The handling problem is defined, the specifications have been written, possible solutions have been found and the decision has been made to use the alternative handling medium vacuum. Now you can start designing the system. No problem – but you must first calculate or determine a few basic system parameters, such as the evacuation time, the required area of the suction pads, the suction force, the suction capacity of the pump and the necessary hose diameters.

This, in turn, may involve the conversion of parameters such as volume flow, pressure, power, area, time, distance, energy, force, mass, etc. into different units. This is now also no problem, since the designer does not need to worry about the various conversion factors because they are all stored ready for use in the small but powerful program "VacuCalculator" written by the vacuum specialists at J. Schmalz GmbH in 72293 Glatten.

The program "VacuCalculator" deserves the title "expert system". It not only permits the conversion of units and further calculations for vacuum systems automatically after input of only a few values. It also permits each user to save frequently used conversion operations, complete with the input unit and target unit, as user-defined functions. User-defined functions which are no longer needed can be deleted at any time.

The VacuCalculator offers a multitude of different units of measurement, clearly arranged in 14 main groups under the heading "Unit Calculator", and you can convert between these units with only a few mouse clicks. This makes the calculation of vacuum systems fast and reliable! The "VacuCalculator" from Schmalz can be downloaded free of charge from the Internet. It consists of a ZIP-file containing a 70 KB EXE-file. After downloading, simply unpack it into a folder of your choice. It can then be started and used immediately. At the moment, the program is available in German and English (switched with a menu option).