Hoover coffee can vacuum?

[karl]

Picked up this beauty today for $20. But I heard that its called a coffee can hoover. I can't find the model #, on the back it says motor #. Is that it?

 

[bnsd60m9200]

that's a model 825, made in 1935. two speed motor and one of the last coffee can models made before dryfuss changed the styling with the 150 in 1936.

 

[karl]

Thank you, cool looking vacuum. It is missing a front wheel, but runs great.

 

[madman]

Nice! Very interesting voltage rating... 100-115v 0-45Hz, 115-120v 50-60Hz. I mean, I guess it kind of makes sense because 120v ac is about equivalent to 100v dc... because of the 'off' time between ac cycles. Still, it's just a motor, I wonder why they thought it was so important to rate it that way.

 

[huskyvacs]

MadMan

I think the nuances in the voltages was down to how the electrical infrastructure was in the USA at the time, and how the power stations supplied power. Rural areas didn't have as much power as cities due to the less importance of power supply and the population density being less.

I found a random site that kind of explains it a little bit: https://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=335333

"Edison originally planned everything for 100 V DC -generators,light bulbs.Then after putting up his first line in Manhattan, he found the customers at the end of line complaining of poor illumination, obviously due to voltage drop. As bulbs were already made, he could not derate them for 90 V.The easiest thing he could do was to increase the generator voltage to 110V increasing the field excitation. Thus 110 V became standard,leading to 220V ,440V etc and later to 11,22,66,110,220 kV."

You can notice this on a smaller scale inside older homes that have their original wiring, where if you go around all the outlets with a voltmeter, the further you get from the circuit panel the voltage will drop off due to the length of the wire span, the aging of the wire, and its electrical tolerance in the gauge used.

In my house, the outlet my PC is plugged into is giving me 118V. However the outlet that is directly attached to the panel in the basement and on its own circuit with only maybe less than a foot of wire, is reading 127V. So there's a 9V difference in power supply from opposite ends of the house. This is in a half-modernized 1950 house that had sporadic wiring additions done in 1979 and has a circuit breaker panel from the same time. Imagine how much different it would be in a 1920s craftsman home that has two floors and a basement with thin knob and tube wiring and screw-in fuses back then. If your house didn't have the juice to run the vacuum, you'd be stuck in a pickle and have to use the old broom and dustpan. lol

 

[madman]

Husky, you might also want to check that your breaker box is decently balanced. If most of your usual consumers are all on one phase, that would also cause lower voltage.

 

[huskyvacs]

Yeah, that's been on my to do list, I need to label what rooms the breakers go to and what's on them.

 

[4501933ho]

I have a 1933 or34 hoover 450 coffee can

Is this a low end model

 

[gottahaveahoove]

even the "low ends" then

would drown some of the "high ends" of now.