I saw this trick in ControlledExplosions’ video and tried it on my old Hoover vacuum. It’s probably from the early ’70s, and sure enough, it has a universal AC/DC motor. When connected to a 9 volt battery, it spins up fast enough to generate a slight breeze out of the exhaust port.
Hey, that’s cool! I gotta try that on a couple of mine. I think the Kirby 560 might support DC also.
jeez- look at the sparks on the battery terminal! You can also use the motor in this as a generator- fun stuff.
You should try it with one of those 12 volts car batteries
Surprising it’ll do that,l ran a washing machine motor off a 12V battery once mind.Not very fast,but it did go…
750 watts at 120VAC = 6.2 amps = about 1hp
750 watts at 9VDC = 83 amps!!!
(of course that would be full load and full speed).
I suppose that Duracell may put out one amp for a little while???
IF you try a car battery, the power cord may get HOT!
wow that runs a lot faster on 9 volts than mine does! I guess the older the better!
or maybe I need to use duracell… 😀
Wow, what the heck!?!? That’s awesome! But even though it’s DC compatible, I don’t get how a 120V motor can even budge off 9V!? It must normally spin at thousands of RPM? Even though, with the amps of current I would think it would draw, I wouldn’t think a tiny 9V battery would do a thing! This goes against everything i’ve ever learned in every way….
I gotta try this on our Hoover Celebrity III (which is also a glider, the Celebrity series succeeded the Constellation)!
Haha, it worked! I first tried it with a 9V battery, and all I got was some good sparkage and a quiet click inside the vacuum – probably because the vacuum was redneck modified years ago with a VERY long cord, the battery has only 7.5V left in it, or both. When I tried it with a 12V battery, though, it spun up!
OMG , my famliy had one of those in the 1960s; haven’t seen one since. Sounded like a jet engine.
This really cool. I didn’t know you could run a vacuum cleaner on a 9V battery.
can you actually clean anything up running off the battery?
@themaritimeman It is sort of a tradeoff. The battery can actually supply quite a bit of current to help the motor start and run. It won’t “like” or be able to do it for any length of time. It could also get very hot or explode in a severe case…this should be pretty safe, though.
I remember my mum having one of these, a white and blue one. Good stuff.
i just tried it on my vintage hoover and it works!!
How well does it hover on carpet?
I don’t have any fresh 9 volt batteries but I know my Dirt Devil MVP Swivel Glide will run on 12 volts in the same manner.
It takes around 36 volts before it will begin to “suck” anything up though, maybe slightly over 40 to be effective. Got any 18 volt drill batteries on hand ?