The Beginners Guide to Leak Testing - Part 4a: Essentials of Leak Testing Instruments and Equipment (2024)

Joe Pustka | Aug 19, 2024

Leak Testing Basics

4 MINUTES TO READ

With the leak instruments on the market today, there is an abundance of features that can provide value for your lab and production environments, but those features can become cumbersome when trying to understand if they are valuable or not for your use case. During this part of the beginner’s guide to leak testing series, we will review the features of one of our most popular pressure decay instruments, the Qualitek mR, to help you understand why each highlighted feature is important and valuable for your leak testing needs. In part 2, we discussed and reviewed the two types of pressure decay test methods, gauge decay and differential pressure decay. In this part of the series, we’ll be using the differential pressure decay model of the Qualitek mR as our example but many of the same features are enabled for our gauge decay model.

A Dive into the Qualitek mR Functions and Features

If you're not familiar with the Qualitek mR, it is a versatile leak testing system designed for rapid and accurate detection of leaks across diverse applications. It offers advanced capabilities with a user-friendly interface, making it ideal for both high-volume and precision leak testing needs. Let’s explore what makes the Qualitek mR a standout choice among pressure decay instruments.

1. Robust Enclosure for All Environments

Leak detection instruments like the Qualitek mR are designed for use primarily in an industrial production environment but most don’t know that this type of instrument can be utilized in all types of laboratory and production environments due to the robust instrument design. With our robust enclosure, the most important internal components like the pneumatic system and electronics are protected from dust, water, oil mist, and other possible contaminants that could damage and affect the performance of your instrument during testing.

2. User Friendly Interface

Over the last couple of decades, screen and display technology has made many advancements that have improved the functionality and user capabilities. As time has passed, the idea of what is considered state of the art for display technology has changed drastically. For example, many decades ago, the vacuum fluorescent display (VFD) was considered the golden technology for screens which has since been replaced by liquid crystal displays (LCD) and light emitting diode (LED) screens. The advancements in screen and display technology have significantly enhanced the information that is displayed and has allowed users to view pressure plots for the first time during testing.

Although these new advancements have made the visual aspects of reviewing data easier, the need for improved menu and display navigation has only gotten more important because this has enabled new software functionalities to be added to instruments. For example, with the capability of being able to display pressure plots the need for being able to navigate that pressure plot and find the point at which the pressure dropped, or product became occluded becomes more valuable for data analysis. With the emergence of touch screen displays, the menu structure has become much simpler to navigate, allowing you to find the exact parameter you need within a few seconds. The Qualitek mR is a great example of an instrument that has benefited from these advancements due to its user-friendly interface that provides a simplistic view of data that is easy to read and informative.

3. User Specific Access Control

The availability of data necessitates stringent security measures to ensure its integrity. The Qualitek mR features a lockable key switch that safeguards against unauthorized access, preventing any modifications to programs and ensuring secure data management.

4. USB Ports for Data Management

With the advancements in data reporting capabilities, the sharing of data amongst quality, management, engineering, and laboratory groups has become increasingly important to ensure quality and efficiency during the testing and manufacturing processes. USB port enabled instruments allow for downloading test data and programs onto a portable USB drive with ease and efficiency. With this functionality, a USB port facilitates seamless backup and transfer between instruments, enables easy data sharing for peer review, and allows results to be transferred to another instrument for report generation and statistical analysis. In addition to those benefits, our front-mounted USB ports provide convenient access for quick insertion and removal of the USB device.

5. Easy to Access Calibration Port

A dedicated calibration port optimizes pneumatic circuit design by eliminating the need for T-pieces in the test line or blank-ended tubing. With our Qualitek mR, the front-mounted calibration port is engineered to accept our leak standard, the Leak Master, ensuring streamlined access for a swift and efficient calibration process.

6. Test Start and Stop Buttons

The Qualitek mR features prominent start and start buttons for easy manual benchtop operation, while also offering the flexibility to start and stop the system via discrete I/O or through networks like Ethernet/IP, Modbus, or Profibus. Once a test has completed, the results are displayed on the screen with green or red diamonds indicating that the product has either passed or failed, respectively. The red stop button doubles as a means to abort a test and confirm that particular part being tested is a reject, which will reset the instrument to begin a new test when in manual operation mode. Additionally, in our example instrument, pass and reject results can be displayed in various selectable formats, enhancing user customization and clarity.

7. Improved Display Navigation Controls

In addition to the touch screen display, the Qualitek mR is equipped with additional navigation controls to improve menu access, menu navigation, and allow for easy setup of test program minimum and maximum limits for product analysis. These features include a rotary touch sensitive mouse control and physical push buttons enabling instrument interaction flexibility and allowing different users to pick the navigation control they feel most comfortable with based on personal preference.

8. Swivel Base Mount

As we all know too well, the angle of the display becomes very important due to lighting conditions that may cause a glare on the screen and make it very difficult to read or navigate the instrument. With the Qualitek mR, those issues can be eliminated with our easy to use adjustable tilt and swivel base that allows you to move the screen in a direction or angle that is most beneficial for you.

In Part 4B of the beginner’s guide to leak testing, we’ll continue our dive into the Qualitek mR and focus on the rear features of the instrument.

What's next?

In part 4B we will look at the rear of the Qualitek mR and the features found there. Stay tuned for upcoming posts in our The Beginners Guide to Leak Testing series:

Part 1 - Why Leak Test?
Part 2 - Leak Testing Using Air
Part 4b - Leak Tester Features
Part 5 - How To Buy a Leak Tester

Leak Testing Resources on Demand

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If you're a beginner at leak testing (or know just enough to be dangerous) and need expert help identifying the right test method, process and leak tester for your application, the experts at Uson can help. Uson has helped thousands of product manufacturers around the world with their toughestapplicationchallenges for60 years. We can help you too.Contact ustoday!