Patent ID: 8768633

Claim:
A method for detecting a vacuum leak rate of a vacuum system, which comprises: providing a vacuum-measuring system with: a vacuum sensor assembly shaped to sealingly contain a volume of gas of the vacuum system and operable to output at least one electrical signal related to the gas vacuum pressure of the contained volume of gas; and an electrical circuit having: a microprocessor programmed to compute a gas pressure of the volume of gas contained within the vacuum sensor assembly; an analog-to-digital converter operatively connected to the microprocessor and receiving and converting the at least one electrical signal output of the vacuum sensor assembly into a digital signal to be processed by the microprocessor; and an output device operatively connected to the microprocessor and operable to indicate an output of the microprocessor, the output device being at least one of: an audible alarm operable to indicate when the rate-of-change of the gas pressure exceeds a pre-determined rate; or a display visibly indicating at least one of: the rate-of-change of the gas pressure; or when the rate-of-change of the gas pressure exceeds a pre-determined rate; containing a volume of gas of the vacuum system in the vacuum sensor assembly; computing a gas pressure of the contained volume of gas using the vacuum-measuring system; computing a rate-of-change of the gas pressure with the vacuum-measuring system one of periodically and continuously over a period of time; and outputting the rate-of-change of the gas pressure using the output device.