 1 and 2 [Generation 2 pictured below.] are relatively obvious by simple appearance alone. The display screen has been significantly improved, note that the handles have been offset slightly in the second generation version.

               Second Generation Testo 523 RSA.

The handles also retract to provide additional protection when not in use. Both the sightglass as well as the display screen offer backlighting capability. The 523 pictured above was also originally released without a hose holder for the dead end of the hoses, an accessory was later offered that combined blanks for hose parks and a screen protector - this option however, has met with relatively little acceptance by the technican community as a whole. Our own Fieldtests of the 523 revealed that the composition of the accessory was not well suited to lower temperatures [it becomes very brittle] encountered by users in northern climates. Note that the illustration above of the second generation 523 was as it appeared in it’s initial release, prior to the recall exercised by Testo. The revised version of the second generation 523 [illustrated below] included the circled tailpiece, added for protection of the pressure/vacuum inlets.

Second Generation: Version 2 of the 523 RSA. Note the added protection [circled] to the transducer inputs as it compares to the initial release of the second generation 523

The addition of the transducer input protection tailpiece to the revised second generation release of the 523 may hold some significance to the technician that makes a practice of purchasing instruments from online auction sites or distributors such as Ebay. If you see the 523 v.1 without this added protection the instrument has not been returned for the factory recall correction. The recall dealt with a potential compromise in the integrity of the manifold that may have resulted in refrigerant loss. I am not clear of whether any actual occurrences of this potential issue were documented or not, so caveat emptor if a purchase is made without the tailpiece in place on this particular instrument.

•5 year Limited Warranty*, on vacuum gauge
•The TIGAR MiC™ gauge is an easy-to-read 2.5″ / 6 cm diameter analog 30,000-micron dial with 200-micron increments.
•The gauge dial follows the trend back to reliable analog readouts utilized world-wide in industrial applications, all classes of vehicles, and test instruments.           
•Instead of static digital readouts, vacuum readings are displayed progressively and can’t be skewed by moisture/oil contamination.
•An isolation ball valve prevents gauge damage in the event of recovering refrigerant accidentally before obtaining a vacuum.
•No power or batteries are required.