Yes the pot was slightly higher than part so would explain the puddle of resin, does everyone else have the resin pot, pump and catch pot all at the same height as the part?

I've had a few instances of the clear EC pipe squashing flat under vacuum ..   It usually happens close to the barbs / connectors as described, but it is easily cured
Just insert some of the infusion spiral inside the tubes .. All my "permanent" vac-lines are done like that .. (from the pump to the catch-pot) and from the catchpot to the "connector" where i connect the "throw-away" piece of tube to the bag connectors.  I never clamp on these pieces of tube .. only close to the bag ..  It has not happened with any of the last batches I've bought from EC ..

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Great tip thanks for that I'll try this next time

Paul,

Can you highlight where you store your resin and hardner and at what temperature they are kept.

JJ

There stored in my workshop which does get cold at night is this no good?  Before I mixed they were in the house for couple of hours

Paul,

I keep my IN2 and AT30 stored at about 25 degrees and it lowers the viscosity significantly. You might want to try it but be prepared for a much faster infusuin; you will be taking action to slow the resin front down and I can't imagine that you will suffer tubing collapse.

Be interested to hear what others recommend about temperatures. Fred is a big advocate of heating moulds and I now do this as well.

JJ

Just to add to the previous points - I've found that, nearly all the time, leaks have actually been around the exit/entry ports and that you need to be careful that no kinks in the bagging film occur around these areas when pulling down the bag

I create a donut ring of tape on top of each silicone connector and carefully tape the bag down onto it when I reach that point when sticking down the perimeter. Again, be careful that there's enough slack around the connector so not to cause excessive pulling of the bag here when it's vacuumed and that everything doesn't wrinkle up when you tape around the tubing to finish (be careful when putting the tube in also) The donut ring doesn't seal the connector off, but it seems to help to prevent too much wrinkling of the bag here and allow you the chance to smooth out the bag

As leaks in this area are typically very small, your pump will pull down the bag fully and might  give the impression of total vacuum but, annoyingly sometimes, a tiny leak only becomes apparent once the infusion is done and you start to see a very slow creep of air around this point.

If I don't get reliable vacuum after going around the whole bag a couple of times I now tend to take off the tape around the inlet/outlet tubing and re-do, making sure the bagging film is as smooth as possible. This appears to fix things most of the time for me

I've also started putting a strip of peel ply over the infusion spiral too, as I've experienced one or two leaks pop up here that only seem to become apparent after starting the infusion as well.

As far as I've read this topic, one question hasn't been asked...Do you infuse on top of the infusionmesh directly? should be on the infusionmesh even better 2 layers of infusionmesh.

Thanks for the advice and replies not had chance to do my second lay up yet but will be doing one evening over the next few days