# Leafield D7 Valves- Am I doing this right?



## Westernmost (Jun 2, 2020)

Lets start this off by saying, my wife is an angel who bought me my first raft for Christmas! 

Up to this point I have been paddling an inflatable Kayak, but the goal was someday a raft for the family. The raft itself is a 10.5 RMR storm that with the Leafield D7 valves. I've always read about how Leafield makes the primo-valve in the industry, but up to this point I have had zero experience with them considering my kayaks had the Halkey-Robert valves; I've found these to be super easy to use as when you disconnect the pump the valve automatically shuts prevent air from escaping. 

I'm having trouble understanding the Leafields, and I'm fairly certain it's all user error and that I'll feel pretty dumb after figuring it out. However, when testing/inflating the raft and becoming familiar with it, It seems to me that rather than the valve "auto shutting", I have to get my thumb in and twist the valve shut as quickly as I can before the raft deflates too much. 

I must be doing something wrong here. Or is this working as intended and I need to become faster with the thumb?

Is there a special adapter that I am missing that does what I am hoping to achieve? I see NRS makes an adapter for D7s, but its not clear to me if they keep the valve open while inflating, and shut when disconnecting, or if they're intent is to just hold and keep the tubes connected to the valve during inflation. 

Cheers!


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## Sparks1000 (Jul 5, 2018)

I’m not familiar with the D7 valves but are probably similar to the C7 ones. But basically, if you push in the stem and turn 90 degrees one way, the stem should stay open. To close, push in the stem and turn the opposite way. You do not need to push in the stem to inflate. The pressure from your device should be enough to push the valve in temporarily and close up when you are onto your next pump. Hopefully that makes sense.


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## Westernmost (Jun 2, 2020)

Sparks1000 said:


> I’m not familiar with the D7 valves but are probably similar to the C7 ones. But basically, if you push in the stem and turn 90 degrees one way, the stem should stay open. To close, push in the stem and turn the opposite way. You do not need to push in the stem to inflate. The pressure from your device should be enough to push the valve in temporarily and close up when you are onto your next pump. Hopefully that makes sense.


Thanks for the info! The pump I was using was just a small foot pump that likely didn't have enough pressure. I'll have to try again with my larger one


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## Electric-Mayhem (Jan 19, 2004)

There definitely has to be enough pressure to push the valve open. I use a Makita leaf blower to inflate my raft to 90% and its not strong enough to defeat the valve so you have to open it for that and do the "pull out and close" maneuver (giggity). I've found I can kind of use my thumb as a stopper and turn the valve stem with minimal air loss. Once its at 90% I used either my small EZ Pump or a nice 4" Barrel Pump to inflate to full pressure. Both of the options push past the valve, which shuts after the pressure goes down.

I suppose there is a possibiilty that there is something that is making it stick...but if they release well when you turn the valve stem then it should open when you pump pressure.


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## Westernmost (Jun 2, 2020)

Electric-Mayhem said:


> There definitely has to be enough pressure to push the valve open. I use a Makita leaf blower to inflate my raft to 90% and its not strong enough to defeat the valve so you have to open it for that and do the "pull out and close" maneuver (giggity). I've found I can kind of use my thumb as a stopper and turn the valve stem with minimal air loss. Once its at 90% I used either my small EZ Pump or a nice 4" Barrel Pump to inflate to full pressure. Both of the options push past the valve, which shuts after the pressure goes down.
> 
> I suppose there is a possibiilty that there is something that is making it stick...but if they release well when you turn the valve stem then it should open when you pump pressure.


Ya I wasn't aware that they were designed to for the pump pressure to just push the air in. I've got a good electric pump that should do the job. I had planned on getting something like a k-pump to keep on overnights; I'll probably be using it to top off as well.


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## Sparks1000 (Jul 5, 2018)

Get the K-pump. You won’t regret it.


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## MNichols (Nov 20, 2015)

Sparks1000 said:


> Get the K-pump. You won’t regret it.


Right up until you get a hole in your boat, and realize that you'll have to actually inflate the boat with the K Pump...


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## NoCo (Jul 21, 2009)

4 inch barrel pump all the way.


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## Will Amette (Jan 28, 2017)

When it's top-off time, push the valve in for a fraction of a second so any debris gets blasted out before you push it inside the tubes or floor. If your boat lives on a trailer, you can do this any time you add air. If you store rolled, just make sure it's clean and dry before deflating completely and rolling, and keep it some place clean to keep the valves clean which keeps the inside of the tubes clean.

Do a quick valve purge with your presta valves on your bike tires when you add air to them, too. And purge your SCUBA bottle before putting the regulator on.


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## Electric-Mayhem (Jan 19, 2004)

That is a hell of a trip... Rafting, Biking, and a Scuba tank...sounds like a good time.


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## Westernmost (Jun 2, 2020)

NoCo said:


> 4 inch barrel pump all the way.


Product recommendations? Was looking at the NRS wonder pump 6


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## Westernmost (Jun 2, 2020)

Electric-Mayhem said:


> That is a hell of a trip... Rafting, Biking, and a Scuba tank...sounds like a good time.


No kidding, sign me up!


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## Electric-Mayhem (Jan 19, 2004)

Westernmost said:


> Product recommendations? Was looking at the NRS wonder pump 6


The Wonderpump seems great till you use one. It'll get the job done, but its not much better then a K-pump as far as pushing air. Build quality reflects the price.

I tried a bunch of pumps and ended up going with the Downriver 4" Barrel pump. Pushes a lot of air but is still easy to pump with, is well made and durable and along with Carlson pumps is basically the industry standard. You can find them rebranded for Aire and others too. Its definitely a "buy once cry once" situation with their $200 price tag but it is honestly worth it.

I think the K-pumps are fine for their intended use of topping off rafts and inflating smaller crafts. I think its good to have at least one bigger barrel pump on a trip though. Even better...I'm increasingly seeing the battery leaf blowers going in peoples repair box. They are compact enough where its not too big a deal and they really expedite things and have some other uses around camp too. Even with a nice barrel pump it takes a while to inflate a raft manually.... so getting most of the work done by pulling the trigger on a blower is nice.


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## dsrtrat (May 29, 2011)

Carlson 4". My first one with the leather washer lasted 30 years and I sold it for $100. I replaced it with the newer version with the poly washer that will outlast me.


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## MNichols (Nov 20, 2015)

I think they named it the "Wonderpump" cause it's a wonder it gets any air into the boat ...


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## Westernmost (Jun 2, 2020)

Electric-Mayhem said:


> The Wonderpump seems great till you use one. It'll get the job done, but its not much better then a K-pump as far as pushing air. Build quality reflects the price.
> 
> I tried a bunch of pumps and ended up going with the Downriver 4" Barrel pump. Pushes a lot of air but is still easy to pump with, is well made and durable and along with Carlson pumps is basically the industry standard. You can find them rebranded for Aire and others too. Its definitely a "buy once cry once" situation with their $200 price tag but it is honestly worth it.
> 
> I think the K-pumps are fine for their intended use of topping off rafts and inflating smaller crafts. I think its good to have at least one bigger barrel pump on a trip though. Even better...I'm increasingly seeing the battery leaf blowers going in peoples repair box. They are compact enough where its not too big a deal and they really expedite things and have some other uses around camp too. Even with a nice barrel pump it takes a while to inflate a raft manually.... so getting most of the work done by pulling the trigger on a blower is nice.


Thanks for the recommendations


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## Will Amette (Jan 28, 2017)

Electric-Mayhem said:


> That is a hell of a trip... Rafting, Biking, and a Scuba tank...sounds like a good time.


Well, if it's all going to be the same trip.... the bike would be to run shuttle, and the air bottle would be to go get the truck keys that your friend dropped to the bottom of the river....

Part of me wants to row over to Klovdahl Bay and dive over there (Waldo Lake). I probably will never do it. I bet my fins would disturb the sediment even from 20' above the bottom. 

To get back on topic; a 100 cubic food SCUBA bottle is far from sufficient to fill a raft; you'll definitely want a pump. At a half gallon per stroke, yeah, my K-100 would be a real pain to use to fill from deflated. If my basic math is right (20" tubes, 15' long, about 3' wide at bow and stern), there's almost 300 cubic feet of air in my boat. Over 2000 gallons. That's four thousand strokes of a K-pump.


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## Electric-Mayhem (Jan 19, 2004)

Will Amette said:


> To get back on topic; a 100 cubic food SCUBA bottle is far from sufficient to fill a raft; you'll definitely want a pump. At a half gallon per stroke, yeah, my K-100 would be a real pain to use to fill from deflated. If my basic math is right (20" tubes, 15' long, about 3' wide at bow and stern), there's almost 300 cubic feet of air in my boat. Over 2000 gallons. That's four thousand strokes of a K-pump.


I watched some firefighters try to fill a raft with one of their compressed air tanks and it was only minimaly noticeable that it had even filled it a little bit. I think he would have been better off getting an air powered blower i.e. a little fan that is powered by air. Suffice to say...I let him use my Makita blower and barrel pump.

I did a Lodore trip where we had 4 boats and no one thought to bring a blower or electric inflator...so we spent over an hour just pumping boats up. We only had one nice barrel pump and a couple k-pumps...so it was slow going.

I'd love to figure out how to get the little leaf blowers to push more pressure for the end. It would be sweet to basically have a battery powered version of the big red blower pumps. Feels like you could increase the tolerance between the blower blades and the housing and may get more pressure....but a 18-20v motor may not be capable of much more too.


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## Sparks1000 (Jul 5, 2018)

This Ryobi pump is pretty sweet. Pretty dang quick for its size. Also, if you run Ryobi tools, you don’t need to buy an additional battery. It doesn’t get you all the way there but close enough where a hand pump will work. 











Ryobi ONE+ 18-Volt Cordless High Volume Power Inflator









RYOBI ONE+ 18V Cordless High Volume Power Inflator (Tool Only) P738 - The Home Depot


RYOBI introduces the 18V ONE+ Cordless High Volume Power Inflator (Tool Only). This cordless tool is perfect for fast, high volume inflating and deflating of air mattresses and pool toys. It can inflate



www.homedepot.com


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## B4otter (Apr 20, 2009)

The "Big Red" (Mastercraft) blowers only put out 1.5 psi - the dog groomer hair dryers (aka "Blow-Pro") claim 3 psi but I haven't verified. Man of Rubber used to make an electric blower that definitely put out close to 3 psi, haven't checked to see if they still sell it (came with an option to run two hoses off one pump, useful on snout trips...). 
A (wo)man is only as good as her/his tool... I have several k-pumps, and they're great for intended purpose (top off). And for sceptics who talk about inflating after a patch - that's usually only one chamber, not a whole boat... Still might take few hundred strokes, but if you have to, you have to.
40 years ago in Moab, running a charity daily for Jerry's kids (Muscular Dystrophy?), took the boats out to put-in (Onion Creek) the night before. Local HS kids were celebrating something, up all night partying/making amends for LDS upbringing, discovered the boats in wee hours of morning and let air out of 'em... We rolled in to make ready before the bus with the kids, found the boats and some of the miscreants. Gave them the option of inflating by mouth or meeting the county gendarmes... took about 30 minutes per chamber amongst 4 teenagers to get semi-hard (matching their world-view...) and we let them huff and puff for an hour before breaking out the barrel pump.


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## Will Amette (Jan 28, 2017)

Electric-Mayhem said:


> I'd love to figure out how to get the little leaf blowers to push more pressure for the end. It would be sweet to basically have a battery powered version of the big red blower pumps. Feels like you could increase the tolerance between the blower blades and the housing and may get more pressure....but a 18-20v motor may not be capable of much more too.


I think high-volume low-pressure from a battery operated inflation device makes a ton o' sense. Top off with a top-off hand pump. I am pretty sure that as pressure increases, so does energy requirements. That battery will last a lot longer if it's asked to move a lot of air at lower pressure. Get me up to 1.0 psi, and I'm happy as a clam at high tide... as long as there's not clam divers in the vicinity. See how I kept the SCUBA bottle in the discussion there? 

Even getting to 1.0 psi isn't trivial. I think my little blue NRS pump that I clamp to a 12v battery gets to 1.0 psi, and it's a fairly powerful pump. Easy to top off. 

I would like something easy to maintain ~appropriate~ pressure going over passes. The K-pump is a pain for that. A right-sized gel cell would work with that little NRS pump if I could figure out how much juice it needs. I have a nice BIG deep cycle, but passed the end of its life last year. Holds a great charge for 20 hours. Not so good for coming back home and coming down the hill. Does anyone use a small battery with those pumps? How small? How long will they run?


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## MNichols (Nov 20, 2015)

Man of Rubber still makes their 3.0 PSI blowers, spendy but as Electric Mayhem says, buy once, cry once, they are totally worth it.


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## Electric-Mayhem (Jan 19, 2004)

Will Amette said:


> I think high-volume low-pressure from a battery operated inflation device makes a ton o' sense. Top off with a top-off hand pump. I am pretty sure that as pressure increases, so does energy requirements. That battery will last a lot longer if it's asked to move a lot of air at lower pressure. Get me up to 1.0 psi, and I'm happy as a clam at high tide... as long as there's not clam divers in the vicinity. See how I kept the SCUBA bottle in the discussion there?
> 
> Even getting to 1.0 psi isn't trivial. I think my little blue NRS pump that I clamp to a 12v battery gets to 1.0 psi, and it's a fairly powerful pump. Easy to top off.
> 
> I would like something easy to maintain ~appropriate~ pressure going over passes. The K-pump is a pain for that. A right-sized gel cell would work with that little NRS pump if I could figure out how much juice it needs. I have a nice BIG deep cycle, but passed the end of its life last year. Holds a great charge for 20 hours. Not so good for coming back home and coming down the hill. Does anyone use a small battery with those pumps? How small? How long will they run?


I use a Makita leaf blower that is battery powered currently and it does a great job of getting it to ~90%. I don't think it gets to 1psi, but its close enough and it gets there super quick...maybe about a minute per chamber and a bit more for the floor. Takes about 30 pumps per chamber on my DRE to get it to a usable pressure around 2 psi. That said, I'd love something in the same form factor that could go higher psi even if it used up the battery faster. I can inflate a 2-3 rafts with a fully charged battery and still have some left to suck air out at the takeout. Having to bring another battery along is no big deal...so if it could inflate to 2psi I'd be pretty stoked. Not sure if the blower just isn't turning fast enough or if you could make modifications to the fan to increase pressure. Might have to try.




MNichols said:


> Man of Rubber still makes their 3.0 PSI blowers, spendy but as Electric Mayhem says, buy once, cry once, they are totally worth it.


Is that what they have at Westwater? If so...that is super sweet and definitely inflates to a level where I don't feel the need to top off. I've never opened the box its in to look but it does a great job.


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## B4otter (Apr 20, 2009)

I think the WW blower is Man of Rubber, Marshall should know, he spends enough time there...(thanks!)


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## Westernmost (Jun 2, 2020)

Thanks for all the input folks, much appreciated


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## dsrtrat (May 29, 2011)

I would like something easy to maintain ~appropriate~ pressure going over passes. The K-pump is a pain for that. A right-sized gel cell would work with that little NRS pump if I could figure out how much juice it needs. I have a nice BIG deep cycle, but passed the end of its life last year. Holds a great charge for 20 hours. Not so good for coming back home and coming down the hill. Does anyone use a small battery with those pumps? How small? How long will they run?
[/QUOTE]

I use a 20 amp hour AGM sealed lead acid battery with my LVM blower and it is sufficient to blow up a couple of boats. You can get them for about $50 if you look around. Group 12220 size, weight about 10 pounds. I have mine in a Pelican 1300 shallow box. You can get a same size battery in lithium around $100 for about 1/2 the weight. I did a load test on the pump and it's about 22 amps under load. Fully charged you will get about 30 minutes running time without drawing the battery down past 50%. You can draw the lithium down a lot further without ruining it and it has an automatic shut off at 10 volts to prevent damage. I take the lithium on Grand Canyon trips to run the electric water filter and it easily lasts the entire trip and also charges devices.
With either one make sure you use the proper charger. AGM requires different charging profiles than flooded cell lead acid battery as does lithium.


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## MNichols (Nov 20, 2015)

B4otter said:


> I think the WW blower is Man of Rubber, Marshall should know, he spends enough time there...(thanks!)


Yep, is a man of rubber at Westwater thanks to the aluminum cans ya all put in the recycling bins.


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## okieboater (Oct 19, 2004)

lots of good info on this thread.

Bottom line, if you really want a bomber way to inflate or top off your raft, one of the quality Carlson type air pumps is the long term way to go.

I have various electric air pumps and K pumps and they all have their place but if you want a device you can count on when on a multi day float, get a quality Carlson type pump for your trips and be confident you can air up your raft if bad things happen or you just want to top off.

After seeing this car jump starter battery on a commercial truck at a CO ski resort in action, I purchased one (Clore Jump and Carry model) amazon even has them these days. That was at least 20 years ago. The unit goes on every river trip in my vehicle. Lost count of the rafts it has inflated (at the put in) with my little NRS type electric pump plus many vehicles needing a hot start. One of the best gadgets I have ever purchased. It will also run a little LED trouble light for many hours.



https://www.amazon.com/Clore-Automotive-Jump-N-Carry-JNC660-Starter/dp/B000JFJLP6/ref=sxin_11?ascsubtag=amzn1.osa.8283def2-e7b9-4ce1-9036-dbf43f4dcd55.ATVPDKIKX0DER.en_US&creativeASIN=B000JFJLP6&crid=1M8UQLZ8FNQ67&cv_ct_cx=auto+jump+starter+portable&cv_ct_id=amzn1.osa.8283def2-e7b9-4ce1-9036-dbf43f4dcd55.ATVPDKIKX0DER.en_US&cv_ct_pg=search&cv_ct_we=asin&cv_ct_wn=osp-single-source-gl-ranking&dchild=1&keywords=auto+jump+starter+portable&linkCode=oas&pd_rd_i=B000JFJLP6&pd_rd_r=fc7ccdc1-e404-4f47-a48f-5fe1e3678e21&pd_rd_w=8kXGX&pd_rd_wg=VewLW&pf_rd_p=9d7390bd-9235-4046-b950-0331f14c437d&pf_rd_r=TWFX0YKMRES6B1X9AENK&qid=1608388800&sprefix=auto+jump%2Caps%2C200&sr=1-1-d9dc7690-f7e1-44eb-ad06-aebbef559a37&tag=cb-osp-20


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## cupido76 (May 22, 2009)

MNichols said:


> Right up until you get a hole in your boat, and realize that you'll have to actually inflate the boat with the K Pump...


I think the space savings is worth it for something that doesn't happen all that often. And even if you do need to fully inflate your boat, it's a pain but still only takes about 20 minutes.

Small price to pay to keep a bulky barrel pump off my boat.

Electric inflator (I use the Ryobi linked above), and a barrel pump for on shore initial inflation seems ideal but I'm not personally seeing the value in splurging on a barrel pump to save me a few minutes on USUALLY only the first day of my trip... so I top off with my k pump.


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