SP Bel-Art "Space Saver" Polycarbonate Vacuum Desiccator with Clear Polycarbonate Bottom; 0.20 cu. ft. (F42022-0000)

This is the best Desiccator for the money. I use it for BHO. It is a nice size for what I run. I have a small 7 inch pizza stone that I heat up to 120 degrees F and put in the chamber with a slick pad cut into a circle to sit on the stone. It works great. I always keep the vacuum pump (2.5 cfm) running when purging. The only thing I would change is the stopcock, it is plastic. I wish it had the male end for my vacuum hose. I had to cut the female end off of the vacuum hose to hook it up to the stopcock because it is just a plastic barb with ribs to help it seal. The neoprene seal can be difficult to get into the grove, I just stretched it out slightly and put a little vacuum grease on it to help it stick. It works okay. All in all I think this was a good buy, I am very satisfied.

lubed up all the parts with dow vacuum grease and it holds a vacuum very well, i haven't done tests over days but i generally think that's a waste, i'll keep it on the vac pump as long as i see fit and if i wan't to hold it over night it holds it's on weight worth of vacuum (i haven't fitted a gauge yet). i'm happy with it, cheapest one available on amazon and works good enough for purging butane from a few grams of oil

I have no idea what you need this for. Chances are you don't want it for the kitchen, but since I'm using it in the kitchen that is what I will talk about.There are two reasons you would want this in the kitchen. First, you don't have a chamber vacuum sealer (or the money to buy one) to use for vacuum pickling or degassing liquids. Second, you do have a chamber sealer, but you don't want to damage the pump with liquid vapor from vacuum desiccation.There is plenty of room here for a medium sized bowl or plate. The valve is plastic, but holds a good seal and allows you to vent the chamber easily. It disassembles well for easy cleanup.As far as what pump to use, I recommend two: for jobs with large vapor loss, a water aspirator will not suffer from the vapor, and can be very cheap and easy. But it is slow, very slow in fact and can only pull a vacuum relative to the coldness of the water powering it. For other jobs I'd suggest something faster. Use your imagination, but you can buy some simple ones on eBay or Amazon. Just beware of damage from evaporation.It also stores away well if you invert the lid to save space.

I bought this based on some other reviews for use as a vacuum chamber to de-air silicone rubber molding compounds and epoxy resins for a work project.As other reviews note, it's pretty sturdy, but the o-ring likes to jump out of its groove and the petcock has a tendency to loosen and leak a little. It generally won't hold a useful vacuum without the pump running, and certainly not for 24 hours. It does allow me to completely de-air 275 grams of Smooth-On Mold Max XLS II in 5 minutes or so when using a 5CFM pump.Would I buy again? Probably not... I think I'd just do DIY vac chamber with a section of 8" PVC, some polycarbonate sheet, and silicone caulking.

The item is well used in many labs and proto shops. Needed to match results from another site and the current product maintains the original quality. A small problem arose and contact was made directly with manufacturer due to urgency and they immediately took care of it. If you need a dependable chamber for any reason, this makers product in the one to get without any worry. Leave that for your process instead.

Edit 1/9/16 for new 1 star rating (down from 5 stars)After a couple years of light use (purchased in Feb 2012) I gave up on this product.Firstly, it could never hold a vacuum because the parts were not airtight. The valve is based on a piece of rigid plastic tubing which is simply pushed onto a small nozzle on the lid of the device. By itself this was never airtight. I obtained a better seal by sealing it around the nozzle with silicone, but the desiccator still began to lose pressure the moment the vacuum was turned off. I am guessing this is because all of the nozzle parts are plastic, so closing the valve completely airtight is simply impossible.The too-small o-ring was always too small, so I had to stretch it every single time I used the product, and then each time I took the lid off, it popped off. It's minor, but that wastes valuable time. One of the times that I stretched it, it snapped. I poured silicone into the void on the jar but couldn't recreate the seal. I ended up using the original gasket and filling the hole with silicone putty (mack's ear plugs, in fact) and was able to still use the desiccator, but the putty was messy and had to be reapplied with each use. Repeated attempts to find a replacement o-ring were a failure. The Bel-Art site did not list the o-ring under replacement parts. To be fair - I never called. But that's because I had already realized that I could do better, and by then I was ready to buy a new vacuum chamber.In January of 2015, a year ago, I purchased a replacement vacuum chamber  2 Gallon Vacuum Chamber to Degass Urethanes, Silicones and Epoxies . This is a 5-star vacuum chamber. I'm now chagrined that I ever gave the Bel-Art chamber a 5-star rating. I chalk this up to ignorance - I simply didn't know that I could do better.There are much better vacuum chambers out there for a comparable price. I encourage you to check out my replacement chamber which is a workhorse.Original review: I'm using this jar in conjunction with  Robinair 15500 VacuMaster 5 CFM Vacuum Pump  to degass silicone and resin for molding/casting. My molds and finished parts are small, so I selected this small jar so that the pump would have less air to pull out. My plan worked great and it only takes 30-60 seconds for my vacuum to pull the air (I think, anyway, I need a pressure gauge to put inside). The o-ring was too small when it arrived, but I just stretched it out a bunch until it stayed on. Very happy with the product.

Product arrived on time and was exactly as pictured in the ads. All parts were present including the 3-way stopcock. The chamber holds a vacuum well and did the job I needed (degasing research media). I would recommed this product to anyone that needs a vacuum dessicator or a general purpose vacuum chamber.

This keeps the space vacuumed for a bout a day or so. The o-ring was too big and was not able to close the lid properly, But if you push the o-ring in using something and close it it works well.