Not Happy with XT Leak Tester

[Tex_Recoil]

Hello all, 

I did forum and google search looking for Good and Bad Review on the XT Leak Tester and Instructions that were better than what came with the device. I had No luck, finding any such Information and so Im here posting. Plus no place to give a bad review or feed back. I bought my,  XT Leak Tester straight from Corsair.com site . Before anyone gets mad about this post, Im a corsair product user of over of 15+ years and I'm a decent mechanic with set's of gauges to pressure test compression on vehicle motors, sets of gauges to recharge vehicle ac units as well. So when I got this tiny little tester (Xt Leak Tester) I was very disappointed that it didnt seem to be no better than a cheap tire pump for RC Cars. I dont know if it was just the product I recieved but my tester came loose, gauge head was loose. The coupler for the hose attachment unscrewed (dont know if thats ment to be that way or not.) Anyways after reading the few lines of instructions and realizing that those insturction lacked any real knowledge or help. I decide to try and get this thing working, with out going into everything I did.  I gave up on the POS and went back to leak testing the old way with liquid and paper towels. I couldnt get the tester to hold any pressure at all even with using teflon tape on connection area.  I dont know if Corsair does any product/ customer hands on review of items that they put the company name on. The XT Leak Tester needs to be fixed. My Two Cents. Hope Someone reads this and fix it.

[BlaiseP]

I looked up the "Hydro X Series XT Pressure Leak Tester Tool Kit" and it appears to be inspired by the "Aquacomputer Dr. Drop Pressure Tester" (and others) and suffers from the same issues that stopped me using my "Dr. Drop" unit. You rely on the pump seal itself not leaking and therefore cannot be relied upon for testing loop integrity.

I use the "EK-Leak Tester" which has a ball valve between gauge and the pump connector. Once you pump up your loop, you close the valve thus removing the pump from the equation. Alas, this tester has gone EOL and has been replaced by the newer "EK-Loop Leak Tester Flex". The "Flex" (I don't own one) in my opinion is a big step backward as it foregoes the ball valve for a plastic check valve which adds a fail point for air escaping so much that the EK product manual  dedicates a page to "WHAT TO DO IN CASE YOU NOTICE A PRESSURE DROP". There still appears to be stock of "EK-Leak Tester" out in retail land and I believe it to be more reliable from a mechanical point of view. As for it lacking the flexible connector; just add a length of soft tubing terminated with a couple of appropriate G1/4" soft tubing fittings if you need it.

[Tex_Recoil]

Thank for the information, I will try and find that ek-loop leak tester for the next pc build I do. But like I said I did the old way with liquids and papertowels and the system isnt leaking. Just hate that corsair is selling a product that is cheap.

[LeDoyen]

... and as you found out, if you are not all thumbs, you don't need a leak tester anyway 🙂

Byksky is selling the exact same leak tester Corsair has.. Who copied who.. either way, they are both bad.

The Barrow one seems to have the same layout as the EK one. a valve to isolate the pump and leave the gauge in pressure. Maybe that can be another option if the EK is out of stock everywhere.

Or you could make your own using the corsair tester simply as a pump.

If you have spare fittings, it's just a matter of getting a gauge and a thread adapter bushing, mounted on a T fitting downstream of a ball valve. Custom loop might as well have custom leak testers 😛