Teledyne Hastings Instruments’ Glass Shop and the DB Series of Reference Tubes

Post publication date:

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

This year, 2019, marked the 75th anniversary of Hastings Instruments and they are celebrating all year long by discussing some of their past while focusing on their future. This article is about their glass shop.

In 1966, Hastings-Raydist purchased the Robert H. Work Company. Work had been a supplier of glass parts for Hastings. The company was then moved into the Hastings plant. At the new location, glass workers began to produce scientific glassware under the Hastings label. Product catalogs in the late 60s and early 70s included McLeod vacuum gauges, calibrated gas leaks, and Pyrex vacuum gauge tubes.

Today, THI still uses his glass shop to build the Hastings Reference Tube. A reference tube is an evacuated, sealed vacuum gauge tube accurately marked at a specific pressure. It is electrically equivalent to our most popular vacuum gauge tube families.

Gauge Tube Family	Range	Reference Tube
DV-4 Series (Purple)	20 Torr	DB-16D
DV-5 Series (Red)	100 mTorr	DB-18
DV-6 Series (Yellow)	1000 mTorr	DB-20

A reference tube can be used with several of our thermal vacuum gauge instruments including the HPM-4/5/6, the VT and CVT, the DVT and DCVT, and even the DAVC controller.

Quotation/Info request

So the reference tube tells you that your electronics and cabling are working correctly. Note that a reference tube will not directly tell you anything about the state of your gauge tube. But through process of elimination, you can often determine that the gauge tube needs to be replaced. You can learn more about troubleshooting thermocouple vacuum gauges here:

http://info.teledyne-hi.com/thermocouple-vacuum-gauges-best-practices-webinar-recording?

As noted in the table above, the reference tubes, like the gauge tubes, are color-coded. And reference tubes can be sent back to us to be recertified which many folks do on an annual basis.