Deep Clean Agitation Test Ideas

[vacuumwars]

Does anyone have any ideas to consistently score vacuum cleaners ability to agitate and deep clean carpets?

I have used a sand in medium pile carpet test in the past where I measure dust bins before and after, is that the best I can do or is there a more clever way?

 

[dysonman1]

Vacuum manufacturers use a combination of sand and talc as their 'test dirt'. A new piece of carpet is cut to fit a small platform. The carpet has a quantity of test dirt applied and rolled into the rug with a garden roller. That piece of carpet is weighed on a digital scale. A mechanical arm pushes the vacuum back and forth (eliminating the human speed variable) for a specific number of strokes. The 'cleaned' carpet is then reweighed. The difference in weight is the percentage of dirt removed. The best vacuums will get 70 to 80% of the dirt.

 

[fantomtechguy]

The way I test Vacuum Preformance

What I have done is pretty simple. I went to my local hardware store and purchased a medium sized area rug. I made sure the type of pile was a mixture of "not too tall but not too short" if that makes sense.

For tests I use rice because it's the perfect size to test out a vacuum's suction and agitation. I get about 2 cups full and evenly spread it out on the rug.

For accurate results:
- Clean the rug before doing any tests
- Measure the cups of rice before using them
- Dump out how much you have collected and weigh it out with the weight(s) from the cup(s) of rice

Hope this works for you

 

[vacuumdevil]

I would recommend using a consistent amount of pet hair or kapok, flower, something big like rice or breakfast cereal. It's really hard to measure what a vacuum picked up by emptying out the contents, especially since so many vacuums have nucks and crannies where stuff gets stuck. The dirt finder experiment Kirby uses is very flawed and just to sale gimmick. if you have a sharp eye and do a consistent thing with a bunch of vacuums you'll notice which ones work better.
People sometimes test the RPMs of the brush roller but putting a piece of tape on the brush roller and an optical sensor of some sort. but this doesn't account for a lot of different variables.