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July 25, 2021

Repair of a VacMaster VP215 Commercial Vacuum Sealer

Filed under: Uncategorized — admin @ 5:50 pm

the sealer unit, all fixed

One of my neighbours brought over a nice vacuum sealer that wasn’t sealing bags properly. The model is a VacMaster VP215. Vacuum operation seemed to be OK, insofar as the pressure dropped and stabilized after several seconds of pump operation. However, appearances were that the bag seal area wasn’t being heated uniformly, so I first tried replacing the nichrome heater wire, but the problem persisted. After more careful observation, I realized that the unit was releasing vacuum before applying heat to the seal rather than afterward. After minor disassembly of the unit -just taking off the black front panel, I found a vacuum tube T-junction just hanging loose inside the unit, with 2 of the three tubes broken.

back of removed front cover

The tubes go to junctions on the electrodes for the heater. Those original tubes had essentially disintegrated and were the source of the problem.I replaced them with similar tubes salvaged from an old wide format printer. After reassembly, the unit now works fine; a pretty quick repair once I realized what was wrong.

T-junction with broken tubing

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