Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Cyclonic air/particle separation

Today, I have something totally rad to tell you about.

Jean's cousin had newly acquired a Dyson vacuum cleaner. A Dyson vacuum cleaner! In many parts of the world this brand is highly notable for its fearsome dust extraction powers and general design creativity. Unfortunately they tend to be rather costly.

This particular model was a vertical type, and had a large ball as part of the hinge between the handle section and the vacuuming nozzle. The ball allowed the whole mechanism to tip left and right, effectively letting the user steer the vacuum cleaner like a motorcycle by twisting the handle.

The filtration mechanism relies on a centrifugal air filter (this relies on a high speed vortex of air that separates heavy particles from the lighter air) and a fine air filter mesh. The awesomeness about this cyclonic air filter is that it separates particles based on density, not size. Practically, it removes all dust from the air because whatever that accumulated on the floor is going to be heavier than air, so it will be removed by the cyclone regardless of size.

On the suction zone inside the T shaped wand, a rotating brush drum agitates carpet fibres to allow trapped dust to be removed.

All in all, this contraption has a fair bit of novel features:
-Light weight
-Manoeuvrable, due to the motorcycle-like steering
-Excellent dust separation
-Carpet and upholstery brush drum


Jean’s cousin was kind enough to let me take it back to try, and by golly it was fantastic. It was amazingly easy to steer and it agitated the carpets thoroughly. Before starting, I emptied the dust tank to see how much dust it would pick up from the carpets that were just vacuumed 2 days ago. The dust managed to fill up the entire dust tank, all of it fine fibres that had been missed by the regular vacuum cleaner. I had never enjoyed vacuum cleaning so much in my life!

See this contraption here:
http://www.dyson.com.au/store/product.asp?product=DC25-HEPAPLUS

But 700 AUD for a vacuum cleaner is rather expensive... If one searches for 'Dyson Malaysian", one would find many articles saying the Dyson has moved production to Senai, but there is practically nothing about buying one in Malaysia. No sane person would buy a RM 2,100 vacuum cleaner.

Ok that's it for today.



Oh and I like the photo for the gentle lighting, the neat brickwork and the pretty girl ♥