I can, and it changes nothing. If you think there is an idea of value and relevance, just write it here instead of posting a 55 long minute video.
@Hatsuwr here:
Vacuum cleaners use a motor to spin an impeller, removing air and lowering internal pressure. This creates a partial vacuum, causing atmospheric air to rush in and drag dirt with it. According to Newton’s Second Law, dirt particles are accelerated when air moving into the cleaner head exerts a force on them. This drag force is influenced by the particle's shape, size, and the speed of the air. Then there's Venturi effect: by sealing the cleaner head to a surface, the walls act as a flow constrictor. This increases air speed as it enters narrow openings, which maximizes the drag force on dirt particles.
Crucially, suction pressure determines air speed, which drives cleaning performance. High airflow (at least according to
@Vacuum Facts - as per
@cheesewonton's suggestion, it depends on how limited the airflow is - in the case of cordless vacuums, it is limited enough because the motors are fed from batteries) is often incidental and not the primary factor in effective dirt removal.
@Vacuum Facts used an analogy to electromagnetism to hammer the point home:
- Suction ≈ Voltage: It is the "pressure" that drives the system.
- Airflow ≈ Current: It is the volume of air moving through the circuit.
- Carpet ≈ Resistor: The flooring resists the flow of air. Hard floors have virtually zero resistance, while shaggy rugs (like the ones that's used to wrongly test Kirby machines) still have little resistance. Only backed carpets used in most homes have significant resistance.
- The motor itself has internal resistance, meaning some energy is always lost. On the other hand, leaks on the floorhead wool reduce the resistance drastically, due to being the path of least resistance.
Air watts measures the actual power of the moving air suction times airflow.
[AW] = c×F×S
0.117354×[CFM]×[kPa]
0.248659×[l/s]×[kPa]
0.0619×[l/s]×[in.H2O]
0.0292×[CFM]×[in.H2O]
Manufacturers often advertise (motor) Watts (electrical consumption), but Air Watts is the true measure of performance. However, AW alone is primarily there for above-floor/crevice cleaning. If the cleaner head seal is broken, air takes the path of least resistance (as mentioned above). This "leakage" causes a drop in suction pressure, which significantly reduces cleaning efficiency.
Different flooring have different interactions:
- Head Clamping: If suction is too high, the weight of the atmosphere can pin the head to the floor. Bleed gates (like the ones on Dyson's brush bars) or power modes are used to alleviate this while maintaining sufficiently high air speed.
- Agitation: Rotating brush bars provide three benefits: grabbing surface hair, opening gaps in the carpet pile to allow faster air within the pile, and shaking trapped particles free.
- Carpet Types: Backed (non-porous) carpets block air from underneath, making deep dirt harder to reach, whereas shaggy (porous) rugs allow air to flow through the backing but often require more power to maintain suction. As mentioned, backed carpets are used in most homes and also harder to deep clean, and thus is significantly more representative.
The evolution of vacuum cleaners necessitates better systems:
- Bags act as mechanical filters but lose suction as they fill with dust and become more resistive. In other words: they clogs and lose suction.
- Cyclonic tech: exclusive to bagless machines. Uses the Venturi effect to create high-speed jets that spin dirt out of the air. This ensures consistent suction regardless of how much dirt is in the bin. While Filter Queen invented the basic tech in early-to-mid 20th century, Dyson was the pioneer with the invention of a proper cyclonic separation system with multi-cyclonic design (inspired by industrial cyclones for factories).
- HEPA filters use processes like interception and Brownian motion to capture microscopic particles down to 0.3 micrometer at the largest, with at least 99.95% efficiency. Make sure the machine is fully-sealed, for the allergy-countering whole-machine filtration. (Dyson excelled on filtration in vacuums, now with down to 0.1 micrometer with a whopping 99.99% efficiency)
- New designs like rotating disc separators or non-cyclonic inertial systems (i.e. as used by PencilVac and V16) aim to be more energy-efficient and prevent hair tangling in the bin. Ditto more Archimedes screw designs (again, de-tangles hair pretty much flawlessly).
@Vacuum Facts also debunked a bunch of myths surrounding the vacuum cleaners:
- "More Airflow is Better": Large leakage airflows actually reduce suction and air speed, making cleaning worse. You gotta balance suction and airflow with suction being the main priority.
- Vibration: Excessive/violent vibration or "sand" bouncing outside the head (like what Kirby vacuums tend to do) is often a marketing trick and doesn't improve actual dirt removal under the head. You needs proper agitation and pile separation to do the job.
- Sand vs. Dust: Testing with only sand is unrepresentative, as fine household dust behaves very differently and is harder to remove. That's why
@Vacuum Facts and the likes (and likely many others) didn't just use full sands.
- Big mess tests: Cleaning an absurdly large pile of dirt is "cosmetic entertainment" and doesn't prove a machine can remove deep-seated, real-world dust concentrations. If anything, it could potentially clog even a powerful stuffs with the most advanced cyclones ever, partly because it's so easy to overfill (not recommended at all; the content could overflow to the filtration systems, overpowering the cyclones and thus clogging the filters afterwards). Only a backed carpet with properly (not excessively deeply) embedded fine-mix dust eventually across would've done the job.
@Hatsuwr you asked for a recap, so I said what
@Vacuum Facts talked about.
I just wish that it would be comprehensible to everyone how ridiculous this whole V16 situation is.
@centralsweeper63 precisely!
I've seen plenty of old Kennys with Ametek motors pushed past their thermal limits. Warped / melted bodies, burned commutators with melted segments smeared across each other. Turn it on and it sounds like ball bearings in a blender O_O
A vacuum motor uses more watts when airflow is unrestricted. When airflow is restricted, the fan(s) is(are) unloaded. That reduces the power required to spin the fan(s). When you look at performance charts for vacuum motors you see this. As the orifice is restricted, motor rpm rises while amps and watts consumed both decline.
View attachment 171761
Airflow in cordless vacuums are relatively limited because the motors could only be powered by batteries which have limited capacities.
Besides that, I think it's very useless trying to force a product that was born, built, and sold in a certain way. We should just accept that Dyson made this decision for this release.
I also remember the V10; it was definitely a game changer. Then with the V11, they perfected all the starting material and improved the quality. The V16 is just the first attempt to better future products (I hope).
Somehow Dyson will have to refresh the V16 to fix the real issue
@Vacuum Facts and partly
@frickhelm spotted...
It already runs at 139,000 RPM (likely at 450 watts), increasing that would make it explode extremely quickly.
V16's motor maxes out at 140,000RPM.
Dyson bearings. Apparently.
Number one, you don't preload a ball bearing. That is only for tapered roller bearings.
No, Dyson's motors doesn't use such dedicated bearings. Their precise design and near-non-existent tolerance make friction and load reasonable for their supreme speed (140,000RPM currently). So I don't think the preload applies to Dyson motors the same way it does in other uses.
