TIGHTChecker - Tightness Testing

Overview

TIGHTChecker is SDT's tightness-testing kit: an ultrasonic detector paired with an ultrasonic transmitter. Its job isn't finding a leak in a system that's already running — that's what LEAKChecker is for — it's confirming whether the object itself is sealed: a tank, a housing, a gasket, or a joint.

How the test works

The transmitter goes inside the object under test — a tank, a gearbox housing, behind a flanged joint or a hatch — and generates an ultrasonic signal. The detector scans the object from outside: wherever the seal is broken, the signal leaks through and the detector registers a local spike. The leak point shows up as a signal peak, so there's no need to inspect an entire joint by eye to find the source of the problem.

When a transmitter can't be fitted but the object can be isolated and put under a small positive pressure or vacuum, the same detector with its air sensor finds leaks by their characteristic ultrasonic "whistle" without a separate transmitter. This is how mine sites and processing plants test the air intake tract of diesel engines downstream of the filter: dust getting in through unnoticed intake leaks after the filter is a common cause of accelerated cylinder wear.

The transmitter radiates airborne ultrasound, so there has to be an air or gas space inside at the seam being tested. No tracer gas is needed, unlike a helium test.

Features

The instrument is built for a fast check with no special preparation: calibration takes minutes, scanning follows a weld or the perimeter of a seal, and the detector gives an audible alert when it finds a fault.

Firmware update

SDT updated the Checker series with a streaming-screen mode: a continuous real-time visualisation of the signal instead of a single static reading, which makes it easier to pinpoint a fault while scanning. The update is free and installs through SDT Updater: download the software, connect TIGHTChecker over USB, switch the device on, and Windows installs the driver automatically — follow the update wizard from there. Once updated, the On/Off button switches between screen modes.

Application areas

Industrial vessels and pipelines

Checking tanks, reactors, and heat exchangers after installation or repair, and flanged joints and valves, before commissioning — while fixing a defect is still cheap, ahead of start-up.

Marine industry

Tightness of ship hatches, portholes, and watertight bulkheads. For hatch and hatch-cover testing built specifically to marine classification-society requirements, the range also has a dedicated HATCHecker.

Mining and heavy equipment

Testing the air intake tract of diesel engines on haul trucks, excavators, and drill rigs for dust ingress downstream of the filter, using the pressure-or-vacuum method with ultrasonic scanning, before power loss and cylinder wear set in.

Pharmaceuticals and cleanrooms

Checking the tightness of isolators, glove boxes, laminar-flow cabinets, and cleanroom door seals.

Construction

Checking the tightness of window frames, display cases, and door seals.

Advantages

TIGHTChecker checks an object's tightness directly, by signal through the fault, rather than indirectly by flow or smell. It doesn't require a water pressure test, soap solution, or shutting the object down: the kit works with any medium inside and gives a result in minutes rather than the half hour traditional methods take. Locating a fault means you don't have to disassemble or visually inspect the whole joint.

Economic impact

A failed seal means direct losses: leaked product, contamination, or accelerated corrosion and equipment damage from abrasive or moisture getting in. Catching the defect during installation or incoming inspection is cheaper than dealing with the consequences after commissioning — the same logic that applies to cylinder wear from dust entering through an unnoticed intake leak.

Checker Range series

TIGHTChecker is part of SDT's line of specialised detectors:

• LEAKChecker — compressed-air and gas leaks in operating systems
• LUBEChecker — bearing lubrication control
• TRAPChecker — steam trap testing
• TIGHTChecker — tightness testing of vessels, seals, and enclosures
• HATCHecker — ship hatch tightness
• ULTRAChecker — universal ultrasound detector