Dyson DC 44 Animal Trigger Easily Fixed
The Dyson DC 44 Animal is in my opinion the best vacuum cleaner on the market.
It does however have one small design flaw that is easily fixed yourself.
Symptom
The power cuts out even when you are holding the trigger. Or, even worse, the power does not turn on even when you press the trigger hard.Sometimes letting go of the trigger and pressing it again turns the power back on.
Easily Fixed
Simply wrap the battery with a zip tie. You will need a large zip tie like the one below (any colour you like). And the larger the better because you can snip the excess when tied:
Wrap the battery with the zip tie as shown in these pictures below:
Problem solved. You can vacuum to your hearts content and never worry about the trigger playing up again.
Well, as you can see, the trigger is not the problem.
Read on to find out why...
Background
When I first bought the Dyson DC Animal, it worked fine. And I was so happy I actually enjoyed vacuuming with my new nifty Dyson. It is light, it doesn't have a cord to drag around, it is powerful, versatile, it does not need bags, and it really cleans the carpet very well. The ultimate vacuum cleaner!
Then, slowly over a period of time I found that the trigger needed to be pressed a little harder. Then after a bit more time the power was shutting off intermittently and I had to press the trigger again to get the power back.
Initially I thought maybe it has a temperature sensor so it shuts off when the motor gets too hot. Not so, as I was soon to find out.
Eventually it got to the point where I was pressing the trigger all the time in order to reengage the power.
By this time I thought the trigger may be faulty. After some more thought I figured the trigger would be a very robust switch, that should last forever, and is more than likely not the cause.
So what else could it be? Well, as they say in electronics, its an "open circuit". Fancy speak for saying something, somewhere, is not connecting to the power source, or the power source itself is not working.
The cause of an "open circuit" can be anything from a fried capacitor or resistor to a "short circuit". But it could also simply mean you have forgotten to plug the device into a power source, or the power switch is not turned on, or the battery is dead or faulty. All these possibilities create an "open circuit" i.e. no power.
As my Dyson was fairly new, and knowing Dyson is a high quality brand, I knew the cause of the power cutting out would not be due to a faulty switch, like the trigger, or not even due to a faulty battery, or even some other fried electronic component in the circuit. Quality parts simply last a very long time.
So the next obvious place to look was to see if the battery was connecting to the circuit properly i.e. do the battery terminals have a solid, clean connection to the circuit? This is an obvious place to look because the battery is a plug-in device and it needs to make a solid and firm contact to the circuit, or else no power.
So I pulled out the battery to check the contacts, and even cleaned them. Tried out the vacuum cleaner again, and still no remedy.
Then I thought maybe the battery simply isn't securely located in its socket, so as I vacuumed I decided to press the battery to its socket just by putting my hand under the battery and pushing up. Hallelujah!
My hand pressure on the battery allowed the Dyson to work without power interruption.
With closer examination I discovered that the weight of the battery causes it to "hang in mid air" while vacuuming. Yes, gravity is a powerful force.
And that hanging battery meant it lost partial or full contact with the circuit connector points.
Hence, the intermittent nature of the problem, because when you put the vacuum cleaner on another angle (like hanging it back on the wall caddy, or wrestling with it on the floor) the battery would fall back into place; and would stay in place for a little while until your vacuuming motion and/or gravity dislodged it again.
Minor Design Defect That Anyone Can Fix
Well, far be it from me to critique the design of a brilliant Dyson, especially the DC 44 Animal, which is perfection itself in vacuum cleaning, so I won't.
The DC44 is the absolute best vacuum cleaner on the market in my humble opinion.
To the engineers at Dyson, perhaps I could suggest a new feature? Clips that lock the battery into place, or even a drawer style battery caddy...either would suffice.
Happy Dyson vacuuming!
