Valves for Inflatables - The Numbers Will Surprise You
When we first starting designing the airCap pressure gauge, we had to make a choice about what inflation valve to design it for. So many choices! We did our research and finally settled on the Leafield C7/D7 inflation valve, partly due to its use by our local boat manufacturer, NRS. This is why we refer to this first pressure gauge as the airCap LF, for 'Leafield’.
For our next product, we dug into more and more types of valves that existed on the market, both domestic and international. We chose the Halkey Roberts as the next inflation valve to support, and named the new pressure gauge airCap HR, for ‘Halkey Roberts’. What has been particularly challenging about this design is the shear number of derivatives of this inflation valve. So far we have identified more than 11 different designs by either Halkey Roberts or other manufacturers.
With this many different valves on the market, how is anybody supposed to know what they have in their boat? There are pictures and descriptions of different valve types scattered all over the internet, but we wanted to put together a comprehensive set with high quality images and then make it available to everyone. This is how our valve identification page was born, check it out here: https://www.triboutdoor.com/valve-identification. We will continue to add new valve types as we come across them, but if you have one you’d like to see, just shoot us an email.