I posted a couple days ago https://lemmy.ca/post/48328336 complaining about losing 2-5 psi per day and always having to top up air.
This was because all the tire pressure gauges I was using were utter GARBAGE. It seems this is the norm. Not only are the gauges on air pumps wrong, the air pumps are even wrong about how much air they put out.
This led me to believe I had leaks in my tires. Because every time I test them with the built in gauge, they would show up as random-ass numbers. And when I pumped air into them, it gave me more garbage about how much went in.
I was sure I had pumped too much air into the tires. Turns out they never had enough air to begin with since I received it off the delivery truck. I’ve been riding 2300km a fair bit deflated.
Now to relearn how my bike handles (because for some reason, every time I inflated it the bike handled better 🙄😒). Just noob things.
My bike has held a constant exact pressure for 24h and is finally at recommended psi. Moral of the story, research accurate and calibrated digital tire gauges and don’t trust air compressors either.
Me again. This is sound advice. I have owned a myriad of air pumps over the years both hand operated (bicycle pumps) and electric.
I have never received one with an accurate gauge on it. Never ever, not once in decades.
The one I currently have living in the trunk of my car is a Slime branded “heavy duty” pump with an all metal housing that’s held up remarkably well over the years and has bailed out many a poor sod on the side of the road along with my plug kit. Its gauge is off by like 10 whole PSI and it has been since day one. It consistently over-reports, so if it says you’re at 30 PSI you’re actually around 20. I keep an old Ingersoll-Rand dial gauge from the 1990s in the zipper case with it that probably cost me about two thirds of what the pump itself did. but I have to, because it’s actually accurate.
My ostensibly nice bicycle pump is off by about 7. The regulator on my shop air compressor is pretty accurate, but that’s a pain in the ass. Pencil gauges are useless. Don’t even consider one, not for 79 cents and not for five bucks.
For working on things the garage I have a digital gauge. The only downfall with these is that they’ll drive you nuts with eating batteries all the time. If you don’t need portability, do yourself a favor and find one that takes AA or AAA cells instead of watch batteries. For field use I have a tiny button cell powered one that takes two LR44s, and I’ve just resigned myself to having to replace the cells at the beginning of every season.
None of this should be this difficult. It’s downright irritating, I’ll tell you what.
My digital gauge takes 2 AAA batteries and fits nicely under my seat next to my compressor :)
None of this should be this complicated I agree. I’ve grown a bit more insane these last couple days.
Makes me wonder about my air compressor now. Do you have any recs?
Well, just always use an external guage. The guage on pumps are just not accurate
Any air compressor is fine. You just also need to test afterwards with a calibrated gauge. That’s what I did. I found that roughly 4 psi on my $30 portable pump is actually closer to 1 psi with my gauge.
So I went back and forth a bit. Pump, measure, pump, measure.
