gore tex vent?

General Discussion
21

I’m gunna be calling them to see if Gore ship internationally.

Quote:

some kids leave there bikes on the lawn

some kids leave theres in the shed

Ha ha, thats classic.

Never was a truer thing said.

The main thing I was after was a vent thats been time proven for this application, so i’ve been looking in sailboarding circles.

The guy from carbon-art was definitely taking me for a ride… but the guy who supplies me pu/pe stuff has quoted me NZ$30 for ones made by Bennett, just not sure if it’s possible to get them without buying the windsurfer they are attached too :slight_smile:

At that price, either it’s the industry mark-up, or there is actually something different about them.

I fully buy into the breathable vent idea.

The theory holds with all my basic engineering principles.

I think it really has merit, heres the reasons:

Constantly equalised pressure, means that if you ding your board, it won’t take a big gulp of water as it breathes in to equalise.

theboardlady.com mentions this as well.

EPS absorbs very little water when pressure is not present - this is very important. Soak a piece of EPS in water, weigh it before and after.

Jumping up and down on your board is like jumping on an air mattress, it’s gotta bulge out somewhere else.

The breathable vent means it doesn’t have to, so less stress on the shell of the board.

This will give benefits in the long term, after thousands of cycles.

The jumping up and down is a diaphragm pump, blowing air out any minor ding or even a minute pin hole, then sucking water back in.

You can absorb ridiuculous amounts of water like that…

The breathable vent stops this, as the air can go in and out it more freely, without taking on water.

If you surf with a ding your not that smart (oops I did it), if you surf with a ding that breathes more (bigger) than your vent, you’re mad!

Oh, and the least important benefits, like not having to remember to unscrew it!

One of those screw Goretex ones would be good though, so you can unscrew it to blow air through if necessary, whilst getting the breathable benefits.

Kit

22

Thanks for the link. I’m in to help out on spreading the large min buy if necessary. PM me. I’m definitely interested, and I have a 1# compsand in the works and on the plans that could definitely use one.

In fact, I’m going to press the component guys at work to tell me why I can’t use this on my next commercial space payload electronic box. I can’t wait to tell them I got the info from some surfer dudes. [edit] Can’t use them in space…water vapor.

23

i think your right as usual kit

i would hope that a board with equalized pressure wouldn’t suck as much water when dinged

24

I was very interested in these vents, and I contacted WL Gore and got their pricing. The vents are about $3.00 each, but the minimum order is 1000 pieces. They told me that Surftech will be using these on their products. I was looking at making a glass-in housing for these similar to an FCS plug and marketing them. At $3,000 + the cost of the housings, it would take a couple of years to break even. The metal screw-in types that you have to manually close before going in the water are a more reasonable alternative. If anyone is still interested in the Gore vents, you can see them on the headlight covers on most '07 GM cars. These are not the high flow ones, so they wouldn’t be suitable for boards.

25

maybe we can make a slush fund

and all put together through sways

or am i tripping

id be in for 20 odd

980 to go

26

i’m in for a hundred

27

I’ll go for 40

28

we might be able to get smaller amounts if we pay a bit more

kit said he might have a contact

29

Fosta, the IP65, IP67 numbers on the Gore data sheet aren’t models, those are test specifications that the vent meets. KK, I’m curious if the quote you got on the Bennett vents included a glassing housing for the vent. I can understand pricing of $30 NZ based on a minimum buy from Gore, especially if there is tooling for a molded housing involved. I’ve worked professionally with WL Gore in the past, so I know how they do business. The 1000-piece min is so they can recoup their tooling investment as fast as possible. They don’t have a large range of these vents, and they have elected to not run any inventory quantities (or else they’d sell in smaller numbers). This indicates to me that they haven’t sold very many, and the 1000-piece min is what it take to fire up the mold and do the assembly within their financial parameters (that also why it’s 4-6 weeks for delivery). Regardless, I hate companies that advertise a product like it was off-the-shelf, but in reality every order is a custom run.

30

i am IN for a [silly] sways pot

reduce cost by bulk purchasing

everybody happy

31

15

32

wouter is IN for 15 plugs too!

33

Put me down for 50.

34

Im confused. That should not be a surprise. Who’s ordering these and how much are they?

35

Gidday Pete,

I’ve talked to the Australian branch of WL Gore recently.

The guy told me that Bennett make their own custom housing for the vents, which would explain the high price tag.

Someone needs to make sure we’re not looking at the goretex discs on their own, without a housing.

The discs by themselves don’t flow enough air, unless you go for a very big diameter one.

The POV vents come in their own housing, flow heaps of air, and I was quoted A$12 each, minimum order 50.

They look pretty ugly though, 17mm (approx 3/4") diameter, hex shaped.

Heres the link:

http://www.gore.com/MungoBlobs/677/129/membrane_vents_M12x1.5.pdf

36

A few weeks ago I traded John Mellor a Gore POV/M12x1,5 for one of his style vents that he posted above.

The POV/M12x1,5 recommends a 60 degree chamfer for the o-ring seal. How thick is your skin? Look where the threads start. Will you have enough composite sandwich skin for having enough threads for the vent? You’ll have to tap the skin and put that chamfer in there if you want a good seal. I guess you could bail on the o-ring and install with 5200 or similar. Maybe put a patch of pvc of appropriate thickness (for the chamfer and threads of the vent) in your blasa skin so you can drill and tap into.

That hex cap comes off very easily. A good wipeout and it would pop off for sure. A few dabs of superglue might help though.

I also have the Gore-Tex membrane discs with adhesive on one side that look like they’d work well in that in-house made plug like Bert made in that picture above. I am currently working on that. Pour your plugs like Bert showed and put them in a vacuum chamber if you want to make sure no bubbles end up in the plug. I’m going to use a resin catch tank I use for resin infusion for the vacuum chamber. Get a set-screw of the appropriate size and drill a hole in it, put the Gore-Tex membrane with the adhesive on the bottom of the set-screw and add an o-ring (maybe one of those square sided o-rings) with a slight coating of silicone grease just for extra measure…voila Flush deck vent. I kinda feel this might be the better way.

400×600 11.9 KB

37

I’m ok with the regular screw vents but remember we’re the people making em. The customers are all used to NOT having a vent and most people don’t understand why it has to be vented so I’m in for 50pcs.

Jimmy.

38

John’s version might be the most plug and play if you trust that the sealant you use makes the install water tight. Just drill a hole and seal it in with 5200 or similar. The large base should accommodate that.

39

Hi Glenn -

I finally received a price per unit quote… they will run approximately 6 bucks a pop and will probably need a dab of glue to make sure the cap doesn’t come off. The stem is long enough to penetrate most any composition skin. The base of the vent can be glued to the deck surface or perhaps recessed in a molded leash plug type of device for a flush fit.

Either way, the main membrane looks like the Gore Tex discs with o-ring attached as per Gore Tex site. The spec sheet lists the membrane as Gore Tex. The big black one in Glenn’s hand is one of the samples I received. The other side is slightly domed with three vent slots. The body material is ABS plastic so 5200 should be OK to attach to deck.

If anybody is interested, I will be placing an order in the next couple of days. I suspect a small quantity discount would be available if I order enough but 6 bucks is the approximate unit price for a 100 dollar minimum order. I’m not looking to make anything on these… just recover expenses.

40

John, please PM me and let me know the Gore rep who you spoke with. They provided a very specific price list to me and everything was 1000 minimum. Just for everyone’s information, the M12 x 1.5 POV vents are the ones that look the gray bolts in the previous photo. The membrane is under the hex head and the housing is probably ultrasonically welded together. The POV vents will need to be changed (I think about 2x per year), so they need to be easy to remove. The O-ring on them needs to have a 60 degree chamfer on the receiving hole, and the POV must be torqued down tight to seal it. This is why I was using a machined, glass-in insert (PVC) as an internally threaded receiver, which also allows it to be recessed from the board surface. It didn’t make sense to me to try a home-brew housing for a membrane when it is already done with the M12 POV.