A recent installation at a US Domestic Refrigeration manufacturer includes, in addition to a VTech MRC charging machine, VTech’s Data-Vac Vacuum Data Management System comprised of a couple dozen pre-evacuation stations with TA100 RF wireless vacuum gauges, which communicate to the TA-SAT PC monitoring System via our RF-Gate hub.
Each individual station provides real time information including vacuum level and more importantly the vacuum curve, which is the essential part of making intelligent use of the vacuum cycle data. Just because a refrigerator pulls down quickly to the satisfactory vacuum level (i.e. 20 µ) doesn’t mean it’s free of moisture and leaks. In fact, just the opposite is true; to see the steady downward slope indicates that the unit under vacuum and the pumping station itself is behaving as it should.
As we’ve discussed in numerous articles on the subject of vacuum, conductance is the key limiting factor in vacuum that makes time an essential element that can’t be avoided by simply applying large capacity pumps. Due to laminar flow, the condition in which molecules travel at a constant rate between point A and point B, the drying phase is one of persistence, and employing the proper number of pumps to match productivity.
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