Topic: Eco-Celli Barometer

[miraculon]

A recent thread about mercury barometers got me thinking about the one that I used to have.

Since even thinking about mercury will get you a swarm of HazMat guys coming out these days, I found this non-mercury barometer called Eco-Celli.

I got it for my birthday, the wife bought it from https://www.barometersusa.com/.

It was a bit of a project to calibrate. You basically siphon out the red fluid until you get the reading correct. This is kind of a "one way deal" so I was careful not to take out too much.

Assembly of the tubes to the base wasn't difficult. I did have to get the columns rejoined on the the thermometer. The heating method seemed to work better than the somewhat disconcerting "drop" method in the instructions. There were no gaps in the barometer.

The only strange thing is "up is down" with increasing pressure readings being in the downward direction. That threw me for a loop during calibration and I was misreading it.

Here is a link to barometersusa photo of it:



Greg H.

[miraculon]

The $2,995 price for that 'made in Belgium' hospital-grade barometer is rather steep.

Indeed it is. I am not sure what the point of it is, because it is basically still an aneroid barometer with a fluid column indicator. A weird hybrid.

Greg H.

[Jim_S]

Very cool, thanks for sharing. When you calibrated it did you calibrate to station pressure or adjusted (sea level pressure or altimeter pressure)?

[Bushman]

The $2,995 price for that 'made in Belgium' hospital-grade barometer is rather steep.

Indeed it is. I am not sure what the point of it is, because it is basically still an aneroid barometer with a fluid column indicator. A weird hybrid.

Greg H.

My kid is working in a hospital where they have such things:  apparently, everything from positive pressure ventilation to cancer therapy (!) depend on precise barometric pressure.  Which is why that $3K baro is made-to-order for your elevation.  I doubt they have an Acurite in the OR. 

[miraculon]

Very cool, thanks for sharing. When you calibrated it did you calibrate to station pressure or adjusted (sea level pressure or altimeter pressure)?

I set it to the local airport altimeter setting. The airport is 0.7 miles away from my location. (1.1km) I can pick up their VHF AWOS on 118.125 MHz which is updated every minute.

I am still a little low, which ironically requires more red fluid removal. I am keeping spreadsheet with an average of several barometers including my ASI DBX1. I have to be careful to not remove too much since I don't have replacement fluid.

Greg H.