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MilKit tubeless Booster seats tires without a compressor

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MilKit already made tubeless setup & maintenance easy & clean with their unique tubeless valves and syringe injector. Now they have a simple solution to make seating a tubeless tire easier in the first place. Their new MilKit tubeless Booster is meant to be a low-cost cap & valve setup that turns a standard aluminum drinking bottle into an air pressure tank. Thread the cap onto your bottle. Pressurize it with a standard floor pump. Then quickly blast the air into a new tubeless setup, instantly seating the tire bead.

MilKit tubeless Booster

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1611955820/594896162

We’ve used a number of other specialized pressure tanks for seating tubeless tires, and they certainly eliminate the need for a compressor in just about any home shop. MilKit’s novel solution is to use a standard aluminum drink bottle like one you would get from SIGG or MSR and thread on a cap with the necessary pressure regulating valves, to be connected to a pump to pressurize it & then connect to your tubeless valve to seat the tire.

In fact, the design was inspired by makeshift solutions that many DIY folks have rigged up to use plastic drink bottle as pressure tanks. The MilKit crew had to resort to a similar solution when a tubeless setup failed far from home. They knew they could make a better solution so set out to create the MilKit Booster. Now with the design completed and through functional prototyping, they are turning to you via Kickstarter to crowdfund the project into reality.

How it works…

The thread-in Booster is a relatively simple injection molded plastic piece that contains two valves. On one end it uses a standard removable Presta valve core to allow you to pressurize the attached bottle. The other valve is a spring-loaded valve that is activated by pressing onto the tubeless valve on your wheel. Simply press to inflate the tire. The remaining end simply threads into the aluminum drink bottle, sealed with a rubber o-ring.

Through their Kickstarter, you can back the project to pre-order the thread-in Booster valve, including a small 20oz bottle for about $43 or a large 34oz bottle for $46. For another $15 they will include a thread-on cap with a drinking hose & bite valve to turn it into a hydration setup that will double as the pressure tank for trailside tubeless repairs. There are also several other funding options. A $67 kit includes a set of tubeless valves, or the $98 kit includes all of the above.

The project seems on track for a quick for crowdfunding delivery. MilKit have already completed design and expect to have tooling & production sorted out by the end of 2017. Assembly and quality control are slated for January. Completed parts are expected to start shipping to backers in February 2018.

MilKit.bike or Kickstarter.com

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27 Comments
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Crash Bandicoot
Crash Bandicoot
7 years ago

Cool idea but still too expensive. You can seat multiple tubeless tires with a 16gram c02 and you can easily buy those for $2. That’s probably the best route for home gamers that might need to seat a tire once every 6 or so months. Anyone who needs to do more than that is better served with a pancake compressor which can be used for a ton of more useful things outside of just seating tires.

Hans L
Hans L
7 years ago

Doesn’t co2 dry out Stans sealant?

fred
fred
7 years ago
Reply to  Hans L

you can let the co2 out after the tires are seated…

Crash Bandicoot
Crash Bandicoot
7 years ago
Reply to  fred

Correct; the pressure in my set up (S Works fast track and ground control on roval rim) with c02 gets lost very quickly (those tires seem to weep sealent which I presume is far thicker than co2) so I always reinflate with a floor pump

Jesse
Jesse
7 years ago

You can also inflate with a tube, then take out the tube leaving one sided seated, then far more easily seal up the tire. It’s a pretty much free too.

edge
edge
7 years ago

What is a standard aluminum bottle???

anonymous coward
anonymous coward
7 years ago

This is really dangerous. These bottles are not pressure rated and were never intended for this. Somebody will fill one of these up without a pressure gauge and blow it up in their face.

Stephen Keller
Stephen Keller
7 years ago

I recall manufactures of those pressurized, high-volume water guns getting sued some years ago because their bottle threads matched those of the typical one- and two-liter pop bottles. Kids wanting to increase their fire power were getting injured when they tried swapping in the pop bottles. High-velocity aluminum shrapnel would be much more damaging to soft tissues.

Carl
Carl
7 years ago

I too had that concern, however if it is just a standard single-wall aluminum bottle it should give plenty of warning (like the bottom popping out of shape) before blowing up. I suspect that the plastic threads on the valve would fail before the bottle exploded. Still not good but also not metal shrapnel.

Greg
Greg
7 years ago

Depends on the pressure. If intended to be refilled at home, that’s just 120ish Psi, maybe up to 160.
There’s an air horn that’s been on the market forever by Delta that uses a 1liter plastic soda type bottle that you inflate to 100psi. Never heard of anyone with any issues. I suspect the other uses involved much higher pressures.

FFM
FFM
7 years ago

Aluminum bottles like this are reliably use for all kinds of pressurized stuff and bike pumps don’t really pump to absurd pressures anyway. I mean if you try to pump your car tires to 1000 psi they’ll blow up too. Doesn’t make them “really dangerous.” If you’re really worried they could easily incorporate a check valve. Would be nice to see a way to flip the unit it around and keep it inside the bottle with the rest of your tools and a clif bar too.

JBikes
JBikes
7 years ago
Reply to  FFM

I think you mean a relief valve. Not sure what a check valve would accomplish.

FFM
FFM
7 years ago
Reply to  JBikes

Thanks for the correction, no one would have understood my egregious misstep otherwise.

Derron Tanner
Derron Tanner
7 years ago

Like a Sigg bottle maybe? Where the bottle neck is threaded on the inside?

fred
fred
7 years ago

Looks great, but the price is seriously out of control.

My DIY device was literally made of entirely recycled materials, and effectively free. (it has yet to explode in my face :-/) and if you want to nit pick, 1L coca-cola bottle, two old valves out of wrecked tubes, and excess floor pump tubing, wallah… that’ll be 45$. please send money to @bottomlesspit.com

fred
fred
7 years ago
Reply to  fred

And for fs, you can buy an actual air compressors for < 45$!!!!!!!!! get a grip people, another kickstarter pos.
see: walmart 'hyper tough 3 gallon air compressor' 100psi, 40$ shipped.

JBikes
JBikes
7 years ago
Reply to  fred

I think the market is for those that need to reseat far away from home or anyone that may have an air compressor. This is nice in that it doubles as a water bottle.

That said, I personally just use a tube if my tubeless set-up fails.

TT
TT
7 years ago
Reply to  JBikes

CO2 is a great solution when you are far away from home.

helou
helou
7 years ago

Tubeless tire should not unseat when there is no airpressure in tire, because of puncture etc. You just plug the hole with tubeless tire plug and re-inflate the tire with regular handpump to desired pressure or if the tire has hole too big for tubeless plug one can use a tube with piece of cloth or something between hole in tire and tube, so the tube won’t bulge out of the hole.

You really don’t need this product. You propably already have a tubeless tire inflator floor pump or similar or a air compressor to seat tubeless tire to rim, so you install tires at home and shoud not need to seat tires after that, unless you ride DH-trail with a flat tire or something…

i
i
7 years ago

It’s to the point where I mainly come here for the funny comments. The guy who thinks a couple mm of plastic threads are stronger than a metal bottle… The people who apparently have never been away from their homes with a bike, that think a compressor is a reasonable solution (sure, I’ll bring my 5 gal compressor on a flight with me, no downside to that. Hey, I can easily charge it while camping too…)
The guy that thinks there’s no possible reason you’d have to re-seat a tire away from home; again someone who apparently has never gone on holiday or else never ridden hard enough to get a flat.

Anonymous coward
Anonymous coward
7 years ago
Reply to  i

As a child we use to launch the bottles off of the Super Soker 50s. They would probably around 50 feet in the air or the height of a tall pine tree. This was from a cheap plastic toy. Wait until someone puts a track pump or an air compressor to one of these (filling it up for travel.) I didn’t necessarily mean the canister would explode, although a manufacturer defect could absolutely lead to that too. But if when/if it fails it will probably be the threads but depending on which side is being held the other side will become a projectile and could easily cause serious harm. I never said how it would “explode,” so stop being so padantic.

Crash Bandicoot
Crash Bandicoot
7 years ago
Reply to  i

Why would c02 not fill the void you’re talking about? If you’re talking about trailside failures than c02 with a tube will get you back to the trail head. If for some godly reason you feel the need to switch tires or add stans on a camping trip a 16gram cartridge can easily set the bead; and a floor pump can take it from there.

Michael Clayton (@CreekerMike)

Not a bad idea for the home mechanic but way too bulky to take on a ride IMO. I carry 2 Co2 cartridges and a little, threaded inflator/pump combo from Lezyne.

Tim Dunn
Tim Dunn
7 years ago

I have wasted plenty of co2 cartridges trying to seat a single tire. Finally said screw it and went to Home Depot and bought a compressor with a reservoir tank for ….wait for it…. $69. SKU #1001574055
Seated the tire in a few seconds on first try. On the trail? Stick a tube in it and move on. This is way too overthought. It’s a solution that doesn’t address a problem very well.

Gary W
Gary W
7 years ago

Solution seeking a problem. And your money! Skip…..

MBR
MBR
7 years ago

Just buy a $4 Continental tube with a fully threaded Schrader valve and cut away the tube. You have a nice valve stem that doesn’t require an adapter and flows much more air than any Presta valve. So much easier to flow in your tire sealant too.

Sigg UK
6 years ago

Comment from SIGG Bottles UK. We do NOT recommend that any SIGG branded bottle is used for anything other than the storage of food or beverages.

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