My Foodsaver recently started pulling a vacuum, but not starting the sealing process automatically. Finally pulled it apart to find some extra blood in the works. Pulled out screws here:
I’m pretty sure the main issue was with the sensor shown below. I use a Q-tip to rub a little rubbing alcohol on and in the port of that sensor.
You can see the blood in the tubes below. I took all of the tubes off and soaked them in rubbing alcohol as well as carefully boring them out with Q-tips with their cotton pulled off. I also cleaned the valves for the square pump setup in the top right.
After all of that I filled the tube that connects to the aforementioned sensor with alcohol and put everything back together. First test (of a spoon) drew a vacuum and immediately sealed.
UPDATE:
Still had issues again and pulled the machine apart again. I removed the entire control board and re-attached the tube to the pressure sensor after filling it with rubbing alcohol. I blew into the tube several times in order to fill the sensor with alcohol, pulled the tube off to empty and rinse it with water and then reattached the tube. After sucking on the tube a couple of times several chunks of what I assume was dried blood came out. (This can’t make it all the way out of the tube and into your mouth.) I repeated this process several times until it ran clean. I’m pretty sure that’s the end of the issue.
