Information on the Turbopower 1000/2/3 please!

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Yep the piston bag full indicators were very unreliable and inaccurate in my opinion.

I have one in my 2008 JMB SC1056 1400W cylinder, and even when the bag was literally 100% full, it didn't even engage!

The only time it does anything is when there is a blockage in the hose and total suction is cut off.

Useless in my opinion.

Although even the light bag full indicators come on too late, they still come on, so that is a little better.
 
Very interesting Benny!

I bet it is strange to think back to 1993 when you thought the Turbopower 2 would never see the light of day, but now you know they were very popular and went on until the early 2000's!

As for people not using the Autosense feature and just using it with Turbo engaged 100% of the time, I don't see a need for that, as mine sucks everything up perfectly fine on the low and high Autosense levels, and I only engage the Turbo when I'm vacuuming up something that is either very heavy or there is a lot of.

Each to their own though!
 
Hello Paul

May I thank you so much for your compliments. I have to admit I am approaching this world of vacuum cleaners from a very different (though hopefully as equal) angle as yourselves. I bought my shop in 1979. It was a long established business and I would have been 41 years old. The business came up for sale and I had known it and the owner for many years. I was still not married and lived with my parents, so had saved more that enough money from my carrear as a Civil Servant to buy the place. Now, I am not as keen on the cleaners as a hobby, rather it was my livelihood, but they still interest me greatly. Model numbers are something where I am mostly quite vague, because you've seen one, you've seen them all, without meaning to be disrespectful. It was colours which caught my attention, but with the Turbopower 2, 3, and 1000's, there were so many deep blues and greens that I can't always recall which colour had what.

I saw sales reps from various companies but they never had much to do with the nuts & bolts. So, in the case of a piston bag-full indicator, if I'd have asked a rep why they got chnaged to a red light, they'd have only bluffed their way through. I would suggest it was because it was more in keeping with the cleaners to have a light, and was certainly more visible. One of the cleaners had a system where once the red light came on, it stayed on and flashed off/on. I am sure the more basic cleaners just came off and on as suction was restricted and restored.

Thank you again.
 
Hi Jamie.

That would maybe explain why Hoover discontinued Piston indicators on the Turbo2's. Shame that JMB didnt look back at vacuum cleaner history, before sprcifying them for their own machines.

Oh well - you live and learn :-)

Paul
 
Jmurray, sorry if I mislead you but it was the Dyson DC01 which I talked about being a potential white elephant, not the Turbopower series. The success of the Turbopower was a full gone conclusion, though I always thought there was a lot to choose.

The reason my wife most disliked the Autosense was because of the constant increasing and decreasing motor power. It was not so much the suction that bothered her, more continual change in the noise. I have to admit that on the few occasions I heard her using it in Autosense mode, it sent me mad as well. To her, vacumming was just a job to be done and she didn't want the fuss of the Autosense, she just wanted to clean. I should make the point that I did my share of the housework too, though vacuuming was usually done by her for no particular reason.
 
Also, and again, the year was 1992. The Autumn & Winter catalouge range featured the 2 Turbopower ranges and the Dyson DC01. The Dyson was not avaliable until the Spring of 1993.
 
Roughly year wise, I think it went something like this:

1992 Turbopower 2 released, replacing the original Turbopowers as the mainstream cleaner

early 1993 sees Turbopower 1000 released and these replace the Turbomasters.

1994 sees Turbopower 3 introduced, which replaced the Turbopower 1000's and become the core range of cleaners, but with a new range of Turbopower 2's progressively introduced, acting as the cheaper upright cleaner range.

With all the above going on, the Turbopower 1's eke out their final years as the budget cleaner of the Hoover range.


Does the above timeline ring true with people, or did it happen slightly differently?

Paul
 
Had a gander at the various vacs in our Hoover Room and quite a few use piston bag indicators LUX 350, Lux Turbo2, Hotpoint uprights

To be honest I dont really take much notice of those, I tend to change a bag when I remember to check and its reasonably full.

Even the light controlled indicators never seem accurate,

Anyhoo, this thread sends me back 20 years as I know live in the house where I encountered my first Hoover Turbopower2 and used it! My aunty Carole had a Turbomaster total system Exclusive which was replaced in 1994 with the MOL Turbopower2.

The hallway that has seen these vacs 20 years ago now gets another glimpse of them. Only thng that really does remain after all these years is the Petticoat Lane key hook, LOL.

turbomaster1984++1-24-2012-16-23-52.jpg
 
Hi Benny.

Finally, someone with experience of the rare U2881. Thanks for the information on this cleaner, as previously the only info I have found is the basics from the Hoover Service books.
The deatails from there state that it was originally a Currys exclusive and that the 'Autosense' function was called 'ecosense' instead.
The 'eco' bit would tally with the machine being semi permanently downrated, with the user having to manually uprate the machine over and over again.

Much like wth the U2570 'Turboboost' Turbopower1, which had an on/off switch, but with a boost setting as a third position on the switch that had to be held down to gain the extra power. That was a Currys exclusive model as well, so maybe having a boost function that you had to hold down or reselect to get, was a Currys thing.

Ah well - good to finally know more about the U2881 - each time we now stumble across a U2880, we will have to double check that its not a U2881.

Paul
 
Paul, it makes sense to me, except that I stand by what I said about the Turbopower 2 and Turbopower 1000 going on sale at the same time. As you rightly say, the Turbopower 2 and 1000 took the lead as the mainstream models, but there were several of the older style still going strong for a short while yet. It was very late in the day that the original Turbopower cleaners got the name Turbopower 1, I suppose that's because you can't call anything the 1 or the first until subsequent models or whatever it happens to be have made their debute.

The lilac Turbopower Total System went on right into mid-1995 as I remember my local Currys or Comet having them in for the £100 mark. They had a big advert in the local paper. I can't say which as both stores were next door to each other and I got terribly confused. This version was the sort to have the on/off switch moved from the handle to the bag unit. Also, a number of models without headlight made their way into stores as exclusive models and mainstream, with and without onboard tools.
 
Some catalogue pages from the introductory period.

I would seriously recommend people to visit the KAYS Catalogue archive, held at the University of Worcester, from where the following photographs come from.

Spring Summer 1992...

turbopowerpaul++1-24-2012-16-38-11.jpg
 
Hello again Paul

I will go so far as to say that although featured in the Autumn & Winter 1992 catalouge (as best I can recall) the cleaners may not have been avaliable for sale until later on. I note with interest your comments about the 2881 being an exclsuive to Currys. I never noticed my wifes cleaner saying ecosense, but I guess it must have done. House of Fraser had these machines stock piled for their 1997 January sale, reduced from £199.99 to £129.99. I don't know if they were all 2881's or a mix of 2880's and 2881's. What I do know is that Currys (and this time I am certain it was Currys not Comet where I saw it) were the first to get the Purepower in January 1997, so it all adds up that Hoover were possibly shifting the last 2881 exclusives out with the last of the 2880, regardless of the store, as they often did bulk-sales to a store or stores, of any model. That was something a rep once mentioned.
 
Benny - Ah, 1992 - Sorry! If only I'd rebooted my brain before typing eh ?

I know what you mean though. Often the carpet I'm vacuuming has bits of dirt here, no dirt there, bits of dirt here, no dirt there etc... So when I'm going over it with the Turbopower, the noise goes "MMMMMMMMM-mmmmmmmmm-MMMMMMMMMMMM-mmmmmmmmm-MMMMMMMM" but I don't really mind.

What is more annoying in my opinion is the really loud slightly high pitched noise the motor makes in Turbo mode.

Paul - I don't think it was so much that they didn't know that the piston indicators were useless, but that they didn't want to spend money fitting a light for the bag full indicator when the cleaner was only sold for £10 brand new! I wouldn't think they made much profit anyway, without fitting an electronic feature! And considering I'm probably the only Vacuum Cleaner fanatic/collector to own one, most owners of the JMB SC1056 probably don't realise the piston indicator doesn't work as they never look at it, but saw it as an extra reason to buy the cleaner when they saw it in the catalogue.

Robert - Those HOOVERs are absolutely beautiful! You should be proud to own them :)
 

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