**The Unbeatable Vacuum: A Project of Endless Possibilities**

As I sit here reflecting on my latest project, I am reminded of the importance of adaptability and creativity in overcoming everyday challenges. My vacuum, which I lovingly refer to as "the unbeatable vacuum," has been a faithful companion for many years, but its battery-powered heart has always been a source of frustration.

**The Problem: A Frustrating Battery Life**

No matter how much I love vacuuming our apartment (and I do!), the thought of my battery-powered vacuum abruptly dying on me because I forgot to charge it up the night before is a constant concern. The tiny power supply that comes with the vacuum takes several hours to recharge, leaving me feeling helpless and at the mercy of the charging process.

**The Solution: Makita Power Tools**

One day, while pondering this problem, I had an epiphany – why not harness the power of external batteries? My trusty Makita power tools have been a staple in my workshop for years, and I knew that with some creative engineering, I could adapt them to power my vacuum.

**The Relay Switch: A Game-Changer**

After some trial and error, I discovered that a relay switch was just what I needed to connect the external battery pack to the vacuum's circuit board. But first, I had to tackle a few more technical hurdles...

**The Common Ground Problem**

As I began to wire the system together, I realized that I had overlooked one crucial detail – creating a common ground connection between the external and internal battery packs. This tiny oversight caused the system to malfunction, but thankfully, it was an easy fix.

**A Solution Born from Failure**

Through my mistakes and perseverance, I discovered the importance of testing and iteration in product design. By embracing failure as a learning opportunity, I was able to refine my design and create a truly unbeatable vacuum experience.

**The Final Result: A Vacuum with No Limits**

After months of tinkering, I am thrilled to say that my project is finally complete! With two external battery packs at my disposal, I can now power my vacuum for as long as I need, without ever worrying about running out of juice. The unbeatable vacuum has truly earned its name – it's a testament to the power of human ingenuity and creativity.

**Support Me on Patreon**

If you've enjoyed this project and would like to see more innovative ideas come to life, please consider supporting me through Patreon. Your contribution will help me continue pushing the boundaries of what is possible with everyday objects.

**Stay Creative!**

And finally, don't forget to like, share, subscribe, and hit that notification bell – I look forward to sharing more exciting projects with you in the future!

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enNo matter whether you like it or not, youand of course also I have to vacuum our apartmentsfrom time to time.And honestly speaking, without pushing Germanstereotypes too much, I love to do that becauseI love the cleanliness.But what I don't love is when my battery poweredvacuum abruptly dies on me because I forgotcharging it up the night before.If that happens I can forget vacuuming becausethe tiny power supply the vacuum came withtakes several hours to charge it up.So I obviously had to come up wit a solutionand what immediately came to my mind was myobsession with Makita power tools which utilizea battery pack that you can just plug in andrecharge separately anytime you like.So the question is can we combine such a batterypack with my vacuum and thus increase itsrun time to basically endlessly?Let's find out!This video is sponsored by Altium!If you are currently looking for a professionalPCB designer software that can pretty muchdo everything regarding PCB design, then theAltium Designer is for you.And if you are a beginner who is just curiousyou can try the software out as well withouta guilty conscience because by following thelink in the video description you can do thatcompletely for free and maybe get hooked usingit.So why not give it a try?First off let me give you an overview of myvacuum.As you can see it consists of one smallerportable unit with all the electronics insideand one bigger adapter shell into which thesmaller unit can be clicked in order to turnit into a proper fully sized vacuum.Great concept if you ask me but what is notgreat is the charging time of the system whichI measured to be around 3 hours and 50 minutes.The reason is like previously mentioned thatthe power supply can only deliver 500mA andconsidering the time the charging requiredit seems like the internal battery pack shouldcome with a capacity of around 2000mAh.To confirm that I removed the front cap ofthe vacuum as well as all the screws I foundin the housing and then used a bit of forceto crack everything open which was actuallyway easier to do than I thought.And before we have a closer look at the electronicslet's quickly check the battery pack whichas theorized comes with a capacity of 2Ah.But anyway next I examined all the electronicsparts of the vacuum and it was quite fascinatingto discover how simple this system reallyis.The heart of it is this circuit board basedaround a custom programmed STM microcontrollerto which the vacuum motor, battery pack, chargewires and switch with notification LED isconnected.If we draw that up the simplified system shouldlook something like this.Now the circuit board basically manages chargingup the battery pack as well as powering themotor with it if the power switch is on.Of course it also turns off the motor if thebattery pack reaches an undervoltage thresholdvalue which you know bothered me before.So next to investigate further I removed thepositive wire from the motor in order to hookup my multimeter in current measuring modein between and it seems like the current drawof the motor is around 7.5A at max.And since we are aware of the capacity ofthe battery pack we can calculate the runtimewhich should be around 17 minutes,.....atleast in theory.Because the battery pack is of course yearsold and even though it was being used prettyideally with a temperature measuring probeand balancing wires connected to the PCB whichbasically guarantee that no big voltage differencebetween the individual cells would developover time, I was certain that the overallcapacity dropped a bit.To confirm that I measured the capacity witha Li-Ion charger/discharger and it seems likethe actual capacity is around 1850mAh andconsidering that with bigger current draws,the capacity drops even more I would say thata realistic runtime is only around 10 minutes.But we can easily double this value with my5Ah Makita battery pack but how can we integrateit electrically into the vacuum system?For that we firstly need such an adapter thatyou can get for cheap from the internet.By connecting it to the battery we can useits voltage to power things which seems tobe around 20V which of course coincidentallyis in the same voltage range as the internalbattery pack of the vacuum because they areboth 18V battery packs.So according to the voltage the batteriesare compatible but what about the currentdraw?For that I connected the Makita battery packto a constant load which was able to drawthe maximum current of 7.5A continuously withouta problem.And since the adapter also uses 14AWG wire,it should be able to handle this current value.That means the Makita battery pack is compatibleand now we simply need to find a way to disconnectthe internal battery pack and connect theMakita one if it is plugged in and then switchback to the internal one if the Makita packgets disconnected.The solution is of course such a Relay thatcomes with two internal toggle switches, canhandle 10A at 28V DC and needs 12V for switching.Here is the way we have to connect it to thesystem and all it does is normally connectingthe internal battery pack to the circuit board.But if the Makita pack is plugged in, therelay coil gets powered and thus the switchesnow connect the Makita pack to the circuitboard and we can continue vacuuming.The only missing information was the valueof this resistor but after doing a bit oftesting I calculated that we should be goodwith two 100ohm ones connected in parallel.So next I build up the electrical system Ijust described for testing by snipping a coupleof wires and soldering them in place.And as soon as that was done you can see thatthe vacuum still works just fine without theexternal battery pack and if we connect it,the relay turns on and we can power the vacuumwith it.....at least for a couple of seconds.Yep it seems like the circuit does not likemy external power idea and thus shut off prettyquickly.At this point I thought that the circuit didn'tlike reading the balance wire voltages ofthe internal almost drained battery pack whilebeing powered by a way higher external voltagewhich in correlation does not make sense.But that was actually not the problem.Instead the missing GND connection betweenthe external and internal battery pack thatlets the balance wire voltages float in theair was the problem.Luckily thought that was easily fixable bycreating one common GND which I did for testingwith an alligator clip wire and later witha bigger Wago terminal.And as you can see now everything works perfectlyfine exactly how I imagined it in my head.So time to rip the electrical wiring apartfor now and find a place to mount the adapterplate to the vacuum and no the flat bottomside was not an option because that is notaccessible when the vacuum goes into transformermode.That means I had to settle for an uneven sideand thus started the mounting process by firstlyremoving the top piece of the adapter.After then drilling a 5mm hole in the middlefor the wires, I drilled another 4mm holein the upper right corner which I used asa template to drill the first hole into thevacuums enclosure.Next I used one M4 bolt, washers and nut tosecure the adapter to the vacuum and continuedby drilling a second mounting hole and usingthat in the same way as the first one.At this point the adapter was fairly nicelysecured but to make sure it will never getripped of I continued by doing something Ihaven't done in ages,...plastic welding.Yep with a bit of heat and special ABS plasticwelding sticks you can easily create somevery sturdy connections between plastic piecesas you can also see with this tray I plasticwelded years ago.And after sanding everything a bit and givingit all a new layer of paint; it was time toput the adapter back together and repeat theelectrical wiring in almost the same way asbefore with the only difference that thistime I was using shrinking tubes to preventelectrical shorts.And as soon as the soldering was done, I hotglued the relay to a free spot in the vacuum,created the common GND, did one final testwithout external power and of course withexternal power and ultimately put everythingback together which to my own surprise waseasier to do that I thought.And just like that the project was completeand the vacuum of course still works perfectlyfine while now featuring a practically indefiniterun time since I got two external batterypacks I can switch between.With that being said I hope you enjoyed thisproject and learned something along the way.If so consider supporting me through Patreon.As always don't forget to like, share, subscribeand hit the notification bell.Stay creative and I will see you next time.