Porter Cable has come out with a new 20V Max cordless wet/dry vacuum, PCC795B.
It’s said to deliver up to 28 mins of runtime when powered by a 4.0Ah battery, delivers up to 34 CFM of airflow suction, and can hold up to 2 gallons of dust and debris.
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The vac features a 7.8 ft hose and wide nozzle and crevice tools that dock on-board for easy storage. Its filter is washable and replaceable.
Price: $68 (as of the time of this posting), $80 MSRP
Buy Now(via Amazon)
Compare(Dewalt Cordless/AC via Amazon)
First Thoughts
A few weeks ago, in response to my post about Porter Cable not coming out with new tools lately, someone remarked that some blogger declared this Porter Cable vac to be better than Dewalt’s. This is what I wrote about that:
The PC PCC795B, compared to the Dewalt e cordless and AC vac, has a less than 10% higher on-paper CFM rating. But its hose is longer, and from images it has more bends and folds at the vac adapter end, which could affect suction and air volume. (In regard to real-world vs. on-paper specs.)
The Dewalt has an AC cord and 18V and 20V Max compatibility.
Porter Cable’s 20V Max lineup is limited, and is currently capped at a 4.0Ah battery pack.
The PC model is different from Dewalt’s, and I think it would be a long stretch to describe it as being “better,” based on 34 vs 31 CFM rating.
The PC has a longer hose, but how long of a hose do you need with a handheld portable vac? I’ve never found the Dewalt’s hose to be lacking.
The Dewalt is equipped with a HEPA-rated filter. The PC is only described as having a “washable cartridge filter.”
The Dewalt is arguably better. While it’s good to see an expansion to Porter Cable’s lineup, there’s nothing distinguishable about the vacuum, other than it being the sole battery-powered vac available to PC 20V Max users.
To this I would add that the Porter Cable vac is pricely lower, and it’s currently the only in-brand option for anyone who is wholly dedicated to Porter Cable’s 20V Max lineup.
I would expect for it to be easier to find replacement filters for the Dewalt vac, but maybe by some chance they use the same replacement filter size? One could hope.
While I’d say Dewalt’s is better, or as at least a more appealing product in my eyes, this one rings in at a lower price than Dewalt’s cordless and cordless/AC hyrbid vac options. It MSRP is $79, and it’s on sale as of the time of this posting for $68.
Mizzourob says
There is also a new 20v light and random orbit sander also coming out soon too.
Stuart says
Thanks! I saw the teaser and have started seeking out more details.
Sergio says
Did you see the 20v chainsaw on amazon? Its news to me?
Will - Tile Guy says
and i wait for a dewalt 20V orbital….
https://www.timesheets.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Guy-waiting-around.jpg
Mtn Ranch says
Is this any quieter than the original 18v Dewalt vacation?
glenn says
Not sure but Dewalt’s original “vacation” from releasing new tools was pretty quiet lol!
Roger says
I still don’t understand why they don’t use brushless motors in vacs. I hope DeWalt comes out with one. At the very least a dualpack or even a flexvolt dual pack. I know AEG(Ridgid) will eventually issue NA version of the can vac they have.
If Ryobi comes with a One+One I’m game!
Ct says
Craftsmen had/has 1 that’s very similar to a version ryobi has at least overseas. I picked up 1 of those and modified it to take ryobi batteries . It was my 1st of many conversions
dave9 says
How did you modify it? Craftsmen switched to the flat battery pack interface while Ryobi still has their old school stud-in-handle (or whatever you’d like to call it) battery interface, or is Ryobi using a different battery format overseas? I know TTI has some other brand, forget the name but comes in off-white with the flat battery pack interface.
Jason says
The Ryobi version of the canister vac goes for decent money used. It was odd that they discontinued it, and didn’t have a real replacement for it.
dave9 says
Agreed, there is a market for it. The crazy thing to me is that the other major brands (besides Craftsman) cost around $100, when you can buy a “reasonably” performing small AC powered canister vac for under $40.
DC motors don’t cost much more than AC, doesn’t even need much in the way of electrics, just single speed switch without a reverse.
I don’t need my canister vac to have USB charging ports, turn into a leaf blower, talk to my phone with an app, or even have a brushless motor. It just needs a durable, washable filter and a few feet of hose.
Raoul says
Good for PC users. I’m DeWalt and would like a cordless vac but I think the der Dewelt is due for an update so I’ll wait it out. More power, clean it up by getting rid of the 18v support, hopefully brushless, and big battery compatibilty would be nice.
On a side note, why doesn’t Dewalt just axe the 18v tools from their lineup? They can support it with batteries and necessities for a little longer but they actually make Dewalt look bad the way they still support it. Even Microsoft stops supporting is is’s after a few years. I understand the argument for it, especially from Milwaukee standpoint where they are telling you your 1982 drill will still be compatible with the current platform in 2269 but man it is a desd horse. Speaking of dead horse, imagine if our infrastructure still supported horses on the road. A time comes when you have to progress and Dewalt is at that time. Clean up the line, get rid of junk, leave the cheap stuff for other lines. Actually what would be cool is a universal battery pack under it’s own name to fit all SBD legacy and other manufacturers. And I’m talking about that rediclulously looking slide to post adapter they sell now.
Sorry for the rant.
MtnRanch says
You have a good point. When I look at Dewalt it’s very difficult to separate their very high quality tools from the cheap promotional items that they make for the big box stores.
As the happy owner of some very heavily used and still functioning 18 volt tools I appreciate that Dewalt continues to support them but see no reason to keep building them. Same goes for the 14.4 volt and below products. In the 12 volt category, Bosch beats Dewalt every which way. A low voltage tool can be handy but Dewalt’s line doesn’t offer much worth looking at.
JoeM says
…Our infrastructure DOES still support horses and horse-drawn carriages… That’s why there are still Mounted Police Services in 90% of North American cities, and “Old Fashioned” Carriage Rides in larger cities like New York, Toronto, and I think even San Francisco… If the City is over 100 years old, chances are very good that their roads, public areas, and parks all still support Horses.
The 18 Volt DeWALT system still has many tools that the 20 Volt/XR/FlexVolt family haven’t got yet. I would imagine, once we’re totally caught up, the 18 Volts will die a merciful death.
Stuart says
There’s also the amish.
Dewalt still makes 18V tools and people keep buying them.
fred says
When I moved into my suburban village there were more horses living in the village than people. I kind of lost track about what the ratio is today – but none of these horses pull buggies or plows as far as I know – most being stabled for recreational riding, show and polo. I could technically keep horses based on the size of my property – but I’d be hard pressed to provide a proper paddock area. My daughter rode local horses when she was growing up.
BTW, the Amish and Mennonites keep up sales and interest in hand tools like Yankee Screwdrivers. On a road trip I saw some Mennonites working on a new house. They seemed to make up for lost productivity (no power tools) through hard work and community effort. Stopping for a fill-up at a local gas station, my aid was enlisted to fill some cans with kerosene from a tank that was connected to an electric – rather than hand pump.
dave9 says
Why should they get rid of 18V tools? You do realize their pretend-20V tools are also 18V tools, right?
It doesn’t make them look bad at all, QUITE the opposite. If I have a perfectly working cordless widget, why on earth should I have to buy a whole new line of tools just to make you happy in some arbitrary way instead of just new batteries like I need?
The last thing I want is support a company that doesn’t continue to support their older tools, but then it’s already ridiculous to come out with 20V that are really 18V that aren’t compatible with each other.
The yeti says
Can’t find any porter cable cordless stuff locally here . I think Lowe’s might carry it . We don’t have a Lowe’s however . Looks like a decent little vacuum unit . Stanley has way too many brands building the same products .
Mr. Gerbik says
I think porter cable is sort of dead in the water but keeps floating somehow. They haven’t made a game changing tool for a while. There’s not a lot of cordless shop vacs on the market, but it’s just a matter of time before everybody else starts making them. Plus 32 minutes from a 4hr battery is pretty bad. 30 more minutes, I might get one. Sbd won’t get rid of pc probably because of their 6 gallon pancake, which everybody & their brother owns. Probably the best selling compressor of all time. Plus they had the coolest recip saw ever in the tiger claw. It wasn’t the best as far as handling, but nothing has come anywhere near in terms of versatility. But it wasn’t a smash hit. And they still make a damn good commercial drywall sander vacuum that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. But it seems that sbd has done all but abandon any serious r&d into pc. The cordless tool rat race between the big brands ain’t helping pc either. Sbd is more interested in flexvolt & seems to be putting all their chips into dewalt. Seems everything else at sbd has been put on the back burner. I know with the 2 major acquisitions (Irwin and craftsman) they are still trying to figure out how to get the them on the market with some clout. Especially craftsman. It would suck if sbd ruins the pc brand the same way they ruined black and decker. Why they ever got rid of the supersawcat is a question that those who owned one can’t get an answer for.
fred says
My supersawcat still works fine. Maybe that was the problem with it. My cynical nature asks: if you produce a tool that is at the top of its class and doesn’t wear out then what do you do for an encore? Maybe they think it better to work on the basis of planned obsolescence. The other possibility (probability) is that producing the supersawcat was no longer as profitable as making/selling other lesser saws. There are examples of other things – like cameras – that probably peaked in terms of build-quality quite a number of years ago. I’m thinking about cameras like the Leica M3 and M4 and what it would take/cost to build a modern DSLR to the same standards.
As many of us have said in prior posts – it is a shame (but probably inevitable) what B&D did to PC when the acquired the company. Those of us who still use PC corded tools from the Rockwell (or even earlier) era – remember an innovative company that produced some of the best small power tools (e.g.. routers, planers and sanders) – particularly for the woodworking trade. The PC compressors probably came about from their days as part of Pentair – and possibly association with sister company DeVilbiss – but as you say they have become rather ubiquitous. They did sell off the Porta-Nailer business – but what’s left has been positioned so as not to compete with Dewalt. Probably – if B&D had acquired PC before Dewalt – the roles would likely have been switched. BTW – I’m told that the B&D brand has a better reputation elsewhere in the world – maybe in places where they did not start selling those orange-colored burner saws and drills.
firefly says
Planned obsolescence or planned failure is an interesting concept that might have not existed in the early day of engineering. It’s always a marvel to me to see an antique piece of machinery still fire right up after years of sitting. Then again, in the early day I don’t think engineer have to deal with all the overreaching regulation that today engineer have to deal with…
Some mentioned on the Harbor Freight post about the Festool TS55 contained a few cheaper components based on Ave teardown. This sort of information while interesting to know does beg the question of what matter more, the overall user experience or the quality of the individual components? What if some of those component are precise picked so they will fail say after 20 years of usage? I don’t know if this is the case for the Festool. Regardless engineering to fail is really a marvel in it own right. Because the overall tool must still perform explicitly well for the intended life of the tool.
fred says
There is also the concept of “value engineering.” You can sometimes look at a design and change materials, components, finishing etc. to meet a certain price point or cost/benefit proposition. You might do this with the realization that the rapid pace in the advancement of new technology will likely obsolete an item long before it wears out. My old cameras and lenses – as an example still perform like new – but film cameras and a batch of lenses might not be what I want to take with me on vacation any longer. I suspect that my titanium body Nikon F2 and the other film cameras that I own will likely outlive me – but I’m not sure any of those who might inherit them will want to use them. I can not say the same for the Canon digital cameras that I’ve purchased. They have been good for what I’ve wanted them for but I’ve had some issues and with two I judged buying a newer version more cost effective than repairing the old ones. Of course newer features had a role in my decision to replace rather than repair.
Those lesser component in the TS55, as you point out, may have little impact on most users work over their lifetime of using the tool. For my TS55REQ – I’ve experienced no failures so far – but perhaps mine would fail if used on a 24/7 basis – where superior components might have an advantage. That may be a value engineering sort of call – not to plan on failure – but to realize that the added cost of “best” (like using Titanium in my Nikon F2) may not be justified based on expected usage.
firefly says
I think you are right. You have frame it in a much better perspective than I could have. I think that “value engineering” is a lot more common than engineering to fail. Even though the end result are very similar, it does shine it in a lot better (and more accurate) light. One that restore our faith in humanity.
You also brought up another interesting point about replacement vs fixing. This is especially true when it come to electronic. It’s an interesting and scary luxury to have. On one end it mean that advance in manufacturing have reduce the cost so much, probably more than we typically pay attention to to appreciate. On the other end device have become sophisticated that there isn’t a lot of fixing that one can do beside replacing a set of components. Gone are the day that one can remove a piece of component and resolder are new one. It’s usually replacement a whole subassembly anyway nowadays. So replacement part are a lot harder to come by because the supply chain for a particular subassembly is typically out of reach for most people. The advancement in technology and manufacturing is welcomed. The dependent on them is pretty scary…
Tom says
Dewalt has to see that this is a few clips away from a potential tstak vac.
Mr. Gerbik says
I’m not quite old enough to have used or seen any of the PC Rockwell era, but I do remember when they were with devilbiss. Their pneumatic stuff still has the devilbiss name on them. Just like back in the day, black and decker was a good brand of power tools. A lot better than today’s offerings. Then Stanley bought them and ruined everything that was good about b&d power tools. Pc was an innovative company and they were steadily pushing good tools to the masses, but they’ve been in decline since Stanley bought them. Sbd hasn’t improved upon any of tools pc was known for. Sooner or later, we’re going to start to see Walmart selling PC tools. Pc had far more tools than dewalt did when b&d bought them. PC had a slew of great tools like the ones mentioned. The only thing dewalt was known for was a radial arm saw.
fred says
Absolutely. I’ve said it before that Dewalt was once a “one trick pony” but Black & Decker (way before Stanley bought them) turned them into a marketing phenomenon as their professional flagship line. As far as Stanley ruining B&D as a brand name – I think that history would suggest that B&D had already done that much earlier on. B&D’s 1960 purchase of Dewalt from AMF – and subsequent divestiture of the RAS business in 1989 was what spring-boarded into developing Dewalt – starting the early 1990’s. It was almost 20 years before the Stanley Works acquired (some say merged with) B&D.
BTW – when Rockwell (the once giant Aerospace conglomerate – not the current toolmaker) owned PC – they also had a cheapo line of corded power tools with pale green plastic housings. They bore the Rockwell name – so as not to tarnish the PC brand. I believe that these were meant to compete with the low-end B&D tools.