3M 497AJM 120V Portable Electronic Vacuum Cleaner

I do a large portion of my IT work on the road, visiting clients at their offices and homes.

Pros:

These vacuum is part of my mobile tool kit, and works great for this purpose especially considering that all of the attachments, power cord, and hose fit into the upper portion of teh case leaving you with a nice small portable toolbox shaped item.

This vacuum has a surprising amount of suction.

The vacuum was built by 3M for their own people to use and specifically designed to vacuum things such as Toner (which is one of the finest and messy particles that you will run into, you don't want this stuff blowing out the other end of the vacuum!).

This vacuum was also designed from the ground up to be used with sensitive electronics. It contains features to prevent static build up that can take place while vacuuming.

Very good containment of vacuumed material in the disposable filter/collection bin.

CONs:

Be aware that this vacuum is fairly loud. This is not normally an issue, but you wouldnt want to turn it on next to someone taking a nap or talking on the phone. In my case, I have to make sure I really let everyone know around me that I will be using it. I have also used the Metro Datavac Pro 2 and will say that the ONLY thing I like better about that vacuum is that it is quieter than this one.

This is an expensive vacuum, and it does use expensive cartridges. I put this as a CON, however I do feel that the costs is worth the benifit of this great vacuum.

Neither of the CONs is worth a star deduction in my opinion.

If you are mobile with this vacuum, you may also want to carry an extension cord --I have had to use my extension cable about 50% of the time in the field, much better to be prepared for that need than not!

...and I mean that in a positive way. This item was purchased for use in servicing commercial electronic equipment. Works fine so far. Excellent quality hose, the best I've seen. Only question: What's with the photo of clog-like foot apparel? These 'accessories' were not included with my vac, which was, by the way, mercifully simply and economically packaged.

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Been wanting to get computer vacuum for my shop for some time but resisted do to the perceived static electricity risks. This vacuum addresses that area and has plenty of suction and attachments. This vacuum combined with a dust buster blower are the ideal computer chassis cleaning combination. I can only speculate on the savings we will accumulate by reducing the overheating issues causing failed mother boards, power supplies and memory as a result of clogged ventilation ducts on our computer chassis. Not to mention we will never have to purchase another singe can of compressed air. That in itself is a HUGE savings.

Thanks for the great product, on time delivery and a price we could afford.

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My company provides document conversion (scanning) services for other companies, and we will typically process tens (sometimes hundreds) of thousands of pages through high-speed, sheet-fed scanners on a weekly basis. This causes a large accumulation of paper dust in our scanners, and they require basic cleaning daily, and a deeper cleaning each month. This vacuum is great for picking up and trapping the dust and toner that accumulates, and the provided attachments allow us to get into all of the little nooks & crannies inside our equipment.

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If you're looking at this, you already know that compressed air just moves dust around. You want something that removes it from your computers and other electronics.

For the past 10 years, I've been using whatever I had around to vacuum PC cases. Small car vacuums, the hose attachment on my Dyson ball, etc. To me, it was hard to justify spending hundreds of dollars on a regular vacuum for my house. So when I saw this product on Amazon, I skipped right past it. ~$200 for a vacuum that I'll only use on electronics?

But the cheaper alternatives on Amazon had pretty bad reviews. So they didn't seem like an improvement over what I was currently doing.

So I took the chance and bought the 3M. When it first arrived, I opened the case and thought "Oh no." I had the vacuum, but no hose, power plug, or attachments. For $200 I shouldn't have to buy these extra!

But it turns out, it's not really advertised in any of the pictures I see posted (so I'll post one of my own after this review), that the lid of the case, when it opens, contains a door that's held shut by a small strip of velcro. You remove the slip, the door opens, and everything's there. This alone is starting to make the $200 worth it for me -the convenience of the design. When closed, the vacuum is basically a closed toolbox with a handle on top. Everything you need is contained in there -nothing can be forgotten, fall out, etc. This makes it great for transporting it in your car, or carrying it around your building. There's actually a little extra room in the top lid so you can stash a philips screwdriver in there too, or any other small items you feel you might need when using this.

I plug it in and start cleaning, and I'm able to get every single bit of dust out of this computer. When using my other makeshift electronic vacuums, they had no problem getting the big chunks of dust that are highly visible and accessible. Vents, edges of the case, etc. were no problem. But they often left behind surface dust, so they still looked dirty. And some areas I couldn't get at all. The attachments you get on car vacuums and floor vacuums are meant to get in the corners of your house and car... but not in the corners of a small case.

But this 3M vacuum has a flexible enough hose and plenty of attachments to not only get the stuff you originally got in there to get, but also all of the surface dust. It makes things look brand new when you're done with them. You can get in-between PCI cards and RAM modules, get the dust within the individual fins of heatsinks, off the blades of fans, etc. If you can see it, you can get it. About the noise... it's about the same as the vacuums I've used before. It's not something I'd use at night when people are sleeping, and the pets still run when I turn it on... but it's about as loud as a vacuum is expected to be and nothing more.

I've only used it once, and that was my experience. Down the road I may update this review as I use it more often but it seems perfect. The only thing I'd change is to make the manual slightly thinner so it fits up in the lid instead of on the top of the white plastic box. It's not like I opened it before I started cleaning or anything, though. You can probably leave that out of the case if it bothers you too much.