We had a handful of ideas on how to better seal the end caps. Our goal was to reach 3.4 psi. The new caps weren’t ready yet so we used the existing caps. This made the test easer to measure. We know how much the existing cap seals leak. We tried each modification. On each we could barely get the air beam above 1 psi! The frustration was showing on everybody’s faces. Nothing was working. We setup the air beam as we had it before when we reached 3 psi. Still, we could get no higher than 1 psi.
We finally found the source, small cracks had formed in the foam around the gauge seal. That was it for the day. We could eject a sealant into the cracks, but than it would take 24 hours to cure. We decided to pull the valve and gauge and use them in the new cap design.
The working pressure for the ribs on Ascender 100 will be 1.7 psi. At that pressure the rib has the strength needed. We want the rib to be able to take double that, 3.4 psi as a safety margin.
I’m writing up some notes on 2008. It was a great year for JPA. I’ll have it here in a couple of days.
