Does your vacuum cleaner suck too much?

That’s very negative, Malcolm. Of course products have to be tested under standard conditions for meaningful comparison. Under these conditions the motor is expected to operate for a minimum of 500 hours and how long individual ones last will depend on how the cleaners are used and also on luck.

I don’t know why the EU chose to restrict the power of vacuum cleaner motors but you have to start somewhere and when some cleaners are a nuisance because of too much suction – the original topic of this Conversation – why not? With the exception of Dyson, vacuum motors have not changed much in design in our lifetimes. We are seeing more efficient motors in many products, though much of this is driven by the need for more efficient motors for battery-operated products.

Yes we could save more energy by changing car design but I don’t see that as a reason for not having more efficient vacuum cleaners and other household products. Criticism of the amount of power that products use on ‘standby’ has led to less wasteful products.

Longer guarantees will help get rid of third-rate products and push up quality. We cannot afford to carry on generating mountains of waste household goods that have failed after a short life.

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It would be good if we could tackle all forms of energy wastage but I don’t see much chance of that happening any time soon. What we have achieved thanks to the EU is vacuum cleaners that use less than half the power of models that have gone before. They still do their job but don’t produce as much heat as a fan heater.

When electric drills and other power tools became popular it became common to use the power consumption in marketing. I can remember Black & Decker doing this. The popularity of cordless tools has changed marketing because high power consumption is associated with short running time. It’s not that long since one Dyson handheld vacuum would run for six minutes before needing charged. Now we have many rechargeable vacuum cleaners that will do much better.

I think we do need to explore ways of saving energy and minimising pollution without waiting for comprehensive solutions that may be a long time coming. The increasing popularity of electric cars and buses will help held address the problem of air pollution in built-up areas. We don’t need to wait until we can do the same with HGVs and other diesel-powered transport.

Time to bring back the Ewbank hand-pushed carpet sweeper? No suction, just roller-brush action.

Carpet sweepers are fine for hard surfaces but not brilliant for cleaning carpets, despite the name. Nowadays we have electric carpet sweepers at prices that won’t break the (ew)bank.

Suction was a worthwhile addition but that does not mean that it has to be so powerful that it becomes difficult to move the cleaning head or it lifts the corners of rugs.

Our Miele 1600W Cat and Dog vacuum cleaner, now about 16 years old (probably more) has a selector switch to change the power (suction) to deal with different kinds of surface. Seems to put the user in control. That reminds me, I must order some more dust bags.

The user is not in as much control as it may seem. I have a Miele cleaner without the pet designation and probably earlier because it is rated 1500W. The suction control is marked as variable between 300W and 1500W, though on the lowest setting where it produces very gentle suction it actually consumes over 400W and over 800VA because of the very crude phase control. Appliances with a low power factor distort the AC waveform and create problems for the generating companies. The power consumption is hardly surprising because the motor is an old fashioned design with a commutator, brushes and field windings. Permanent magnet motors are significantly more efficient and the EU power limit for vacuum cleaners makes them essential.

Wasnt that “simply the best ” by an ex British boxer who “thought a lot of himself ” introduction song John ?

I was referring to suction control, not energy consumption.

The motor for my “Trix set ” -engineering like Meccano had a permanent magnet Wavechange . The PF would not be helped if the electronic circuit was pre- Triac – IE- SCR which was extensively used for motor control . I built an early BD D520 drill ( 60,s ) SCR speed controller using a valve radio volume control and old WW2 resistors and capacitors –worked for years .

Small motors like that always used permanent magnets but it was the development of magnets that could provide a strong field and shaped to make best use of it that they started to appear in larger motors. My 1982 Philips washing machine contained a permanent magnet motor made by Italian company Polymotor and the earliest examples I’ve seen dated from the 1970s, albeit not in domestic products.

The vacuum cleaner speed control is a simple triac circuit of the type you mention and here is an example of one for a Miele cleaner: https://www.partmaster.co.uk/speed-control-module-cyl-s444i/product.pl?pid=309567 I built speed controllers and dimmers when they were very expensive to buy. Happy days. I presume that modern brushless motors use speed controls that do not play as much havoc with the power factor.

Have a look at this module using a Triac from Mouser, a very well known US electronic parts seller to Americans who build their own electronic circuits, they can supply the UK also http://www.mouser.com/catalog/specsheets/stevalill004v1.pdf what Mapin used to be and much more.

Sadly it costs more to make electronic devices these days, when they are mass produced.

It should be the opposite of that Wavechange read JJS manufacturing-Lutterworth https://blog.jjsmanufacturing.com/4-benefits-of-industrial-automation-in-electronics-manufacturing . What we could be talking about is old fashioned –greed .