Porty shootout results

    COPIED FROM MIKEYSBOARD:



Procedure
Lift in Inches of Water, (Ave H2O Lift) We used a Bentley wand with holed glide and a hole drilled into the head to test vacuum at the floor. Measurements were taken as it was pushed forward and when pulled backward on dry carpet and then taking the average.

H2O Lift was measured at the vacuum inlet of each machine.
CFM was measured at the end of 25ft of 2” hose.
Amperage was the average measured when the wand was on the floor and off.
Accessories are not that accurate. Lacking info.
Apologies for lack of pictures. I believe Mark Cermack has some, if he would be so kind as to post them.

Water recovery test.
Preparing the machines, ie equalizing them. Enough water was poured into each machine, then sprayed and recovered till the water ran out. The recovery tank was then emptied with the machine flat, ie not tipping it. Since some water will remain in the soln tanks when the pump runs dry and some will remain in the recovery tanks, this preparation ensures that the quantity of water poured into the soln tank will be used and whatever water is recovered can be drained.

An AW29 non-glided wand was used for the recovery test because of it’s the normal wand sold with a portable. (note, I didn’t even look at the jets, I believe 02’s are stock on the AW29) It was also the best choice since there were malfunctions with the Bentley wands. Further tests were not made with a glided Bentley when it was fixed because we ran out of time. The same hose, 25ft of 2”, was used with each portable.

Since the Horizon has no soln tank, the AW29 was hooked up to it and sprayed into a bucket for 1 minute. That water level was marked and then that amount of water was added to the solution tanks of each portable. When we tested with the Horizon the “on jet time” was measured at 1 minute.
Only cold water was used to prevent any differences due to water temp.

A basic wand pattern was used, spray on the back stroke, dry pass on forward, moving sideways till all the water was used up. Then dry passes were performed in reverse.

All units were set at 250psi except the Sphere which only has a 100psi pump. It simply tool longer to spray out its measure of water.

Recovered water was poured into the same bucket that measured the fresh water to measure amount recovered.

Results/Observations/Conclusions/Theory
The Sphere did pretty good, as mentioned, it tool longer to spray out its measure of water since it only has a 100psi pump but still recovered 100%, even with 2” hose.
250psi seemed like a nice pressure to work with.
Each machine recovered almost 100% of the water, even the Sphere. The M5 recovered a little less than the rest, which since it didn’t make sense, we theorized that with its higher lift the wand was locking down on the carpet and therefore losing airflow and thus recovering a little less. We never had the time to test each machine with a glided wand which we believe would have shown more of a difference between the different machines performance. We were going to test with 50ft of 2” hose.

The M5, Master Force and Horizon had the switches all up top. The M5 and Horizon each has circuit locators which were nice to have. The M5 was the easiest to hook up with both vac and soln connections located on top plus having a cool cuff for its vac connection. The Recoil’s switches were located in a somewhat awkward location, at the bottom on the front, under a lip of the tanks, with that position and being non-lit they were hard to see.

The motor compartment of the Recoil and Sphere were bolted and makes them the hardest to access the machinery. The others were fairly easy to get into.

The M5 had the best CFM while the Master Force had the most lift. This is due to the different configuration of the vac motors, ie parallel and series respectively.

The theory with the Recoil was that since all three vacs were in parallel there was a loss of vacuum “through” the weaker 2 stage vac, ie sucking through it. This would explain the increased lift when the 2 stage was disconnected. Would have been nice to see a new machine.

Overall, I liked the M5 and Master Force best. Though the other 3 really weren’t in the same class. The Sphere isn’t meant for large area cleaning. The Horizon is mainly a flood extractor and for tile but since it was there we included it in the test. It would make a decent carpet extractor as well.
Of the M5 and Master Force, the M5 has some better tweaks, ie the connections are all up top, some cup holders to hold a spotter, or a beer. The dump is in the back away from the hoses. I find its easier to tip a machine from the back than from the front in order to drain the tank.

The machines could use a little larger fill hole for the soln tanks. At the end of the job they need to be sucked out and one needs to squeeze his arm in with the vac hose. Nothing major but something for future models.
The Master Force\s pump needs to be greased. It comes with a small grease gun. That’s an extra maintenance step the M5 doesn’t have to worry about. Would have to see over the long term which pump performs better.

As has been said, would have been nice to try all the machines with a glided wand and a longer length of hose. We got carried away with getting all the numbers which ate up the time. The numbers show that the M5 and MF are the best machines. However, the simple extraction test shows that they will all do the job, just the larger the machine, the faster the job will be completed. Plus, with the higher pressure, a cleaner job will be the result as well.

Can some one post the price of the Master Force and the M5? That will also be a big factor.