If it appears that the vacuum pump is working well and the seals around the vacuum chamber are clean, it may be a bad vacuum switch on the circuit board.
Turn it over and take out the screws. Inside there will be a small 2x2 circuit board with a 1" round device (the vacuum switch) with a clear tube going from it to the vacuum pump.
On my unit, liquid got into this and rusted the spring so that the contacts and contact plate were corroded and would not make a good electrical contact.
I un-soldered mine from the board, took it apart (by cutting away the edge of the reddish-brown cover) cleaned it all up till the contacts and contact plate were nice and shiny, and clamped and super-glued it back together. Works great now. Make sure you note how far in the vacuum adjustment screw is so you can get it back to the same position.
Or, you may wish to just buy a new vacuum switch off of ebay.
SOURCE: foodsaver compact vac 550 sealing strip doesn't seal
My machine stopped working because the sealing ribbon was broken and the tape was worn. FoodSaver no longer does repairs. I knew the wire was called nichcome ribbon so I searched that. I checked the resistance of the ribbon on my machine, it was about 3.8 ohms. I found a site called mpakonline.com and from their site I bought 1/16 x .005 nichrome ribbon and 3/8 x 5 MIL. x 18 YD Acrylic Teflon Tape. The total cost of these items was about $36.00, the ohm value of their ribbon was 1.66 somewhat less.I used ends from radio shack made the repair and it has been working fine for the last two months and I have enough material leftover for about ten more repairs.
SOURCE: my foodsaver vac 550 vacuum works but it doesn't
Check the altitude adjustment. Also, check for food debris in the intake hole, tube or path. Check for debris on the rubber seal around the sealing strip.
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