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Product Review – Draeger X-am 7000

Dräger X-am 7000 – Independent Review

The Dräger X-am 7000 is the most sophisticated portable gas detector we have received in for testing so far.

Its sleak design and robust sensor housing, makes it an ideal choice for all those harsh environments and dirty working conditions.

You may ask, however, is the X-am 7000 really worth the high price it demands from suppliers? Well to answer that question we’ll need to dig deeper into its capabilities and find out what lies beneath its basic outward appearance.

What is the X-am 7000’s Purpose in life?

The X-am 7000 is an internally pumped gas detector with a large rechargeable battery, loud audible alarm, high visiblilty lumiary alarms and fitted with Dräger’s very reliable smart sensor range. Buy adding or removing the pump adaptor, the X-am 7000 can alternate between diffusive or pumped sampling. (Note: the internal pump is a purchase option and not always supplied as standard.)

This combination makes the X-am 7000 suitable for use as: a personal detector; area detector; leak tracer and gas sampler. It’s true the alternative Draeger 2500 and 5000 range of instruments also provide similar capabilities when used with the external pump. So why purchase the 7000? Additionally, the X-am 7000 isn’t the fastest responder to gases making it poor at leak tracing.

So what’s the difference and why pay the extra?

Truthfully, for many of you there is no need to purchase an X-am 7000. If all you are doing is standard 4 gas checks for flammables, oxygen, hydrogen sulphide and carbon monoxide, then Dräger’s X-am 2500 combined with an external pump will work just as well for about 20% of the cost.

However, if you want a very flexible portable, rather then personal gas detector , that has the ability to select from over 30 plug and play smart sensors, then this may be the instrument of choice.

The X-am 7000 detection capabilities can be modified relatively simply by the user if you have a selection of different pre-calbrated smart sensors. For example, say one day you want to detect: methane; carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulphide; and then the following day: methane; ammonia and chlorine. By swapping the carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulphide sensors for ammonia and chlorine sensors,you can undertake the appropriate testing without needing more than one gas detector.

Now this might sound fantastic, the ability to hot swap sensors as and when needed. But you need to remember many have very long warm up times, so it’s not quite as quick as you may have first imagined. But all the same, swappable, pre-calibrated sensors, do offer great flexibility and convenience.

Another great feature of the x-am 7000 is the ability to have up to 5 flammable gas calibrations on the same sensor, whether it be a catalytic or infra red type. This means for example, you can switch between a methane, propane, butane, pentane, and hexane calibrations on the same sensor at a press of a button. So for those of you who have multiple flammable gas sources in your workplaces, you can accurately measure each of them using one gas detector. Again quite a neat idea for some.

But there is much more to the X-am 7000 than just an internally pumped, plug and play sensor, multi-calibrated gas detector! And its true genius is built into the rarely used application mode capability. For more on this, please feel free to contact us as we will explain the 25000 different configurations you can close from!

But in short, the X-am 7000’s application mode allows users to set up to 5 different instrument configurations, with predefined: active sensors, ranges, alarm point and stealth modes. Sadly only our clients have used these to the full. But as a result they have been able to cut the number of gas detectors they hold in half.