As someone who is currently in a game of cat and mouse with an intermittent drip from underneath the kitchen sink, this was exactly the first thing that came to my mind also!
I recently played this same cat and mouse game with no success, so I built a better mouse trap using a disposable aluminum foil cooking pan and a Moen water leak sensor. I put the drip pan on a steep angle and bent/reshaped it to collect water at a single point where I placed the sensor. I wrapped the sensor in a small piece of paper towel so that even a single drop of water would be absorbed by the paper towel and trigger the sensor. I tested it with a single drop of water from a syringe, replaced the paper towel to reset the trap, and eventually I got a notification in real time on my phone as it dripped. Over kill? Yes. But it lead to me finally finding the issue.
I had a bathroom sink where we put in a new faucet that had a pinhole leak in the tubing which you couldn't see when installed. Everything would look good, but the water would come out and drip down the drain pipe.
I feel like I would just replace all of it than play cat and mouse. Surely it would be cheaper in time, and low cost until you figure out you have to replace the whole sink.
Graduate and postdoc labor is cheap, pressure vessels are not.
Which is kinda funny since plumber labor is expensive, and new pipes under the sink are cheap.
The plumbers made better life choices :-)
The grad students and postdocs are sacrificed... for science!
Even a new vessel need new plumbing to connect it to the vacuum pump (or pumps, sometimes you need one to to go from ambient pressure to low pressure and another to go from low pressure to very low pressure) and the pressure measuring device(s) and also sealing the holes where the wires go (I guess they have some sensor inside the vessel connected to things that are outside). So a brand new vessel means restarting all the seals from zero.
i believe the comment you are responding was talking about actual home sink in GP comment, not the LHC =)
I have replaced the p-trap under sink already, but your comment actually got me thinking maybe it's a leak around the caulk seal where the sink joins the counter or faucets!
No plumbing adventure is complete without 6 trips to your local hardware store, thinking each one is surely the last.
My family (avid do-it-yourselfers, who renovated each house we lived in) used to score project size by trips to the hardware store, both proposed/planned/expected, and also actual. :P