Any experiences with modular vacuum cleaners?

Discuss The Industry
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So until recently I have only ever owned old, chunky vacuum cleaners, but a few weeks ago my mom bought a very light cordless vacuum cleaner and was so happy with it, she bought me one too. And it really is a much better experience: No more ripping power sockets out of the wall or knock over things with the cord. Emptying it is much easier and you can even really quickly take off the pipe and use it as a “dustbuster”.

I never really thought much about vacuum cleaning, but now I am kind of inspired, and have some ideas:

  • I’d love an attachment (not sure if that’s the correct translation for “Aufsatz” here) for brushing my dog
  • Other attachments would be cool too
  • repairability and upgradeability are always nice (with my current one you can’t even exchange the battery)

I found https://lupetechnology.com, but they only deliver in the US and UK and for now I’m quite happy with my new cleaner anyway.
I wonder if I could get someone to design a dog-cleaning attachment and 3d-print it for me. The mechanism to attach the attachment doesn’t seem too complicated.

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https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hundeb%C3%BCrste+staubsauger+aufsatz
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=dog+brush+vacuum+attachment

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=staubsauger+aufsatz
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=vacuum+attachment

Oh, and of course this one … Flowbee - Wikipedia


Victor Martinez / CC BY 2.0

Sounds like something a salesperson for cordless vacuum cleaners would say :slight_smile: . Never happened to me.
But yeah, the cord can be a hassle.

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This picture make me think of Loriot…

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It’s nice to know that there are products that make people happy. In my opinion, the vacuum cleaner market in particular is very uninspired.
My “black hole”, a Vorwerk Tiger, sucked in absolutely every little speck of dust, just like electricity from the socket. Unfortunately, it could no longer be repaired because the company stopped supplying spare parts after 30 (!) years.
Now I own an absolutely overpriced and underdeveloped piece of junk: AEG FX9 Animal Edition. After 5 years the battery is down to 20 minutes, of course it is not replaceable, many clips are broken and the suction power is simply poor. With a broom you get the job done in half the time.

I would love a product that just gets the job done and has the ethics of a Fairphone!

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Modularity also comes into play with parts.
Example: Bosch BGS5FMLY2 Relaxx`x … yes, really, I kid you not …

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(See, no Typos :wink: .)

For what it’s worth this thing is very good (won some test), but after quite a while it loses suction power noticeably and it wants to clean (= rattle) itself all the time to no avail.
The fault lies with a filter assembly, in which over time dust accumulates and prevents air flow, and neither self-cleaning runs of the device nor you as a user have a chance get all the stuff out (I tried).

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As you would have guessed, this whole filter assembly is being sold as a spare part (Part no. 708278) and gets rave reviews in webshops, because throwing away the clogged assembly and putting in the new unclogged one solves the problem, hurray!

But sure enough, if you apply some logic (stubbornness will work, too) and really take a look, you can take this assembly apart without a problem by twisting the individual parts against each other … which then enables you to get rid of all the accumulated dust and have the filter assembly and thus suction power back as if brand new.

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Of course the user manual doesn’t show that you can do this. But voilà …

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(Even has a part no. … 656669
Edit: I just notice that while Bosch confirms this as the part in my device, it looks different - see assembly picture above. Did they perhaps redesign this to prevent the problem? I’ll not find out until my existing part breaks, I’m afraid.)

grafik

(Probably part no. 12017969 / 12027830, but I have no confirmation of compatibility, as this officially is not a “part” of this particular vacuum cleaner, even if an explosion sketch at Bosch shows this, it just doesn’t have an individual number to confirm in this particular vacuum cleaner, the whole filter assembly does.)

So, the device is good. It can be taken apart into parts in a meaningful way, too, Bosch even has explosion sketches of it online at its spare parts site.

But at some point along the way somebody decided to apply this dark pattern nonsense of just pretending unmodularity of a part to have customers hopefully shell out a lot of money and throw away perfectly fine parts for something easily fixable without cost and unnecessary waste.
Edit: And in case you want to or have to buy, of course the assembly costs a lot more than the sum for the 2 individual parts of which it (presumably) consists.

Curious.

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