6 Pairs of New Balance Shoes Here in the Lab
VacLab Response Part 1
In 1982, I took my first advanced placement (re: College level) Physics course as a junior in High School. Many years later I submitted term papers and received an “A” in a graduate level (i.e. 500 level) Physics/M.E. lab course in which I performed detailed mechanical/electrical labs. These papers were graded by a PhD professor.
My formal degree is Math, but I have 9 credit hours remaining and I would earn a B.S. in Physics as well.
With that being said, 6 pairs of New Balance shoes should definitely sway any naysayers in the right direction (see, I made a funny there).
Let’s boil down his video into two fundamental arguments.
1)The theory of “if you weigh a vacuum bag, it will tell you how much you have picked up.”
His observance that there will be “error” in pickup in 100% true and I’ve been making videos to that effect since 2017 when I started my channel. At this time, I’ve posted innumerable videos in which I separate erroneous carpet fluff from the test dirt, wherever possible
But it gets better. Beginning in January 2020, I started a playlist called “Dry Pass (Carpet Shredder) Test” in which carpet tear out is specifically quantified. To date, 14 results have been posted, ranging from a low of 0.01g to a high of 0.65g. So all 14 machines (which were tested up to 5 times to obtain consistent results) had “error rates” of far less than 1 gram on my medium pile test carpet. While every carpet will certainly be different, all one needs to do is measure the extraneous pickup and properly quantify it, a simple task provided you have a sensitive scale. A scale that only measures to 1 gram should never be used.
Once the “error rate” is properly measured, it can now be used in a simple formula.
(Raw Bag/Bin Pickup) MINUS (Error Rate) = Cleaned Pickup
I specifically designed my tests to give highly accurate results regardless of the error rate. Here’s how the Math works out:
If I test one of my “carpet shredder” vacuums with 5 grams of sand and I have a known 0.5 grams error, I can merely subtract that from the pickup. If the shredder picks up 4 grams, subtract 0.5 grams and now you have 3.5 grams, a 10% reduction.
If I test one of my non-shredder vacuums with 5 grams of sand and I have a known 0.1 grams error, I can merely subtract that from the pickup. If the non-shredder picks up 4 grams, subtract 0.1 grams and now you have 3.9 grams, a 2% reduction.
It should also be mentioned that all testing typically has varying margins of error caused by a wide variety of factors. Many industries recognized that plus or minus 3% is an acceptable range. You should never buy another vacuum because some test shows it to be 5% or even 10% better. The difference will be nearly impossible to notice for the average user.
Around 9:38 the statement is made “You can’t use carpet for a weighed pickup test.” <- Totally false claim as proven above. Alex, you need to watch how proper testing is performed, which is why I named my channel “VacLab.”
