Jim's Home for Wayward Vacuums . . .

Jim Mattheiss

Member
Messages
467
Location
Long Hill Township, NJ
Last Fall I picked up a Fein Turbo II vacuum at the curb. Over the winter/spring I posted about how I put it back into operation with a little TLC and a new power cord.

Around here (Morris County / Union County NJ) some towns have bulk pickup once or twice a year. Familys can put household junk out for "free" pickup. Going Garbage picking has become a family adventure during these periods. The LOML is already scheduling our Garbage picking on Sunday - Mother's Day!

Well . . . . last weekend another vacuum followed me home! This one was a Dyson D-17 "Animal" Vacuum. Dyson's are the upright vacuums with "cyclonic" action to separate the dust out.

I took it apart a few days ago and gave it a thorough cleanup. Both the washable filter and the Hepa filter were CAKED with dust and animal hair. I got everything cleaned up and put back together just now and it works really well. I had to take it apart 2 times to get everything working . . . only twice - not bad for no manual!

It's REALLY quiet, picks up a lot of stuff out of the carpet. The best thing is that I've got a grand total of $8.00 in it for the new power cord.

Yes! The "Power Cord Bandit" struck again! The prior owner of the vacuum was there as I loaded it into my car and said he saw the "PCB" come by every 2 hours looking for newly deposited items/electronics to cut wires off of.

The only other thing I might want is to replace the Hepa Filter (I cleaned up the one on it up to make sure it worked before making such a sizable investment on a pickup item) but they go $25.00, so I'm in $33.00 on a $400+ Dollar (Retail Lowes) upright vacuum.

If I could only find a 2 - 3 HP dust collector sitting on he curb looking for a little love I'd be golden.

Cheers

Jim
 
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I live out in the sticks now and no garbage pick up of any kind... I have to take garbage into town once or twice a week... depends on how trashy we get... but when I was in Houston, we had the same arrangement..only I think it was once a month. There were people who made their living driving the streets and picking up old appliances and either repairing them or selling the metal.
 
I've got a Dyson Animal, and think they're great. I've often thought Dyson would do well selling a cyclonic shop vacuum. Many of their potential shop vac customers already know about the benefits of a cyclone. ;)
 
I've got a Dyson Animal, and think they're great. I've often thought Dyson would do well selling a cyclonic shop vacuum. Many of their potential shop vac customers already know about the benefits of a cyclone. ;)

I could certainly use some version of a cyclone... mine is a HF double bag system that sucks straight through the impeller to the bags... when I turn my green boxelder, I have to stop every hour or so and clean the screening grid in front of the impeller because it clogs up with green wood... don't think I would want to pay a Dyson price for one... think I'll get the garbage can lid and a garbage can... if I can fit it in my DC closet.

In the house, we use the $98 Walmart version of a cyclone vacuum... we only have two carpets in the whole house, the MBR and the wife's study. The rest of the house is hardwood floors with a couple of throw rugs about.
 
Hi Jim

I did a similar recycling job yesterday. Except this was for a Makita Angle grinder off a jobsite my son is working on. He brought it home, asked me if I could fix it. Took it apart and bought new piece of power cord, cleaned the grease out of the gearbox, regroubd the armature commutator and sanded it nice and smooth and clean, then got some new brushes and a lock nut for the blade. All back together and working beautifully a $200 grinder for total of $27 with new brushes cord and rugged recpetacle.

Gave it back to him and said he owed me $30 he gave me $40 and said keep the change, cheeky you know what. :D


This is just how I grew up waste not want not.;)
 
Vaughn,
We got the same vacuum the Dyson Animal. With 2 dogs boy does that thing really suck :D it gets all of the dog hair off of the couch & rug. :thumb:
 
I could certainly use some version of a cyclone... mine is a HF double bag system that sucks straight through the impeller to the bags... when I turn my green boxelder, I have to stop every hour or so and clean the screening grid in front of the impeller because it clogs up with green wood... don't think I would want to pay a Dyson price for one... think I'll get the garbage can lid and a garbage can... if I can fit it in my DC closet...

I cut the little crosshair screen out of my Harbor Freight DC and it solved the clogging problem. And if you're thinking of setting up a trash can separator, I highly recommend checking out Phil Thien's site if you haven't already. I built one of Phil's separators into my DC (as opposed to building an independent chip separator) and it made a world of difference in how clean my filters stay. Here's the thread on my mods.

Here's Phil's site:

http://www.cgallery.com/jpthien/cy.htm

And a forum he's got that discusses the different ways to do it:

http://www.cgallery.com/smf/index.php
 
The funny thing is that our house is slowly migrating from wall to wall carpet to hardwood floors, so we actually need a vacuum less and less.

The largest expanse of carpet in the house is now the basement where we have 3/4's of the basement carpeted. That's the craft/sewing area, the Lego area and the TV/Wii room. My 1/4 of the basement has the interlocking foam pads that can be swept or vacuumed as needed.

If we round up the $$$ this summer I will gut the family room back to the studs and redo everything. The floor will end up with some sort of laminate flooring - 1 less room of carpet.

Cheers

Jim
 
I cut the little crosshair screen out of my Harbor Freight DC and it solved the clogging problem. And if you're thinking of setting up a trash can separator, I highly recommend checking out Phil Thien's site if you haven't already. I built one of Phil's separators into my DC (as opposed to building an independent chip separator) and it made a world of difference in how clean my filters stay.

I haven't seen Phil's separators before, but looks like an excellent set up. I'm not sure I want to take the crosshair screen out.. I would be concerned about the bigger stuff going through the impellers, plus it catches my sandpaper when the DC sucks it out of my hand and into the system :D

The paper filters aren't a problem for me either, my DC is actually outside my shop in a separate closet built onto the end of the shop with the exhaust hose running through the wall... cuts down on dust in the shop and noise. All I hear is a low hum through the wall.

I didn't plan well when I built the DC room, I should have allowed a little more space for a can.. may have to build some sort of pedestal to set the can on above the intake of the collector. I may have to go with a smaller can and just empty it more often.

Eventually I'll want to put a small compressor in there as well, but I think that will fit higher up over the DC motor. I won't need a very large compressor.

I'm trying to keep the units that make the most noise out of the shop itself... I worked for an airlines in SF for a number of years and have damaged my hearing, so keeping noise level down is a must. I've had a ringing in my ears for the past 30 years.
 
Rob:

Last spring we ripped the carpet up in the Living Room, Dining Room and common hallway in our ranch house. We had someone come in and sand and refinish the floors.

In preparation for having hardwood floors in the main area of the house I put in a Whole House Vac-Pan in the Hallway. We use a "Swiffer" Floor Cleaner on the hardwood. We "Swiff" the dust up and the bigger particles get pushed around and swept into the Vac-Pan.

In the basement I have an old shop vac hooked to the whole house piping and it's controlled by some low voltage voodoo (X-10 Relay module and an X-10 Closed-Contact Transmitter). When you open one of the Vac-Pan's (we have another in the toe-kick in the kitchen) it starts the shop vac. When the Vac-Pan is closed the vacuum runs for a few seconds (due to X-10 delays) and then shuts down.

I have a 4 legged fur generator - housecat - so the floor "should" get cleaned up every couple days. We usually only get to it when the "tumbleweeds" get out of hand.

Cheers

Jim
 
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