BACOENG 5 Gallon Tempered Glass Lid Stainless Steel Vacuum Chamer Perfect for stabilizing Wood, Degassing Silicones, Epoxies and Essential Oils

I’ll be blunt. I have three vacuum chambers. All are Bac Eng because the quality is second to none. I have a small one for epoxy, a mid sized acrylic one for short term vacuum and special projects that require visibility. And of course this 5 gallon beast. I use it for storing things that require long term vacuum storage. This chamber was purchased almost a month ago and I pulled a vacuum on it all the way down to -28.5 inHg. I just checked it and it’s reading -28 inHg after all this time. That’s absolutely astounding for a vacuum chamber to hold for that long and barely lose any vacuum. The very thick tempered glass lid is a great innovation and is the reason for the incredibly effective consistent vacuum. Easily one of the best purchases I’ve made in a long time. Highly recommended.

Love the size of the tank, I needed a larger diameter tank - not a taller one. Most 5 Gallon tanks are taller, this one is wider. Tank quality is solid. Lid quality is solid. I don't like the valve/gage quality. My smaller tank of half-the-price had better valves and worked right off the bat. This one even with light tightening, firm tightening, and tight-tightening, has yet to keep the vac solid. My much cheaper tank will hold -30hg for 4 days without touching it. This one I've yet to have it not loose 2hg within 3 hours. Tempted to just contact the cheaper-pot company and ask them for a gage set instead.

Does a great job for getting air out of epoxy resin - Make sure that resin is not to top of container - I have had it overflow several times - 3/4 of the container or less is what has worked for me - Very happy with results

The pot leaked around the hole where the air is sucked out of the pot where the vacuum gauge is mounted. It would only hold vacuum for a few minutes before all vacuum was totally gone. I tried to tighten the setup (hex nuts) that was provided from the factory and found it could not be tightened enough and squashed the rubber washers to the point of potential damage. After trying several different things and testing my various fixes I added a flat steel washer on both sides of the pot next to the rubber washers that came with the pot. The steel washer allowed the setup to be tightened enough without damaging the rubber washers to create a leak proof seal. I tested the vacuum over night and it is now holding vacuum as it should have from the factory. This ended up being a simple fix for me because I had the parts and tools, however, I should have never had to do this on a brand new vacuum pot. Every thing else has worked fine since I did my repair (only used it about 10 times so far). For someone who does not have the tools, parts and know how to perform the fix I did this item would have had to be returned and I would have been very upset. Had the vacuum pot worked from the start I would have given a 5 star rating based on value for the money and ease of operation. One nice coincidence is the vacuum pump and hoses all fit in the stainless steel pot. I used a bungy cord to hold the lid on during storage.

First things first, product does what it says on the tin. I can run this down to ~30"hg as indicated and it will hold there for hours. As others have noted, the valve+gauge mount to the body is flimsy and kinda just hangs there. Any force applied (like, having a vacuum hose attached) means the entire thing will twist to one side and hang at a weird angle. This doesn't seem to affect the performance of the unit, but it's a poor design and everyone using this will immediately run into this problem. Also, my unit came with the exhaust valve setup incorrectly, such that you need to be able to run the handle through the sidewall chamber itself to actually close the thing. I sent a support request to BACOENG on their web site, received an automated reply that a ticket was created, then never heard another peep. The fix wound up being easy enough (just unscrew the handle, give it a half-twist, then put it back on), but I would expect that A) the unit would come assembled correctly, and B) BACOENG would respond when asked about it. I don't expect all things to be perfect, but I do expect the vendor to deal with it. Two stars knocked off for all of the above. If you buy this thing, don't expect to get any support or response at all from the vendor.