Patent ID: 8694167

Claim:
A method for controlling the operation of a vacuum pump in an industrial heat treating furnace wherein the method is implemented by executing a program running on a programmable pump controller and the method comprises the steps of: a) determining whether a heat treatment process is active in the industrial heat treating furnace; b) performing one of the following steps: i) determining whether the vacuum pump is required in a current phase of the heat treatment process when the heat treatment process is active, or ii) taking no action when the heat treatment process is not active; c) performing one of the following steps when the heat treatment process is active: i) switching on the vacuum pump when the vacuum pump is required in the current phase of the heat treatment process, or ii) determining whether the vacuum pump will be required in a future phase of the heat treatment process when the vacuum pump is not required in the current phase of the heat treatment process; d) performing one of the following steps when the vacuum pump is not required in the current phase of the heat treatment process: i) switching off the vacuum pump when the vacuum pump is not needed in a future phase of the heat treatment process, or ii) performing the following steps when the vacuum pump is required in the future phase: A) calculating a time T 1 until the vacuum pump will be needed in the future phase, B) determining a lead time T 2 for warming up the vacuum pump, and C) comparing the time T 1 to the lead time T 2 ; and then e) performing one of the following steps when the vacuum pump is required in the future phase: i) switching off the vacuum pump when the time T 1 is greater than the time T 2 , or ii) switching on the vacuum pump when the time T 1 is not greater than the time T 2 .