Recommended vacuum gauges?

You don’t need to see a 0.001 mBar, you won’t reach that at all and it’s not important whit composites. If you see values of 1 mbar it’s enough. If you reach 1 mbar or 0,999 mBar it doesn’t matter. It’s important to see what is your (absolute) vacuum and does it leak or not. I even don’t work with an absolute gauge, but that’s an other thing :D.

Yes I have one. Works fine here but it isn’t the best gauge. Did you clean it some time with alcohol or something ? An analog gauge doesn’t show a drop of a few mbar and a digital does. The Vg64 is a very good gauge for me to test pumps and also for infusion. Leak test in a few minutes because of the 0,000 numbers.

Yes, but I’m not talking a few mbar. I mean mine will read 29.55 or 29.60 while my bag has 100% leaked down. Or it will sit there just showing “atm” while the bag won’t leak down at all for days.

For the most part it works well, and I can usually tell when I’ve got a sealed bag when it starts going over 29.80. But the inconsistency makes me not trust it which defeats the purpose a bit.

Have you cleaned it already ?

No I haven’t, but it isn’t that old. 3 months or so. It would be lucky to have seen 10 hours.

What do you normally pull apart and clean?

It can be dirty after one time. Just open de vac side and put some alcohol in it, close the vac side and shake it a bit. After that open both sides, drain the alcohol out and let it air for a minute or so.