Model names, cast markings and traceability

Pick up a cylinder valve and you will find several pieces of text on it. There may be a model designation. There may be a connection designation. There may be a pressure figure, a batch or heat code, a manufacturer mark, a standard reference, and characters in a language you do not read.

Exactly one of those is the thing an order is placed against. The rest are useful, and none of them is a substitute for it. Getting this wrong is one of the most common and most expensive mistakes in valve purchasing, because everything downstream - the quotation, the drawing, the certificate - is keyed to the model.

What the text on a valve can be

• The model designationShort, distinctive, and the one that appears in a catalogue. ANYI's look like XF-35H, CGA320A, QF-15G. This is what an order, a drawing request and a certificate are issued against.
• Connection designationsThese describe a thread or a fitting, not the valve. A designation like PZ27.8 or CGA320 tells you how something connects; it does not identify a product.
• Pressure figuresA number cast into a body may be a working pressure, a test pressure or something else. It is confirmed against the factory record before it is used as a rating.
• Batch and traceability codesGenuinely valuable - they are how a specific item is traced later - and never a specification. Record them separately from the model.
• Everything elseManufacturer marks, standard references, material codes. Transcribe them, keep them, and do not promote any of them to a parameter.

The trap worth knowing about

A practical consequence worth spelling out: a connection designation that looks like a model designation is a real trap. Both are short alphanumeric strings, both are cast into the metal, and both look authoritative. If the string you have describes a thread form and a size, it is almost certainly a connection.

When in doubt, send a photograph and say where on the valve the marking sits. Position is often what settles it: the same string in two places can be two different statements.

How ANYI records it

For ANYI specifically: the model designation is what our catalogue is organised by, and every published specification - working pressure, bore, the two connection designations - is recorded per exact model. A family name groups models of a general form; it is not a product and cannot be ordered against. Where our record holds a value we have not yet confirmed, the page says so rather than showing a figure, including where the only source for that figure would be a marking nobody has verified.