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Superlux
#1
Christian Mollett
Avg. Price: $300
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The Superlux
by Sanitaire (superbeautifulexotic@yahoo.com) of California Bay Area
Posted on 8/8/2004 |
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Meet the superlux. It's a completely custom built vacuum, thatI personally hotrodded for myself. It's an entirely unique design. It took this right to the limit. This is most likely the most powerful electrolux and Oreck vacuum in existence. The superlux is the most powerful vacuum I've ever used. It's more powerful then my Sanitiare, the power is very intense and fierce. This started out as a 1965 Electrolux model L which I purchased for $100. To start with the vacuum was very well designed quiet, light, simple, durable, plenty powerful. Basically just a metal tube with a bag, a switch and a motor. Not much to go wrong. Then I went and bought a new power hose for the vacuum $60 which got more power to the ground and gave me a powerhead. That was a big power upgrade. The original 1.2amp powerhead leaked a lot. So I opened it up and found all the leaks and used tape to create seals and air damns. That double the power of the original powerhead. With the original design tuned up and opperating at peak efficiency I decided to put some muscle behind it. So I decided to swap the original electrolux motor for a new, larger, nicer Ametek lamb motor. The old motor was a great motor. It had lasted 30 or 40 years and was still running. And it had just the right amount of power maybe 200 or 250 airwatts. It was a 4.7" twin turbine flow through motor with a single sealed ball bearing and a sleeve bearing. It consumed 5 or 6 amps. The new motor is a 5.7 inchs, twin turbines, dual sealed ball bearing, twin speed. It's consumes 8.8 amps on high and has two speeds. It's a special motor because it has two sets of coils. it runs one set on low, and both sets on high. The new motor makes 364 airwatts. It cost about 100 bucks to get the new motor and the new high speed switch. It took some ingenuity to fit everything together. The vacuum now had lot's of power, but what I like most about new motor is it's got the sweetest metalic humm on low. I think it sounds like the star ship enterprize when it's accelerating. So the last level of power to be had was to supercharge this vacuum. I had the idea to attach this vacuums suction to the exhuast tube on a Oreck vacuum. I theorized I would more the double the power of the vacuum because the motors would facilitate eachother. That by reducing the back pressure on the oreck, and increasing the intake density of the electrolux they would both work harder. I'm not sure exactly where the power comes from, but the end result was a huge increase in power. The modification was very easy. I just took the plastic tube of the old electrolux powerhead, and cut it in 19.4" from the top where it has that great ring for holding the hose in. The I took the Orecks base tube and epoxied it into the electrolux tube. And then I removed the handle from the oreck and glued that to the new conversion tube. And I cut the twin pin electrical connection from the electrolux powerhead and I wired that to the oreck handle. This way of modification is nice because if you got another handle and tube for the oreck, then you could just unplug the oreck powerhead from the supercharger conversion and plug in the direct air bag, and just use the oreck as it was originally; it can be switch back and forth in less then 30 seconds. Also I should mention that because the LAMB motor has two seperate circuits in it, it was not possible to have the main vacuum switch also switch the powerhose on and off. So I just hard wired it and used the Oreck switch to control the powerhead. I like it more this way, I can use the oreck powerhead without having the main vacuum on, and it blows the dirt all the way through the tube and into the electrolux. So ya, this vacuum rocks. I'm not done with it though. The last thing I want to do is to give the vacuum a custom paint job. I want to give it a rainbow chameleon paint job, put rainbow bumpers on it, maybe even some some rims. But looks are secondary, it's what's inside that's important.
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Extremely powerful (supercharged twin turbine design), versatile, can fit under 3" low furniture, deep cleaning, easy to push self propelled with helping hand handle, light both vacuums weight about 8 pounds, many different power setting, the electrolux is quiet and sounds nice, it was easy to convert the oreck
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complicated, both the bag and the hose are small and restrictive, They are the limiting factors. It wasn't easy swapping in the lamb motor
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Date Purchased:
2002
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Price Paid:
$300
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Recommended:
Yes
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