Volta U505 upright 1974

[markus79]

Hey!
Look what I found last week. This Volta is made in Britain 1974. 450W motor. Looks great and very vintage color too=) hmm. flower decorations...=) This cost only 6 euros. I got also same type Electrolux Z500 from 1971 about a year ago. These are quite rare here because we don´t have wall to wall carpets since 1970´s.

Best Regards
Markus

 

[markus79]

Volta U505

High suction=)

 

[markus79]

Volta U505

back

 

[gsheen]

WOW lovely find, I have the exact same model but under the Electrolux badge 504

 

[ryry_87]

lovely vacuums, this was the 504 in this county

 

[ryry_87]

Electrolux 504, 1976

 

[sebo_fan]

I remember that vac with a passion. It was one of the first models I ever used when I worked in a residential home as a cleaner. The house I worked for had two of these yellow uprights, Hoover Senior and the Commercial brute. Much preferred the Electrolux as it was super light, a breeze to clean with & a far easier machine to carry up 4 flights of stairs. Now I know, after reading these posted brochures to why the LED light always went off when the machine switched on. I never had that on my old Z517.

 

[docker]

Euromate plug

I have never seen a Euromate plug on a vacuum, but being only 450W, this equates to 1.95A, well within the Euromate's 2.5A rating. In SA, all vacs, power tools etc are sold with a moulded Schuko plug, even though we don't have Schuko sockets. Replacing the Schuko with a BS plug invalidates the guarantee!

 

[ryry_87]

I once had a pimped up 504 with a 1300w contour motor. It was incredible, it used to pull itself along

 

[gsheen]

Yea, I did that to but with a 560, it was insane. I gave it to one of my mates and he still uses it

 

[kirbymodel2c]

Hi

Hi Ryan. When you put a 1300 watt motor in your Electrolux 504 did you have any problems with it pulling the bags in to the machine??
As years ago when I had a newer more powerful motor fitted in a Electrolux z358t the bags cardboard front use to fold in half and get pull in to the bag compartment once the bag got about a quarter full.

James)

 

[gsheen]

Docker ,

It is a myth that in SA you invalidate the warranty by replacing the plug. We do it all the time for our customers when they buy a new vac from us.

 

[ryry_87]

James - No it was fine actually, it seemed to get through belts quite quick though

 

[collector2]

Just to throw in one more version. Here's my Canadian Dometic model 505. Also made in England. Another version of the same machine.

 

[gsheen]

Collector2
what type of plug is that on your machine, I thought Canada would use the same plug as the USA

 

[gsheen]

Docker
Here is the Euromate plug as fitted to the latest Vorwerk Vk140 as sold in SA

Its Rated as 1300watt

 

[vintagerepairer]

The whole replacement plug myth is alive & well in this country too. The instructions with almost all appliances in the UK actually come with detailed instructions on how to remove any fitted plug the appliance may have and how to replace it with the correct type if necessary. Mostly plugs are only removed if the get damaged, which happens a lot on power tools, vacuum cleaners, lawn mowers, and so on and so forth, or on kitchen appliances where the mains lead needs to be passed through a gap or hole in a kitchen unit or surface to reach the socket.

As for the light on the switch on the Electrolux 504, the fact that it goes out when the switch is pressed may well be described as a feature in the booklet, but the truth of the matter is that it's a consequence of having the lamp in the switch and not really a feature at all. This is the only way a lamp could be fitted to the cleaner without making a change to the existing mouldings, and the neon lamp sits across the two live terminals of the switch. When the switch contacts are broken (that is to say the switch is off) there is current flowing through the neon, down the live connection to the motor, and around the cleaner, then back out down the neutral wire, and vice-versa, such is A.C. current. This causes the neon to illuminate. Pressing the switch by-passes the neon altogether and it goes out.

It is my own opinion that the neon is there as a very cheap way of making the cleaner look that little bit more fancy. Upon using her 504 for the very first time, my mothers exact words were "Well what is the point of that?" when she switched the machine on and the lamp went out. In spite of this, she liked the cleaner very much. As I am sure we are all aware of, the Automatic 330 and 345 cylinder cleaners did exactly the same with the neon lamp, using the bag full lamp as a way of indicating that the power was on. The fact that it would illuminate when the cleaner was switched off, irrespective of how full or empty the bag may have been was rather short-sighted and confusing I felt. I think the lamp should have had no writing against it at all, or words to the effect that it indicated both power to the cleaner and a full bag, or have had two separate indicators to demonstrate the current status of the cleaner.

 

[gsheen]

Lamp switch

It was and still is ( on many commercial vacuums ) a saftey system letting you know the machine is plugged in.

 

[vintagerepairer]

Hello Gary, yes I realise this, but what I was meaning was the fact that the lamp goes out when the cleaner is switched on is described in the booklet as being some kind of feature. Due to the way in which the lamp is wired, there is no way for it not to go out and it is my opinion that Electrolux made mention of it going out so as to pacify an inquisitive consumer. I feel that really Electrolux would have preferred to have fitted a neon which was permanently on when the cleaner was connected to the mains, like on their model 170, but this would have required further modification to an existing moulding, whereas a switch with a built in lamp did not as if fits into the same hole where a none illuminated switch would otherwise be located. The downside of it was of course that the lamp goes out when the motor is running.