Annoying Vacuum Cleaner

[TheScullster]

Hi all

I must have something wrong here - typical bloke never read the instructions and now can't find them!

Er indoors bought a Panasonic cyclone "bagless" vacuum a few years back.

With considerable frequency, the air filter thingy in the top of the waste cannister gets choked with dust, the performance drops right off and I have to take it out and de-dust it (a far messier job than emptying a bag!). Do these filters need regular replacement rather than cleaning?

Also, there seems to be some sort of safety inlet on the back of the upright machine body. If any serious resistance is applied to the business end e. g. getting hold of a plastic bag with the hose end, then this air inlet port becomes active and the suction drops off. I then have to put my hand over this port to return majority suction to the hose. It seems at times to require remarkably little obstruction to activate this by-pass port, so half the time you are reaching to the back of the machine to block it and return full suction.

So am I missing something, or is this how the Panasonic and other cyclone style vacuums should behave?

Thanks

Phil

[Roger Mills]

I don't know about Panasonic, but I've got a bagless machine which I bought at Lidl, and that behaves in a similar way. When the filters get blocked - which is pretty quickly(!) - the performance is dire, and it's a very messy job to clean them.

I don't know whether Dyson machines are any better. They got the patents tied up for bagless vacuum cleaners, so maybe other manufacturers can't copy some of the features needed to make them work properly.

[Tim]

It sounds like it's partially choked somewhere, either at the filter level or perhaps in the hose. The more readily the bypass ports open, the more choked your machine is.

Tim

[Man at B&Q]

The filter does need regular cleaning. The one on our Vax is (hand) washable. It doesn't have a bypass but does have a presure switch that turns on the warning light when there's a blockage.

MBQ

[michael adams]

PDF manuals for many Panasonic cleaners are available here

Replacement filters, which are available from various suppliers appear to cost anthing from £30 - £55 depending on model.

michael adams

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michael adams

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[Alan Deane]

I have two old Dyson DC08's, which have a round foam disc-shaped filer after the cyclone stage. They need cleaning about once or twice a year, and more frequently if I suck up plaster dust(!) A long rinse under the tap does it, then leave to dry. I bought a few cheap copies online which allows a quick change when needed.

I've not yet needed to replace the post-motor paper filter.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Take out the filter which fits in the central part, and leave it out. Works perfectly well without - you don't get clouds of dust everywhere.

[Roger Mills]

Good tip. I'll try it!

[Roger Mills]

Well, my Lidl machine only cost £40 for the whole thing!

[Gordon Henderson]

We were strongly recommended to clean the sponge filter at least every

3 months in our DC07. Just a wash under the tap for the sponge filter and the carrier with the cloth filter in and leave to dry overnight.

Dyson sends us an email to remins us...

The service engineer told us that was the biggest thing that would make a difference and make the motor last longer. (The original motor burnt out after 9 years, but it has been abused before we got it on a shop renovation project - lots and lots of plaster dust, etc.)

Gordon

[Andrew Gabriel]

I found the foam filter only gets anything substantial in it when the dust canister is full or over-full (which I guess is obvious, as there's no cyclone left to capture the dust if you over-fill it).

Never used a panasonic cyclone, but you might try to empty it earlier and see if that stops the problem.

Taking the filter out rather than fixing the problem just means you make all that dust air-borne, just to settle and need cleaning up again.

I am amazed how clean the Dyson hepa post motor filters stay. The only thing that gets trapped in them looks like the carbon brush dust from the motor. DC04 onwards captures down to 50 micron smoke particles (i.e smoke from cigarette pirched on ash tray, or breathed out by a smoker), so providing the cyclone isn't too full to work, nothing small enough to be caught in either filter should get past the cyclone.

[gremlin_95]

I would put it down to bad design, I have used many bagless machines which clog up too quickly and have very poor filtration, only the Dyson seems to work better than most but I find it overpriced and far too plasticy for my liking. You shouldn't be removing filters BEFORE the motor as it will just let too much dust in to the motor and thus shorten it's life. I find the Miele and Numatic bagged vacuums to work perfectly with no drop in suction, especially with the newer style bags (not paper), I use my Numatic George for valeting cars and it gets all sorts of crap thrown at it with no problem. In the house we have 2 Miele vacuums with HEPA grade filtration, the only machines that are actually true HEPA. All we do is replace the bag every 3-5 months and the filters annually.

[AnthonyL]

Having had a large wet/dry drum type vacuum for years before it gave up I wanted to stay bagless, and with recommendations from this group I ended up with a Vax. The filter clogs up quite quickly but I have had some success by wrapping a cloth around it. The ideal material would have been the filter from the old wet/dry but that got binned.

As I see it the sucking action pulls too much into the filter giving no time for it to fall to the bottom of the cyclone cylinder.

Anyone got any brilliant ideas on this? Though I may try the suggeston of removing the filter altogether, just worried about the motor then.

[gremlin_95]

The Vax I have used had a filter in the container (which clogged) and another just before the motor when you remove the container so it may be worth trying it without the filter in the container

[whisky-dave]

Arn't those filters there as part of the Hepta thing for alleregies..

I washed mine from my DC35 after about 6 months, the motor kept stopping and starting every second or so I was using it.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

That was my guess - although I didn't know what it was called. My Lidl one seems just fine without it - but then I don't suffer from such things.

[DerbyBorn]

The safety inlet is important - if the inlet is completely blocked then the fan will "stall" and the motor can overspeed. With no air to move there is no load on the motor - and no cooling. If operated in this way, the motor could overheat and burn out.