Dust is everywhere. If you want to maintain a clean and comfortable home environment, a vacuum cleaner is undoubtedly a good helper. The quality of a vacuum cleaner depends on its suction power. But when we open the e-commerce platform to buy a vacuum cleaner, we will find that it is easy to be "stunned" by the various parameters on the e-commerce product introduction.
There are seven or eight kinds of rhetoric about the parameters of "suction" performance alone. Brand A's product introduction on the e-commerce is "powerful digital motor, releasing 1000 liters per minute of air volume".
Brand B introduced "rotation at a speed of up to 125,000 revolutions per minute, driving 130AW strong suction", and directly used "40% more suction than the previous generation" in the new generation of products.
The e-commerce introduction of brand C products is 160AW strong suction power, which is 40% higher than the overall efficiency of the market vacuum cleaner. And also added other data, such as 55% high-performance motor, 250AW strong suction, 25Kpa vacuum.
Some other brands have marked suction as high as 22000Pa, and the instantaneous air volume can reach 700L/min.
These data are stacked together, making people feel as if they have grasped a lot of product information, but how much is actually valuable to us? How should we view these data?
Since the beginning of the spring, many manufacturers have released new products of their own vacuum cleaners, and the topic of vacuum cleaners has attracted much attention. We also want to take this opportunity to break the myth behind this complicated data by analyzing the heart of the vacuum cleaner-the motor. Because most of the above data are closely related to the motor technology of the vacuum cleaner.
1. The heart of vacuum cleaners: motor technology
The early electric motors appeared in 1740. The first electric motors were Andrew Gordon and Benjamin Franklin who made simple electrostatic devices through Coulomb's theorem in experiments. In 1821, Faraday proposed the theory of electricity generation and magnetism.
After ten years of development, in 1834, Jacobi invented the first real rotating electric motor, which set a world record. In 1886, Frank Julian Sprague, the "father of electric traction", successfully developed a constant-speed non-sparking DC motor. In the same year, Spruck’s electronic invention improved the power distribution of the power grid, allowing the power of the engine to be distributed everywhere, making electric cars and elevators possible.
Spurlock Motor
The invention of the DC motor has completely changed the industry, but the high-voltage DC generator is difficult to turn, making the work unstable. In 1885, Ferraris invented the first AC induction motor based on the principle of rotating magnetic field. In 1888, Tesla created a simple, non-sparking AC motor through improvements. Three years later, Westinghouse realized the first practical induction motor.
The core of the vacuum cleaner is a general-purpose motor, which has the characteristics of high speed, light weight and compact structure, and can work well on alternating current.
2. How to apply motor technology to vacuum cleaners
We understand the brief history of motor technology, but how does it become the heart of vacuuming step by step? This is about to talk about the origin of the vacuum cleaner.
Manual vacuum cleaner
The vacuum cleaner appeared as early as the 1860s. It was called a "carpet sweeper" at that time. It used a rotating brush to sweep dust into the dust container.
In 1869, Lves W. McGaffey in the United States created a "cyclone" sweeper, which is very similar in appearance to today's vertical vacuum cleaners. This machine is very difficult to use, requiring manual operation of the crank at the tail to allow the fan to generate power. Although its cleaning effect was completely inconsistent with its name, it was finally successfully sold in the market and brought prosperity for the first ten years.
Power vacuum cleaner
It was not until 1898 that a gasoline-powered carpet sweeper finally appeared. Its inventor is John Thurman (John Thurman). But at that time, the purpose of dust removal was achieved by blowing instead of suction, so it is more accurate to call it a "blower".
The creator of the term "vacuum cleaner" has a certain degree of controversy. Most people think it is the British engineer Hubert Booth. He observed that the sweeper can only move from one place to another, and dust may remain in the air. Thinking about whether air can be sucked into the container through the filter? He did a simple experiment, covering his mouth with a handkerchief and sucking on the dusty surface of the table. The dirt was found to stick to the handkerchief and did not enter his mouth.
After verifying the idea. After many experiments, Booth invented the marathon internal combustion engine "Puffing Billy", which is a large-scale machine that uses gasoline to filter the intake of dirt through a power pump.
Because this machine was too large, it could only be placed on a carriage, so it was super attractive when it provided door-to-door service.
Successively cleaning carpets for the upper class is his reputation soaring. In 1902, he cleaned the carpet for the coronation ceremony of King Edward VII, which made him famous and the company's business was getting better and better.
Booth's success has attracted countless people to follow suit, and other inventors have improved Booth's ideas and applied for patents. Over time, vacuum cleaners have become smaller, more powerful, and more portable.
Household vacuum cleaner
The second industrial revolution allowed electricity to replace steam power. After the advent of electric motors, inventors couldn't wait to apply them to vacuum cleaners.
In 1906, American inventor James B. Kirby (James B. Kirby) Kirby developed his first vacuum cleaner, called the "domestic cyclone". It uses water to separate dirt.
In 1907, the first portable electric vacuum cleaner was built by James M. M., a 59-year-old department store guard in Canton, Ohio. Spangler (James M. SpangIer) invented it. He only used a broom, pillowcase, and electric fan to make a simple vacuum cleaner. Later, he found that the cleaning effect of this vacuum cleaner was very good. Then he applied for a major in electric vacuum cleaner and resigned to start a business.
The next year Spangler launched a small portable electric vacuum cleaner. Due to lack of funds, he could not produce the design himself. Due to lack of funds, he sold the patent to the local leather goods manufacturer William Henry Hoover (William Henry Hoover).
After redesigning and establishing the Hoover Company, their first vacuum cleaner was "O Model". This machine is known as one of the "Four Great Inventions" in the history of vacuum cleaners. The innovation is that the motor is connected to the rotating brush head to greatly improve the cleaning effect. At the time, it was priced at $60, which was very expensive.
The vacuum cleaner was sti
ll a luxury product for many years. It was not until after the Second World War that it generally entered middle-class families. In the last decades of the 20th century, people used technology more and more widely, and there appeared filterless cyclone dirt separation, central vacuum system and rechargeable hand-held vacuum cleaner.Domestic vacuum cleaner motor development
In the 1960s, Shanghai Electric Tertiary Industry was the origin of China's vacuum cleaners. It began to be mainly used in industrial and mining businesses. After the reform and opening up, the production equipment for vacuum cleaner motors from Japan was introduced, and it has since embarked on the milestone of vacuum cleaner motors made in their own countries.
In the early 1990s, the motor speed of domestic vacuum cleaners was generally 23,000 rpm, and the weight could reach 1.5 kg. It can be said that the weight is large, the volume is large, and the efficiency is low. After years of experiments, in 1997, technical engineer Ni Zu successfully developed China's first high-performance series motor with a speed of 33,000 rpm. The speed was increased by 40%, the weight was reduced by 30%, and the efficiency was increased by 20%. , The power reaches 1200 watts, and the cost of its motor has also been greatly reduced compared with Japanese imports.
After years of concentrated research and development, domestic brands have gradually reduced imported parts and chose independent research and development. Until 2016, the number of patent applications for vacuum cleaners in my country was 2,137. In 2017, the market retail volume reached 16 million units, a year-on-year increase of 40%, and the growth momentum is good. I believe that in the future, as industry technology continues to improve, domestic vacuum cleaners will also develop more new products to meet with us.
Third, the structure and working principle of the vacuum cleaner
Under normal circumstances, the composition of a vacuum cleaner mainly has 6 components: air inlet, exhaust hole, motor, fan, porous bag and shell.
The English name of a vacuum cleaner is "vacuum cleaner" and it is called a vacuum cleaner. The working principle is like drinking milk tea with a straw. Using the pressure difference between the upper and lower sides of the straw, the fluid pressure at the bottom is greater than the pressure at the top, and the milk tea will be pushed to the mouth.
How does the vacuum cleaner work? When the power is turned on, this situation occurs:
Fan rotation creates a pressure difference
After the power is turned on, the motor will start to operate, allowing the fan to start to rotate, forcing the air to move toward the exhaust port. The air pressure increases in front of the fan and decreases behind the fan, resulting in a momentary vacuum inside the vacuum cleaner. After the pressure difference is formed, the air is pushed into the vacuum cleaner through the air inlet.
Flowing air uses friction to pick up dirt
The incoming air is like a stream of water, rubbing any loose dust or debris when it moves. Some vacuum cleaners design a rotating brush at the air inlet to loosen the dust from the carpet, so it can be picked up by the airflow.
Porous bags collect dirt
The dirt-laden air passes through a vacuum cleaner bag (made of porous woven material) before going out from the exhaust port and serves as an air filter. The small hole in the front of the bag is large enough to allow particles to pass through, while the small hole in the back is relatively small and cannot hold most dirt particles. Therefore, when air flows into the bag, all the air can move, but dirt and debris collect in the bag.
At the most basic level, this is the vacuum cleaner. Since the invention of the vacuum cleaner for a century, many innovators have continued to improve to create different types of vacuum cleaners.
Fourth, the classification of vacuum cleaners
Vacuum cleaners are divided into: tank type, vertical type, rod type, hand-held type
Canister vacuum cleaner
The tank type dominates the European market. It puts the motor and dust collector (with or without bag) in a separate unit, usually mounted on wheels, which are connected to the vacuum head by a flexible hose.
Upright vacuum cleaner
Their cleaning heads are connected to the fuselage, and the cleaning heads are on the ground and are relatively large, and are mainly used for cleaning the ground.
Stick vacuum cleaner
The rod type generally has a relatively small body, but now it is gradually increasing, mostly rechargeable, compact in size and easy to use.
Handheld vacuum cleaner
Lightweight handheld vacuum cleaner, powered by rechargeable batteries or mains power, can also be used to clean up smaller spills.
Summarize
Five, how to identify the parameters of the vacuum cleaner
1. The high power of the product ≠ high suction. Many brands only marked the rated power when they advertise. This consumer has entered a misunderstanding: think that a product with a high rated power is a big suction. In fact, the technical term for suction power is AirWatts, abbreviated as AW. The formula is:
Airwatts (AW) = vacuum suction (inches of water) × air flow cfm / 8.5 Airwatts (AW) = 0.249 × vacuum (Kpa) × air flow (cfm) / 8.5
It can be seen from the formula that the vacuum degree (Kpa) of the suction port represents the suction power, which can intuitively indicate the suction effect of the vacuum cleaner.
2. The performance of the motor determines the suction power. As mentioned earlier, the motor of the vacuum cleaner will affect the speed of the fan, thereby affecting the suction power. The choice of the motor should pay attention to four aspects: speed, suction, noise and service life.
3. The size of the opening at the end of the air inlet. Since the speed of the vacuum fan is constant, the amount of air passing through the vacuum cleaner per unit time is also constant. If the port is made smaller, individual air particles will have to move faster in order for them to pass completely during this time. When the air speed increases, the pressure will decrease due to Bernoulli's principle. The pressure drop translates into greater suction at the air inlet. Produces stronger suction, so a narrower vacuum attachment can pick up heavier dirt particles than a wider attachment.
4. HEPA grade filter. If the filter system is not good, the exhaust port will feel dusty after inhalation, and the HEPA-level filter can prevent secondary pollution.
Six, summary
After years of technological development, people’s cleaning methods are constantly changing, and cleaning tools are constantly reforming: feather dusters-brooms-mops-vacuum cleaners, and vacuum cleaners are also constantly changing, from vertical to handheld, from Bags to no bags, from wired to wireless, making the appearance more and more beautiful, the scene diversified, and the function diversified. I believe that with the extensive use of technology, there will be better products entering thousands of households.