Posted by rorschach on November 20, 1998 at 01:59:05:
In Reply to: Re: My Review of the CTC XL 1000 posted by Zoog on November 20, 1998 at 00:07:47:
the ctc has no real "readable" gauge.
here's what the tubing is like: coming off the piston is it REAL skinny, maybe one third the width of standard kaplan tubing. it does not come with the white connector you and i both have used with our kaplan stuff. at the end of the tube, there is a flared connector tube, the same width as our current tubing. this could connect to the cylinder included, but you'd have to forgo the "screw" piece, which as i;ve said is essential.
the black screw assembly is not a guagge by any means. it acts more like the "trigger release" on the kaplan hand pump. twisting the screw left loosens it and lets air escape, to the right tightens it and makes for a stronger vacuum. so you have to judge by how it feels reallly, not by any number system. there is a section of the tube which is really wide, like an inch of the tube going to the screw, and ctc says this is supposed to be the guage. it "collapses" when there's more vacuum. kinda useless, other than a general idea. i know other guys have simply spliced their real guage into the included tubing. since i've never used a real guage, i can't tell you how.
so the screw thingie is like a screw with two tubes attached to it, one going in, one going out (it's difficult to describe, i know). the problem is, both entrance and exit are the same size. so withh the tubing included, you can't even hook up the cylinder they've included! what i had to do was take a little piece of my kaplan tubing, cut off like two inches, and hook it up that way so the new cylinder had a large enough tube to connnect to it.
you definitely can use your kaplan cylinders, you just have to save the tube. take it off of your hand pump and hook up the open end to the black screw. then the other end will have the white connector you need.
keep pumpin'
rorschach