Lately Milwaukee has been releasing new products left and right and even released a new M12 Vacuum not too long ago. We will be focusing on the Milwaukee M18 cordless dry vacuum 0880-20, which was first released many years ago.
It looks small and compact at first glance. It even has a hinged lid just like a tool box that houses its 2 accessories (utility nozzle and crevice nozzle) and houses the battery compartment to protect it from liquid. The main features are a 9 Liters tank capacity with the ability to suck dry messes and liquids. Its a small portable hand held vacuum andcomes with a premium hose with a rubber feel. The hose itself is short but can expand up to 6-1/0.6 m easily. The hose goes into the built in side basket when not in use.I like that everything can be stored on or in the vacuum to keep things neat when stored and so nothing gets lost. The exhaust port on the vacuum doubles as a blower port and you can attach the hose on the blower port to blow away debris. It is an M18 power tool but it can be used with Milwaukee’s older generation 18V battery platform, such as the V18.
Milwaukee power tools are known for their high performance. This Milwaukee tool delivers! It has very impressive suction, not only for a cordless vacuum but for its size as well. To give an idea of the suction power, I would say it is comparable to a 2- to 3-horsepower vacuum. It picked up light debris such as saw dust, drywall dust, and wood chips with ease. The included hepa filter did a fine job at filtering fine dust as I didnt notice any come out of the exhaust port while vacuuming.
While I have used other cordless vacuums to vacuum my car, they were not as effective. This vac was able to pick up dirt from carpet floors and fabric seats and it is very useful. Would have done better if a brush nozzle was included but for once I tried out a cordless vac that became useful for automotive use.
I also tested it out sucking up 9 Liters of liquid and its wet pick up was fast as you would expect. Even its blower did an excellent job. Its great for blowing away saw dust from your work table and I like to use it blow away saw dust from my tools after a project. It did a good job for a cordless blower. It’s not bad for a cordless vacuum blower, but it isn’t going to replace your leaf blower anytime soon.
It offers incredible performance in a small package, but at the cost of running time. The vacuum ran for just 14 minutes on a fully charged M18XC 4.0 amh battery. My method of measuring runtime is to only count how long the vacuum has been powered up and producing suction. The vacuum’s 18 volt, 4.0 amp hour battery was quite large. I was actually a little disappointed in its endurance. Considering the 9 Liters of vacuum’s capacity, however, it should take 14 minutes to complete small tasks quickly. However, I’d be more at ease with at least a 20-minute runtime.
You may think of a high-performance automobile. Why? you ask, because sports cars are designed with high performance in mind and MPG is at the end of the priority list. This vacuum, like a high performance car, has great performance while chugging down on its fuel source (battery power). And like all cordless vacs, is designed for very small messes with portability in mind and so you dont have to plug into an outlet. Even at the larger end of the spectrum with a 9 Liters tank, its still rather small so we have to remember cordless vacs arent meant to pick up large messes so even the short runtime will suffice. Final verdict: Its an excellent vac if you value high performance over runtime.
This model comes as a bare tool only and is priced at at time of writing.
Specifications
- Water suction – 81 cm
- 9 Liters tank
- 45 cfm Blower port
- Height 29 cm Width 48 cm
- 1-1/10 cm diameter hoses & nozzles
- 43 kg
- Hepa filter
- On board storage
- Tested runtime: 14 minutes 49 seconds
DISCLOSURE:
