Patent Application
20160116360
1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention are in the field of portable vacuum pressure measurement. The present disclosure relates to a vacuum pressure gauge that has increased utility because it uses graphics that make it easy to spot trends or changes in vacuum. This gauge utilizes sensors and plots real time and historical data on a screen.
Embodiments of the present invention may include a device has the capability to show these trends via a hand held device or through communication to a mobile device or tablet to easily distinguish trends.
2. Description of Related Art
Most vacuum and pressure gauges display a current reading through an indicator needle against a scale, a digital numerical reading, voltage, or digital output. Typically, pressure and vacuum instrumentation offers a number indicating the current reading, and perhaps a bar graph of the instantaneous relative reading relative to the total range of the instrument.
Some vacuum instrumentation may indicate increasing or decreasing pressure, indicated by an up arrow, down arrow or colors. Other solutions do not include a time vs. pressure graph in a portable device, or a device with Ethernet capability. Other solutions may include a leak rate.
Other solutions may include pressure set points that allow the user to be notified when a particular pressure level is reached, but do not use Ethernet capability. The existing art does not have the ability to display, log or email vacuum data wirelessly to a smart phone, tablet, or the like. The most useful part of this vacuum system is its analytical capability and display of trends. Discovering trends in vacuum pressure allows the technician or engineer to be able to more quickly identify problems. Most professionals analyzing vacuum translate instantaneous readings in their head to establish trends that yield a result.
Other solutions require more complicated systems that requires data transfer, computers and software programs to analyze. This invention makes it easier for the technician or engineer to diagnose system state as it relates to vacuum.
Some embodiments of the present invention provide a vacuum pressure measurement and display device that greatly increases the utility of instrumentation through its real time display of current and past pressure points graphed in a time vs. pressure scale. The vacuum measurement circuitry reads the sensor, displays the instantaneous pressure and saves the data in a database. The data is then plotted on the screen. The amount of data plotted on the screen is user defined. Additional analysis modules within the device then characterize the trends of the data based on the user specified time horizon to make determinations on the vacuum system. These determinations may be: leaking, out-gassing, pumping or stable. Beyond these vacuum system determinations, the user may be able to see little “blips” of changes of pressure which may indicate other phenomena such as specific out-gassing events.
In another embodiment of the present disclosure, the device communicates wirelessly with a tablet, phone or other device for display to further increase the utility.
So the manner in which the above-recited features of the present invention can be understood in detail, a more particular description of embodiments of the present invention, briefly summarized above, may be had by reference to embodiments, which are illustrated in the appended drawings. It is to be noted, however, the appended drawings illustrate only typical embodiments of embodiments encompassed within the scope of the present invention, and, therefore, are not to be considered limiting, for the present invention may admit to other equally effective embodiments, wherein:
The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include”, “including”, and “includes” mean including but not limited to. To facilitate understanding, like reference numerals have been used, where possible, to designate like elements common to the figures.
Detailed embodiments of the present invention are disclosed herein; however it is to be understood that the disclosed embodiments are merely exemplary of the invention which can be embodied in various forms. The preferred embodiment of this invention is a portable device that senses pressure or vacuum through the use of a transducer or passive gauge, and has the electronics and software to interpret that reading into a number that indicates vacuum. The electronics enclosure 110 includes a graphical display 130 that may be back-lit. The current embodiment employs thermocouple sensing technology 220 connected to the gauge display 210 through a wire 250, but other equivalent embodiments could include thermistor, Pirani, convection, piezoresistive or other vacuum sensing technologies. In alternative embodiments the sensor, electronics and display may share the same housing. This embodiment is housed in a plastic case with a rubber protective boot, has 140 4 buttons for configuration, a kick stand and a magnet.
Some embodiments of this invention may have a different input mechanism to change features, may include a hook and may not include a kickstand or a magnet. The key benefit of the preferred embodiment of this invention is the inclusion of a real time graphing feature 190 that greatly accentuates the usefulness of portable technology. This embodiment also displays 130 additional graphing features including a zoom graphing feature 190, pictured in
The electronics 300 is composed of different functional units, each of which is composed with a variety of discrete components with the resultant function. The sensor in this embodiment is a passive thermocouple vacuum gauge sensor. The sensor electronics 320 is composed of constant temperature regulating electronics combined with cycling electronics which are piped into the micro-controller 350 for further processing. The resultant measurement is converted to the appropriate measurement units and is sent to the graphic display 330 and stored in the database 360. The user may select to alarm at a particular vacuum level, time durations, units, auto off timing and several other features through the button input 370. These configuration settings are stored in persistent storage via the configuration memory 340. If so equipped, the user may transfer the data real time to a tablet, cell phone or other personal device via the wireless communication circuitry.
The software architecture 400 is comprised of a main module 480 that calls other modules, or polls data of other modules based on interrupts. The sensor module 410 takes the hardware massaged signal and does further post processing and delivers this value to the main module. The calibration module 420 is called when the vacuum sensor needs to be calibrated. Once the data is ready to be displayed, the main module sends the data to the graphics module 450 and the vacuum telemetry database 430. The vacuum state analysis module 440 is constantly working and when sufficient data based on the selected time window exists, an analysis is presented to the main module for display. This analysis is continuously recalculated based on the latest data. When the user wishes to change a configuration setting, the menu and configuration module 460 is called. The communication module 470 is used to transmit data from the gauge wirelessly to the outside world.
While the foregoing is directed to embodiments of the present invention, other and further embodiments of the invention may be devised without departing from the basic scope thereof. It is also understood that various embodiments described herein may be utilized in combination with any other embodiment described, without departing from the scope contained herein. In addition, embodiments of the present invention are further scalable to allow for additional components, as particular applications may require.
The present application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 62/122,563 entitled “PORTABLE GRAPHING VACUUM PRESSURE GAUGE,” filed Oct. 24, 2014, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety as if fully set forth herein.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 62122563 | Oct 2014 | US |
