
Dyson Ball Vacuum Teardown - fictivmade
https://www.fictiv.com/resources/starter/hardware-dna-dyson-ball-vacuum-teardown
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DigitalSea
I think many people don't realise the high level of innovation that happens
over at Dyson. Before Dyson debuted his cyclonic vacuum cleaners, there was
nothing else like them on the market whatsoever. Competitors brought out their
own cyclonic vacuum cleaners, but the cyclonic action is only one factor, the
other is the high efficiency rates they're able to achieve in their cleaners
which separates them from the rest.

Really nice teardown, I would love to see teardowns of other Dyson products.
These guys are the Apple of the home appliance world and not many people
realise it. To most, a Dyson vacuum cleaner is just an expensive cleaner and
to others, they're modern industrial design marvels.

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niels_olson
You should go to a vacuum cleaner repair store and look at all the repaired
dysons that the customers don't even bother to come back and pick up.

Statements like this concern me "It looks like an epoxy was used to weld the 2
ABS parts". I'm not sure "weld" means what they think it means.

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jonah
"Plastic Welding" is term people use. Though it tends to mean chemically
bonding the mating plastics.

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klickverbot
Well-engineered hardware is definitely interesting, but unfortunately this
article is rather lackluster. I'm not even talking about the many typos, but
absurd claims like the suggestion that the use of Torx screws "Protects Dyson
from counterfeit" really should not make it into an article by somebody who
claims that they are "engineers, like you".

Their try at explaining the physics involved also does not quite convey they
feeling that they understood what is happening and how.

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fictivmade
When reviewing and optimizing BOM costs, Torx screws are almost 2x the cost of
a standard Phillips which helps to distinguish knockoffs. Folks who
counterfeit items are looking to maximize profit and will always go for the
cheapest items and not many people look at screws to see if they're different.
Lots of threads out there about this. Even with this said, and as we pointed
out, it’s not the main reason Dyson chose Torx screws—the primary reason would
have been for proper fastening to ensure a tight assembly that wouldn’t come
loose.

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bhandziuk
It's interesting to have someone comment on the history of Dyson a little. For
me, when shopping for a vacuum, Dyson looks like the Bose of the vacuum world:
it works pretty well but is way over-hyped and certainly over-priced. But, I
forget/am too young to appreciate that before Bose/Dyson got their bad rap
today they were market leaders. Gotta keep that perspective sometimes.

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oneJob
I have a 7 year old Bose radio that still sounds friggin amazing and looks
better than me most days. Worth every penny.

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grimgrin
I think the "bad rep" might be (in my own part of the world) that they are
overpriced for the quality. The quality is good, that is true with the Bose
system in my 2001 Maxima, but it is probably not a bang for buck equivalent of
its.. off brand equivalent.

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bhandziuk
That's what I was trying to get at. My experience too has been that they are
fine enough systems but they cost to much and I have little patience for their
advertising. I bought an amp and speakers almost a decade ago now which were
not Bose and they are also going strong. Except this system was a fraction of
what I could have paid for a Bose.

I get it too, that when buying a Bose it's like buying a Mac: you just have to
shell out the money and all the though of making a computer is abstracted from
you. It can be cheaper if you piece a PC together yourself but not everyone
has time or patience for that. Paying for Bose is paying for something that
'just works'.

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sippinsoda
Pretty interesting why they use the 6 point Torx screws: -They won’t strip
during assembly -Protects Dyson from counterfeit -Makes it difficult for
customers to disassemble their products

Never thought about using them to distinguish counterfeit products.

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saidajigumi
> Makes it difficult for customers to disassemble their products

I've always found this a strange assertion. Decades ago perhaps this was true,
in that such bits were a touch obscure and required a search. Except in my
case, where I tagged along with a friend to a HAM show and picked up a set of
security bits on a lark. _That_ turned out to be terribly useful over the
years.

Even a pretty standard multi-bit set (say 20-24 bits and a driver handle) I
got ages ago had several sizes of torx bits. These days, any half-decent
hardware store stocks torx drivers and bits it seems. That's not even counting
what I'll imagine is a few clicks online to obtain virtually any bit needed.

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jamhan
If this really was reviewed by Dyson, I'm surprised no one picked up on this
mistake: "Due to good ol’ conversion of energy". Conversion should be
"conservation".

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fictivmade
Fixed it! You'd be surprised what can get past your eye after reading an
article over and over again... :)

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funkedelic_bob
Impressive to see the complex engineering and manufacturing that goes into
something we see so "simply" as a vacuum.

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oneJob
To take that idea a step further, you'd be really impressed at the complexity
on the other end of the power cord. I once heard it put like this...

Nuclear power plants (I suppose you could say the same for any other, but this
example was given using nuclear power) exist basically so that, a few miles
away someone can plug their vacuum cleaner into the wall, hit a switch, and
have it work, without having to give it any thought whatsoever. All the
complexity of nuclear power, so that you don't have to think about it.

I think this analogy is especially appropriate here, as the design goals of
Dyson are similar. Intense engineering so that you have something that does a
simple job exceedingly well without additional problem solving required by the
user.

