[Mcgilles]

I got some new gauges for my pod in from jegs, autometer sport comp series, I wanted to replace my crappy 15$ sunpro voltmeter with a good one, and add an oil pressure gauge, just to keep track of how things are working. here is a picture from jegs web site about the very gauge that I thought I was getting, according to autometer's web site also, this is the sport-comp oil pressure:

but when I got mine in, I found that it looked different. as you can see, the incremements on the one in all the advertising is 20 psi, and it has the precision of the needle traveling almost all the way around the gauge. see the attached pic below, that's not what mine looks like. so here is my question for anyone knowledgable, did they change the design and I got one too late? are there different version of the sport-comp electrical 2 1/16" 0-100 psi oil pressure gauge? or perhaps, are all the pictures of the nicer gauge only mechanical versions? I found one that looked exactly like what I wanted in a local performance shop, but found out later it was a mechanical gauge, that's not what I want, so I ordered an electrical one from jegs. interestingly enough, the travel on this oil pressure gauge is the same as the travel on the voltmeter, do you think to save money they designed the electric ones so that its the same mechanics as the voltmeter, but with a differnt face. since the sender unit almost certainly will send out a voltage signal to indicate pressure.

attached is what I got, see what I mean? the top one looks better, that's what I'm after...

 

[mwt]

The one on top is probably a mechanical gauge as it has a 270 degree face out of a possible 360
as you can see it is broken down in 5# increments. This type of gauge has a bourdon tube and a geared movement. It probably has an accuracy of 3-2-3% of full scale. That means on the low and high end it is probably within 3 lbs of correct and in the middle with 2 lbs of being correct

the bottom one is probably an electrical gauge. 180 degree face and is 12.5 lb increments. It probably has a 5% accuracy and is more difficult to look at and get an accurate reading

although these automotive gauges retail at a high price they aren't all that accurate.

I think the mechanical unit looks better and is probably the more accurate of the two since the electrical has a sending and a receiving unit you double the chance for error.

The electric gauge won't shoot hot oil in your face when you're doing 100 mph at night though.

I didn't do any research on either one of these specific gauges but that is my first guess.
btw the way I have worked in industrial instrumentation as a tech and salesman since 81.