US Patent 7677622 Method for operating a vacuum handling device

A method is proposed for operating a vacuum handling device controlled by a programmable controller (39) which can be connected to a machine controller (10), with at least one vacuum generator (28) and with a number of gripper modules (20), which are connected to the vacuum generator and are each equipped with a first pressure sensor (46) and with a control valve (44) for the vacuum in the gripper module, and which are connected to the programmable controller. The control valve in the gripper module is closed in a first switching state (vacuum on) of the programmable controller and is detected up to the control valve (44) by means of a second pressure sensor (78) in the vacuum generator.