PFQ | Standard Industrial Gauges

These are standard industrial gauges, ideal for pumps, compressors, hydraulic presses, machinery, pneumatic equipment and motors in harsh environments. Winters PFQ Gauge is a quality gauge at an affordable price.

• Pulsation resistant, liquid filled stainless steel case
• Glycerin filled standard
• Brass or lead free brass and stainless steel internals
• Restricted orifice standard on dual scale
• Crimp-On bezel
• Single (psi) or dual scale (psi/kPa)/(psi/bar) available
• Optional U-Clamps and front flanges
• Dry case available
• ASME B40.100 compliant (EN837-1 available on 2” (50mm) dial and up)
• CRN registered
• 5 year warranty

PFQ Spec Sheet

SS304 - A common standard for stainless steel due to its malleability, high corrosive resistance weld-ability  

SS316 - A molybdenum stainless steel that provides excellent tensile, creep and stress-rupture strengths at elevated temperatures

Now we’re going to talk about Winters PFQ series. The PFQ series is a stainless steel case gauge that is liquid filled; they can be bought dry for certain applications. The reason you liquid filled a gauge is because of vibration and pulsation. For instance, this gauge is fillable but not filled. If it was sitting on a line and it was shaking around, you could get pointer flutter and the gauge would, at some point, go out of calibration and possibly become permanently damaged. What they do is they put glycerin, as liquid filling, in the gauge.

One of the things you may notice is that there is a bubble at the top of the gauge and some people might say why don’t you fill it to the top? The reason it’s not filled to the top, because if it’s put in an application in an area where the temperature rises, liquids expand with temperature increase. As a result, if it was filled to the top, it could expand and then you would get oozing of the liquid out and you would have a leaker. As a result, they leave that bubble at the top, which allows them to be able to have expansion during the increase of heat.

Glycerin is the standard fill and that’s fine for the warmer temperatures. If you are buying this gauge and it’s going to be used up north, let’s say in North Dakota, and it’s going to be used outside, then you would want Winters cold weather fill, which we designate with a –GW at the end of the part number. That becomes a mixture of water and propylene glycol. That allows us to go down to -45° and with a high-end temperature of up near 350°.

One of the things about the Winters PFQ series, generally, when you get a PFQ, you are getting it with brass internals. They are available with stainless steel internals also. The lens or the bezel is what we call it crimped on bezel. If you notice that the bezel sits over and is crimped so, at that point, it’s considered a throwaway gauge. If the gauge was to go out of calibration or be damaged in some way, you would just replace it as opposed to a bezel that could be removed and you would be able to do a recalibration of the product.

It does come with a fill plug. Newer version of the Winters will have... This is a ventable filled plug. The reason you vent the plug is to allow pressure to escape. On the lower ranges, you might see a pointer shift if you don’t vent it, let’s say 0 to 15 psi, 0 to 30 psi, because, as pressure builds up in the case with the heat and the expansion, if you haven’t vented the gauge, then you could see the pointer flow at that point. It’s important that we vent the fill plug to allow the gauge to operate properly.

The PFQ gauges coming inch and a half, 2 ½, 4 inch dial sizes. They also come in back or bottom connection, as you’re seeing here. They come with a full variety of flanges. You can have a back connect with a front flange or a U-clamp to allow you to put it in a panel, or you can get it with a back flange to mount it on the surface of a panel.

The ranges that you can get in a Winters PFQ gauge range from full vacuum up to 15,000 psi. Again, liquid filled gauge, the application that you would use it, especially on the brass, would be in your fluid hydraulics, fluid power, anywhere where there is pulsation, vibration going on because the liquid fill dampens that pointer out and lets it be able to be read easily as well as continues to lubricate the movement as it’s receiving that pulsation and vibration extending the life of the product.

Yes, the PFQ gauges, you see the two samples that you’re looking at here, are what we call psi only. That’s indicated on our part numbers by an R1 at the end of the part. If you want a dual scale, you just leave the R1 off the end of the part, and what you would find is you would get psi and KPA would be our standard. On application, if someone wanted psi/KG or psi/bar, those things are available and those dials can be installed on the gauges. As far as connection sizes go, on the inch and a half version, it would be an 1/8 inch connection, on the 2 ½ it’s a 1/4 inch, and then on the 4 inch it can be 1/4 inch or 1/2 inch MPT connections.

Again, these gauges, if there are one, you’ll notice that the orifice on this one is threaded, I don’t know if you can see that. The reason is because, if it was being on clean hydraulic system, they may want an orifice restrictor in. What that does is it makes the opening very small so if there’s a sudden surge or pulsation, it doesn’t hammer the gauge because if you were to open a ball valve, let’s say in this case this is a 200 psi gauge, if you opened a ball valve that had 100 psi behind it, it would hit this gauge, 100 psi all at once, and it would be what they call a hammer effect, it could actually knock it out of calibration. But if you were to put a restrictor in making the opening very small, when that pressure came up to the bottom of the socket it would bleed through slowly and that would protect the gauge.

The standard PFQ comes with leaded brass. However, if you have an application that uses potable water, you’re going to want a lead free version to meet the Clean Water Drinking Act. What happens is, when it’s got LF at the end of the part number, and again, this is a liquid filled gauge, but the LF needs lead free. What happens is your connection and your board on tube are made from lead free brass, which means the amount of lead in the brass is so small that it meets the specification for lead free through the Clean Water Drinking Act.

Yes, PFQs are available in stainless steel internals and a new part of what we’re doing is they use to all the two-piece sockets like this, but now on our stainless internals, as we are moving forward, we are welding the socket to the case, much as our PFP series, which is our premium series.