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Robot vacuum for hangar.

M

MElstien

Well Known Member
Hello, has anyone used a robot vacuum for the hangar. If so, please provide experiences, recommendations and model number.
I have a 50 x 60 foot hangar with a concrete floor. I am building an RV-10. I would like a vacuum to run often to keep the floor dust and debris free.. I normally use a leaf blower but that makes airborn dust that settles. Vacuuming seems best.
 
Man, I'd love something like that. My hangar doors don't seal worth a crap and grass clippings, dirt, and spider weds are a constant battle. Unfortunately, we'd need an industrial version of a Roomba or ECOVAC. We have the household versions and there's no way they'd be up the task.
 
It's not always easy to find a coverage spec for robot vacs, so it's likely that you'll need one that finds its way back to its home base, empties itself out, recharges and then remembers where it left off and goes there. and knows when it's done.

If you find one that does all that, please share its identity as others (me, for example) will be interested.

Dave
 
MElstien said:
Hello, has anyone used a robot vacuum for the hangar. If so, please provide experiences, recommendations and model number.
I have a 50 x 60 foot hangar with a concrete floor. I am building an RV-10. I would like a vacuum to run often to keep the floor dust and debris free.. I normally use a leaf blower but that makes airborn dust that settles. Vacuuming seems best.
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I have an older version of this one at home. It is a great little machine, relatively inexpensive, does the job very well. Replacement parts (brushes, filters) are readily available. It has a very good run time, and can be programmed to head out on its own on a schedule. It needs to be emptied occasionally, but the price difference for the deluxe models that empty themselves is not worth it, IMO.

It doesn't require an internet connection and is relatively dumb, using random patterns to cover the floor, but again, the price makes it worth it. There's no real need for one of these things to develop a map of its workspace.

 
FWIW, I used an older Roomba to sweep up the paint dust in my 10x22 paint booth. It did a nice job.
 
As long as things are not all over the floor, even the vacuums that don't keep track of where they have been, these vacuums do a good job. One of the benefit of being in the hangar is that you can deal with an imperfect pattern by just running it multiple times every day as long as you get one that empties itself.
 
David Paule said:
It's not always easy to find a coverage spec for robot vacs, so it's likely that you'll need one that finds its way back to its home base, empties itself out, recharges and then remembers where it left off and goes there. and knows when it's done.

If you find one that does all that, please share its identity as others (me, for example) will be interested.

Dave
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Our Roomba does that. It empties itself automatically into its charging base which itself is basically a small vacuum cleaner that uses suction to empty the Roomba. It has lots of ways to program where it cleans, when it cleans and how often. However, as previously stated I’m not sure how well it would perform in a typical hangar environment.
 
I got a 60x60 hangar and love my Makita DR200Z. Cleans the whole hanger in one charge.

I have a Roomba at home but that isn't really sturdy enough for sharp metal pieces I have in the build area of my hangar (metal shavings, bolts, rivets...). The Makita is made for cleaning commercial buildings and has no problems with that. Also the dirt compartment of a Roomba is on the small side for a 60x60 hangar. The Makita has two collection areas inside one for heavy stuff like bolts, metal shavings etc.. and a second for dust.

It is on the pricy side but it has worked for a couple of years now and I haven't cleaned my hangar by hand since I bought it so its worth it to me ... .

I noticed they have now another model DRC300Z no idea if that's worth the extra $$.


Oliver
 
I've run Roomba j7 and a Roborock S7. Both are being abused far beyond what they deserve but still holding up well.

The j7 is nice in that it has two rubber rollers which are a little more forgiving on cleco's and other small things. I do tear up the rollers. The challenge is that its air filter has a pretty small area, so it fills up. For the first few months I was having to clean it after every run. After it got most of the dirt, it does all right with just whatever blows under the door in a given week.

The newish addition, S7 drags a mop around at the same time, and has a larger filter. However, since just one roller, if it finds a cleco its game over. Once it's found all the hardware it becomes fire and forget and does a good job of keeping the floor clean. It's also trained me to find every cleco when I drop it. Its a nice piece of kit, but pricy

While I was in the depths of the build, I had to park them - just too much on the floor.

All in all, I'm not sure if with the robot maintenance I'm ahead on effort, but fixing robots is more fun than sweeping..... and my FOD discipline is improved which is also a good thing.

Thank's to spatsch, now I have another model to look at....

Derek
 
I have a 50 x 75 hangar that is a royal pain to clean. I thought about a Robo Vacuum but there is no way it would work. Too many projects etc. I did have a couple shop vacs and this is what I came up with. It works well and the height of the vacuum pickup is adjustable. It cleans about 25" on a pass. I also have a 2" 15' hose that can be swapped to use around benches and areas that are too small to get to. One day I might fab a single plenum pickup that would be more efficient. I also have a lot of benches and cabinets mounted on wood platforms with caster wheels making them easy to move.

Rocky
 

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As anyone who has visited Hop-Along in the past year can attest, no robot vacuum I know of would stand a chance in my hangar. Might last about 30 seconds. This is just the way it has to be now that the wife is getting her turn in our basement for her craft projects after 5 years of RV construction. Woodworking has been banished to the outer darkness, along with anything else that generates dust. I will eventually kludge some sort of work around for better sharing of the space between the plane and the planer, but that's a warm-weather project for this spring.

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She's gotten VERY GOOD with the masking tape and Xacto knife. Where were these skills when I was struggling to paint the plane 2 years ago?!
 
Bill….Dude…I’m sure you have scrap laying around. Make some hoods for those tools. A 4“ hose into a woodworking vacuum gets about 99% of the sawdust and chips.

Most of my work is with black walnut and I don’t want to be breathing that stuff.
 

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Roboroc. Watch for sales on Amazon (Black Friday, etc.)
Cleans my 30x40 shop three days a week at 3AM. Fantastic navigation and automation. Might need a wifi connection to set it up, but I think it can run on it's own after that. You just won't be able to query and command it remotely.
I never sweep up the floor anymore and just sweep the bench onto the floor for the vacuum to get later. Great timesaver and keeps the shop tidy (goes under benches, toolboxes, shelving units, etc. It does find the occasional lost Cleco, lol.
The shop unit is the re-purposed house vacuum after we updated the house to another Roboroc. Love 'em.
If I ever get doors back on the hangar, one will probably end up there too.
 
Funny story. A relative has multiple vacs to clean their house. They also have small dogs. One day, a dog had apparently eaten something that didn't agree with him and had an "accident" while the relative was out. Right on schedule, the vacuum started doing its job. Unfortunately, It ran over the "accident" and proceeded to track it all over the house.

Hilarious.
 
rocketman1988 said:
Funny story. A relative has multiple vacs to clean their house. They also have small dogs. One day, a dog had apparently eaten something that didn't agree with him and had an "accident" while the relative was out. Right on schedule, the vacuum started doing its job. Unfortunately, It ran over the "accident" and proceeded to track it all over the house.

Hilarious.
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And now there are vacuums that claim to be able to detect said "bombs" and avoid them. The Instagram post from someone this happened to was, as you say, hilarious. I can only imagine the smell... :p
 
My Roomba works fine although it gets stuck on the sliding door rails. Supposed to be able to program certain areas to clean but I haven't tried that yet.
 
David Paule said:
It's not always easy to find a coverage spec for robot vacs, so it's likely that you'll need one that finds its way back to its home base, empties itself out, recharges and then remembers where it left off and goes there. and knows when it's done.

If you find one that does all that, please share its identity as others (me, for example) will be interested.

Dave
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iRobot Roomba j8+ from Costco does all that at home...but doesn't do it consistently and wouldn't work in my dirty hangar.
 
I took my shop Roomba to the hangar this afternoon to give it a romp. It did fairly well but overall, it took too much trouble to keep it out of trouble. It would push a drip pan around, trigger and then hide mouse traps, and since the front door was open, attempt to wander off. Its other major trick was going blithely into an area that it could not escape from. Usually these were places awkward for me to extract it from. Aside from these sorts of things, it plugged cheerfully but mindlessly along for about 90 minutes before I decided that it was too hard to give attention to what I'd gone out there for, and put it back in the car.

It's an older Roomba, with no apparent memory, no mapping capability, no auto-recharging, no docking, and no means of scheduling. It doesn't mop and it only has a spinning brush on one front corner. It's on its third battery and I've had it for many years.

Dave
 
David Paule said:
>>stuff snipped<<

It's an older Roomba, with no apparent memory, no mapping capability, no auto-recharging, no docking, and no means of scheduling. It doesn't mop and it only has a spinning brush on one front corner. It's on its third battery and I've had it for many years.

Dave
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You r Roomba and I should go out for drinks. We seem to have a lot in common.
 
One thing that I didn’t mention is most of these Robots require an internet connection, as far as I know, which can be another consideration.
 
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