Digital pressure gauge airCap LF for Leafield C-7 D-7 valves

For those who own boats with Leafield C-7 or D-7 valves the New airCap LF allows you, for the most part, to ditch hand held pressure gauges entirely.

The airCap LF is a digital gauge that replaces one or more of your main chamber valve caps, and it reads constantly via a solar panel whenever your boat is outside. You can also use one on your self bailing floor which the manufacturer recommends, though hopefully your pressure relief valves will do it’s job (that said, if p.r. valves always worked perfectly repair shops would never have to fix blown floor I-beams, yet they do – and quite frequently at that).

To install, you remove an existing cap or caps. This is done by working the black plastic tether/lanyard of the cap off the raised asterisk shape that surrounds the valve opening. This can be done with either a small needle nose pliers, or a small flat tip screwdriver. Rather than trying to write a clear description of this easy step, we feel it is better to simply view the short youtube video link below.

Monitor all your air chambers instantly with airCap LF pressure gauge

This video discusses using airCaps on every chamber of your boat. On an inflatable kayak, where the left & right chamber are almost always completely separate entities, that makes good sense. With a raft, whether all chambers really need one depends a lot on how much play your bulkheads have. On many older rafts bulkheads had almost two feet of play. In other words, with moderate pressure in a single chamber and no air in the adjacent one, the bulkhead/baffle could distend a great distance essentially elongating that chamber by several feet, or two feet at each end. However, other rafts have much tighter baffles with far less extraneous material, and they will only distend 8 or 9” either direction. Floppier bulkheads mean your raft will probably do a good job of equalizing pressure between all chambers, whereas tighter ones may not. You can check the distension by simply inflating a single chamber to about ½ or ¾ p.s.i.

airCap LF pressure gauge install location

So whether you order one, two, or a full set for every chamber is up to you. One small concern is that if your valves are mounted rather low on the side tubes, your caps or airCaps may get banged against river rocks. If you are only going to use one airCap LF for the main tube chambers, locate it wherever you feel will be the least vulnerable position.

On very dark cloudy days the readout may fade, but on those type of days you rarely need to be concerned about upward changes in pressure. Oh, and the company name is pronounced “tribe” and is not associated with the AIRE import Tributary brand.

There will also be a version of the airCap HR for Halkey-Roberts valves, though we will list that item separately.

The last detail concerns shipping. If you are only ordering one or two, these can be mailed more economically compared to what UPS will run. However, our cart only calculates UPS fees, so you can either phone the order in or go ahead and use the cart and specify you want the airCap(s) mailed. Our cart does not charge your card, it only authorizes the amount, so we can decrease the shipping fee shown. Typically one airCap would be around $5.50 to mail, and two might be $6.50.