Dyson V15 Vacuum Cleaner

[langwadt]

Yeah I don't know of any plug-in vacuum cleaners that use brushless motors although I'm sure it will happen at some point, the motors and controllers have gotten so cheap and they're a lot quieter

So cheap? Nah. Low power brushless motors have become cheap, sure. The ones you would use on a small RC model.
For the kind of power you need for a vacuum cleaner, they are definitely NOT cheap, and in any case a lot more expensive than the brushed alternatives. Consider that a typical decent mains vacuum cleaner has an 2000 W motor, or so.

afaik EU now limits vacuum cleaners to 900W and 80dB

[james_s]

So cheap? Nah. Low power brushless motors have become cheap, sure. The ones you would use on a small RC model.
For the kind of power you need for a vacuum cleaner, they are definitely NOT cheap, and in any case a lot more expensive than the brushed alternatives. Consider that a typical decent mains vacuum cleaner has an 2000 W motor, or so.

I have several model airplanes with brushless motors that are over 400W and cost less than $20 retail. A typical vacuum cleaner here is around 1200W, I see no reason a brushless motor in that power range couldn't be mass produced for a price not greatly more than that of a comparable universal motor. The magnets are relatively expensive but they are mechanically simpler and contain less copper. The drive electronics used to be expensive at higher powers but that stuff gets cheaper all the time.

[james_s]

I think Dyson is kind of like the Jobs of vacuums. When Jobs made the iPhone, all the parts already existed but he presented them in a way that just clicked. All the parts of Dyson vacuums were already around, but it is he that kicked off the bagless cyclone fad. Indeed, the main reason I got mine was because I was fed up of having to buy and dispose of bags - I had perfectly good vacuums, but the bags...

Nowadays I won't consider a vacuum that isn't bagless. We have a few, and even the non-cyclone ones are bagless to the extent that if they use filters they are reusable filters. When Dyson was punting his stuff, so far as I can recall, bagless was rare. Presumably the manufacturers were copying the razor-blade model of funding, which might explain why Dyson's stuff was expensive in comparison. I think the introduction of his early models was as big and significant as the iPhone in the domestic market, and the cost reflected that.

I had several different bagless vacuum cleaners that were more trouble than they were worth, constantly filling up and clogging. For a while I went back to a bag vacuum and that worked much better, it would go months between needing the bag changed. Then I got the Dyson we have now and I was finally impressed, it's the only bagless vacuum I've used that actually works properly.

[SiliconWizard]

So cheap? Nah. Low power brushless motors have become cheap, sure. The ones you would use on a small RC model.
For the kind of power you need for a vacuum cleaner, they are definitely NOT cheap, and in any case a lot more expensive than the brushed alternatives. Consider that a typical decent mains vacuum cleaner has an 2000 W motor, or so.

I have several model airplanes with brushless motors that are over 400W and cost less than $20 retail. A typical vacuum cleaner here is around 1200W, I see no reason a brushless motor in that power range couldn't be mass produced for a price not greatly more than that of a comparable universal motor. The magnets are relatively expensive but they are mechanically simpler and contain less copper. The drive electronics used to be expensive at higher powers but that stuff gets cheaper all the time.

Well sure. It's all a matter of market. It's just more expensive at this point because high-power brushless motors address different markets.
So for this to happen, manufacturers need to take the plunge. But who is going to do it unless they are forced to? Benefits include: possibly a bit lower noise, and, most of all, a much, much longer life. But manufacturers do not care about long life. They want to sell stuff!

[SiliconWizard]

Yeah I don't know of any plug-in vacuum cleaners that use brushless motors although I'm sure it will happen at some point, the motors and controllers have gotten so cheap and they're a lot quieter

So cheap? Nah. Low power brushless motors have become cheap, sure. The ones you would use on a small RC model.
For the kind of power you need for a vacuum cleaner, they are definitely NOT cheap, and in any case a lot more expensive than the brushed alternatives. Consider that a typical decent mains vacuum cleaner has an 2000 W motor, or so.

afaik EU now limits vacuum cleaners to 900W and 80dB

Ah, really. I have a 2000W LG vacuum cleaner that still works great. Noise I don't know for sure, but I don't think it exceeds 80 dB, or not by much.

Unless manufacturers can manage to design something as effective with only 900W, then I'm happy to have bought it before. Dang.

[langwadt]

Yeah I don't know of any plug-in vacuum cleaners that use brushless motors although I'm sure it will happen at some point, the motors and controllers have gotten so cheap and they're a lot quieter

So cheap? Nah. Low power brushless motors have become cheap, sure. The ones you would use on a small RC model.
For the kind of power you need for a vacuum cleaner, they are definitely NOT cheap, and in any case a lot more expensive than the brushed alternatives. Consider that a typical decent mains vacuum cleaner has an 2000 W motor, or so.

afaik EU now limits vacuum cleaners to 900W and 80dB

Ah, really. I have a 2000W LG vacuum cleaner that still works great. Noise I don't know for sure, but I don't think it exceeds 80 dB, or not by much.

Unless manufacturers can manage to design something as effective with only 900W, then I'm happy to have bought it before. Dang.

afaiu at one point EU mandated an "effectivity" rating on vacuums but it was removed because Dyson won a lawsuit against it.
He did not see it as fair to bagless vacuums since bagged vaccuums was only measured with an empty bag

[james_s]

It's hard to quantitatively measure the efficacy of a vacuum cleaner, it depends so much on the specific conditions. Seems a bit silly to mandate energy efficiency for something like that though. A typical vacuum cleaner probably gets run an hour or less a month. My vacuum could draw 20kW and while plugging it in and lugging around the power cord would be inconvenient, I doubt I'd notice the difference on my utility bill. I doubt I even run my upright vacuum that often even, I have a Roomba on each level that run on schedule and do a lot of the maintenance cleaning. 

[langwadt]

It's hard to quantitatively measure the efficacy of a vacuum cleaner, it depends so much on the specific conditions. Seems a bit silly to mandate energy efficiency for something like that though. A typical vacuum cleaner probably gets run an hour or less a month. My vacuum could draw 20kW and while plugging it in and lugging around the power cord would be inconvenient, I doubt I'd notice the difference on my utility bill. I doubt I even run my upright vacuum that often even, I have a Roomba on each level that run on schedule and do a lot of the maintenance cleaning.

EU mandated that the rear lights on cars be off in day time to save energy, resulting in people driving around with no rear lights because they
forgot to turn on the main light when it got dark. So it is now required that new cars have no rear lights in the day and automatically turns on
the main lights when dark

all to save, what, 20W (before LEDs)

[Kleinstein]

With the vaccum cleaners the constructions got crazy: just before the regulations came up the manufacturers got into ever higher power rating by making the motor cooling more efficient and the actual efficiency worse. The consumed power was just missleading the consumers and had very little to do with the actual air flow.  So a new 800 W cleaner may actual work better than the old 2000 W example.
The power limit may be a bit drastic, but it worked well.  The better alternative may have been to require realistic data one the air flow instead of the electrical power consumption.

With cars we asume lower consumption to be better - wie a vaccum cleaner for some reason they made is think more consumption is better  .

[SiliconWizard]

It's hard to quantitatively measure the efficacy of a vacuum cleaner, it depends so much on the specific conditions. Seems a bit silly to mandate energy efficiency for something like that though. A typical vacuum cleaner probably gets run an hour or less a month. My vacuum could draw 20kW and while plugging it in and lugging around the power cord would be inconvenient, I doubt I'd notice the difference on my utility bill. I doubt I even run my upright vacuum that often even, I have a Roomba on each level that run on schedule and do a lot of the maintenance cleaning.

I agree. This is just greenish wank, coming from people with more ideology than pragmatism and essentially knowing life through Excel sheets.

[james_s]

With cars we asume lower consumption to be better - wie a vaccum cleaner for some reason they made is think more consumption is better  .

It's just a matter of semantics, using different units. With cars if we look at horsepower then higher is still usually regarded as better. Fuel economy is a more important metric for many people though because they are not enthusiasts and even a modest car has plenty of power for them, fuel is expensive and many people use their cars a lot.

Vacuum cleaners are used only occasionally, the power consumption is virtually irrelevant but people do care about efficacy, it's only natural that "more power" = better. If I had a choice between two vacuum cleaners, one that was barely adequate but highly efficient and another that was twice as powerful but consumed 10 times the energy I'd choose the more powerful one every time, and so would most people I think. The additional cost to run it is simply not significant.