Dirt Devil Broom Vac (thrift store find)

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My selection for the day. So, being the all-knowing vacuum expert I am, I bought the Dirt Devil to the left along with the Kirby and Shop-Vac, right? WRONG. I know nothing about modern vacuum rarity, so I left it. When I got home, long-time my friend and fellow VacuumLand member, HuskyVacs, immediately told me that he's been wanting one for years and that they go for a pretty penny. Dang.

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The ultimate trust in the leak-proof abilities of your truck is putting a $100 vacuum in the back and going through a car wash. Note Ringo the raccoon and the large TV in the back. I always have Ringo in my truck as a bit of Nineties vintage-ness, but I chose him because I had a duplicate of him, not because I collect old junk. Peace and love. WEESH and love.

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View of the underside of the Broom Vac. According to Husky, it was made in March 1992. Which is funny if you know him well.

This vacuum is the 3-ampere 702 model. There was a 3.5-ampere 712 model available as well. I wonder if there was a 4-ampere 722 model. No, wait, that's an SLR McLaren model.

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John:
I actually wound up with that from you at a mini meet back in 2010. It went to live with another collector when I had to move from an apartment, and I believe I may still have it. Not sure though because a lot of my collection has been depleted over the last year.
 
I had one

Found on someone’s trash. I felt the switch could Have been a better design that could have been foot operated and while the telescopic handle was nice especially when one needs to take a vac in the car and has a tight space…I always felt there were some definite design flaws with it. 1. The brush roll is too far back so can’t clean that space on the steps between the step and the riser where crap gets pushed. I know there’s suction grooves on the bottom plate but without brushing and direct suction action it didn’t do the job. Secondly the brush roller only has one strip of bristles resulting in missed groomed areas and funny patterns on the pile of the carpet. Only way to get it to sweep the carpet more thoroughly is to go half speed strokes.

Next problem is if you vacuum too fast the whole front pulls up from the floor very easily resulting in no contact at all with the floor or carpet which is just useless and dumb. This is partially the fault of the handle spring and the light weight plastic materials used on the motor body. I eventually sent mine off to thrift because it really wasn’t all that good. Generally a perfect representation of Royal’s poor engineering of dirt devil machines. They’re right up there with the cheap Bissells IMO…America’s plasti crap. Sorry to poo poo this little machine. The concept of being a mini Kirby or mini Royal was nice but the follow through just downright sucks. Oh and using this thing with attachments….just as difficult to convert as a Kirby and one has to remove the belt. Ugh.

I guess I can see that it is fun to collect interesting concepts in machines if you have the room for them…even if they are poorly engineered and performing. It is a cute concept…but a frustrating performer.

Jon
 
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