Is this Vacuum worth a £1?
This was exactly what I thought when I picked this up in the local Poundland recently. How well can this novelty item perform with only a tiny motor and tiny amounts of power (5V)?
(Incredibly well as it turns out!) So after walking away from the item, then walking back my curiosity got the better of me and I took it to the paydesk and pay my £1.
Vendor: Poundland
Price: £1
Description: USB Vacuum cleaner
What's in the Box: Vacuum + attached cable. 1x brush attachme.
After unboxing and connecting to a power source the Vac was tested.
At normal running speed it barely picked anything up and sounded thin and weedy. Disappointment started to creep in and I was all for writing this item off. However, things started to change dramatically when the magic button was pressed, at which point the sound changed to that of a jet aircraft and the Sugar I had spilled deliberately was sucked up in an instant!. Fantastic! Feeling suitibly impressed by the performance I continued and managed to comfortably suck up a whole tablespoon of sugar.
Note: This Vac does not have a collection bag for all the bits and consequently collects in the end piece. Disposal of the dirt is achieved by tipping the Vac forwards into a bin. This is fine provided you remember that fact and don't tip it forwards prematurely! (You can guess what happened to me)
Another point to be mentioned is the filter. This could be cleaned by removing the O-Ring and cloth gauze. But I wouldn't bother. It took half an hour to get the whole thing back together!.
A nice extra feature of the Vacuum is the little white LED light which helps illuminate the area you are cleaning.
Curiosity led me to wonder if you could run this Vacuum from a Tablet or other smaller device rather than just a standard PC and so here is the result!
You never know when you might want to Vac up loose Sugar from your Tablet screen!
I probably wouldn't recommend you power the device from a Tablet really due to the inteference and possible malfunction from the high power draw on the Battery. It was fun to have a truely pocket run Vacuum cleaner though.
Curiosity and the tear down..
Opening the device reveals a small amount of components really with the center piece being the motor. A Motor from a Scalectrix car!. Thought I'd seen one somewhere before!
For a proper look at what makes this tick then c!ick Big Clive's Vacuum Tear Down
Thanks to Electronics Maestro Clive for his analysis.
So in conclusion it would appear that indeed this item is worth the £1 asking price regardless of its minor downfalls. This portable Vac almost made the best bargain award but just fell short. Instead its is presented with a novelty award because that is undoubtedly what it is!