Features:

  • Can operate corded with an AC outlet, or cordless by an 18v or 20v MAX battery
  • HEPA Rated filter traps up to 99.97% efficiency
  • Washable/reusable filter;2-Gallon tank capacity
  • Crush-resistant 5ft hose.Heavy-duty, crush-resistant, fully-integrated 5' (by 1-1/4" diameter) hose provides durability, flexibility and ease-of-use
  • On-board storage for easy transport
5 Stars because I made a bag attachement for it (See my Vac Hack)

120VAC, 20VDC or 18VDC????? HOW CAN YOU GO WRONG ?!?!?!? Pro's: Everything except the filter bag (I will see what I can come up with Con's: It would be nice if there was a filter bag available for this. I hate stopping just to clean an on-board filter (waste of time). OK. I know you have ALL been waiting for this. I made a filter bag for this item so that I don't have to either keep cleaning the OEM filter or replace it for $20.00 to $50.00+. ALL of this can be found on Amazon or just look around for the same size stuff. 1. Plastic-Craft Part Number: PC136 1 1/2" OD Plastic Tube - $12.85 2. Ronteix 90 degree elbow - 1 1/2" ID Elbow - $14.88 3. Windsor Sensor HEPA Vacuum Bags (it fits alot of them) Pack of 10 - $11.90 Total = $39.63 I will not need to buy another elbow or plastic tube so I will only have to buy bags from now on. Sure ... I know you are thinking "but I can't suck up water with a vacuum bag in it". All I can say is "WHY DID YOU SPEND OVER $100.00 FOR A 2 GALLON WET VAC AND EVEN MORE FOR BATTERIES AND A CHARGER"? Of course the bags won't hold 2 gallons of dirt but you can't suck up 2 gallons of dirt without having to clean your filter cartridge anyway so .... I win.

Was on the fence and very happy I bought it

I am a bit of a neat freak when it comes to my car. I hate to have dirty carpet, so I'll frequently vacuum them when I get home from work. Hauling out the shop vac was a pain because I had to run the cord into the garage. I was on the fence about buying this because I worried that it might not be powerful enough. Boy was I wrong. While it isn't as strong as a full sized shop vac, it is plenty strong for the vast majority of applications. The cordless functionality makes it so easy to clean up little messes and address dust build-up that I've been letting go around the house for way too long. I'm very happy with this purchase. Just FYI - the hose accepts are the regular attachments (brushes, nozzles and other devices) you already have. I bought the Waitley DCB 200 6 ah, 20-volt lithium-ion batteries for it (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07D1KQFYM/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00) (much cheaper than [less than half] the Dewalt ones) and have plenty of run time. I've run it for 30 minutes straight with no loss of power. I'll probably test the runtime to exhaustion this weekend. And while this model has a cord to run it plugged in use as well, I don't think I'll ever use the cord. Love the convenience. Great product.

Ultimate side-kick to a main vacuum for all around usage

You have to love a strong shop-like vacuum that runs on a battery! I've used this vacuum for more things than I can think of. We have it paired with a larger shop vac in our garage, so the two of these together are a monstrously-amazing-cleaning team. Places where the big vac can't get are the spots this little one can get into easily (consider all the crevices a vacuum has to hit when detailing cars). Works great for quick clean up on boats after getting sand in them. Easier to hit awkward places around the house where a floor vacuum's arms turn into some crazy contortionist to get to. Don't expect the same sucking power of your normal wet-dry vac....think of it like a really strong dust buster.

Excellent portable vacuum

I love this thing! Having the ability to use it with the battery has made it totally worth it. I can't tell you how many times while at a customer's home there is no outlet nearby, and having the battery attached is way easier than carrying around an extension cord that I don't need for anything else. It does only last about 20 mins or so with the 20v Max battery, but suction power is plenty powerful. I just keep a charger in the car and charge it up while on to my next job, if needed. And if I'm not using the battery on it, it's a convenient spare for my cordless drill. It is solidly built, so it's heavier than others. The latches stay latched, even if you tip it over. As others have said, having a longer cord, or at least one where the plug/clip aligned with the sides so it could attach, and stay attached properly when wound, would be good. Horrible design oversight there. And adding the ability to charge the battery pack would be excellent.

This is a great vacuum if you use the 20v LIthium batteries, so-so if you are trying to use left over 18 nicads

I bought this a while ago and initial results 3 out of 5 with the markdown mostly around vacuum power and run time. I had several 18vdc nicads so I used them in this machine always to unimpressive results. For some reason, I just never tried a 20vdc Lithium even though I had them for other tools. Well a couple of weeks ago, I chucked the last 18v nicad into the recycle station and plugged one of 20vdc lithiums and its like OMG I have a totally different vacuum. Power seems almost double (probably overstated....) over the older nicads and they last forever it seems. I kind of kick myself that I never thought to go straight to the 20v lithiums. Oh well, I much happier and want to recommend this vacuum to anyone wishing to step up from a low power dustbuster or other type of vacuum. Dewalt is pricey but in the end you get what you pay for which drives most of my Dewalt purchase decisions.

Sucks, blows, rocks.

I’m constantly doing small home improvement projects. I also live in a very densely packed pre-war nyc Apartment with dogs, a Partner and an embarrassing amount of dust-sensitive equipment/art/clothing. This means all project areas must be kept as clean as possible. Sheetrock dust, sawdust, golddust, angeldust, dust brothers, etc., have to be vacuumed as soon as possible. I had a wonderful shop vac but the thing was, as we’ve all seen, a rolling garbage can. Huge. This DeWalt is one of the most intelligent purchases I’ve made recently. Works on batteries (which by now, if you’re a DeWalt Guy you have a few) or AC. I tend to get plenty of time out of a battery, but always have a surrogate on the charger. Yeah, it SUCKS. Pretty well too. Great for sanding dust and demolition crumbs. It’s light, easy to maneuver about and way better than lugging up the shop vac from the basement every time I work. The exhaust port BLOWS air right out of the side. If you’re not mindful of it, it will annoy you. Imagine trying to clean up all that baby laxative you spilled and your vacuum is shooting air in the direction you’re cleaning. On the flip side, that blown air can be harnessed for the leaf blower effect. The washable HEPA filter is magic. Don’t think for a moment that it’s unnessary if you’re cleaning debris indoors. Concrete dust, lead paint dust, asbestos, meth - you don’t want those recirculating back into your enviro So yeah, I love it.

Great Vacuum for HVAC, I love It!

I'm in the HVAC trade and prior to purchasing this I often encountered situations where I had wished I had a portable and un-cumbersome vacuum. Company I work for has a small 5 gallon one that lives in the install trailer but that's it. So I immediately recognized the potential this little guy had to offer and made the purchase. You should've seen the looks on guys faces when I pulled this out the first time. Shared a few laughs, as they poked fun at me etc. That all ended last week when it emptied a full air handler drain pan that was suspended in a drop ceiling, which didn't have a drain. Sure, I had to dump it out several times to completely empty the pan, but nobody else had a vacuum, the Church where we were working didn't have one either. Even if anybody had had one the hoses probably wouldn't have reached, and as tight the space was...miserable. This vacuum performs very well for what I need it to do: 1. Cleaning air handler returns grills, cabinets, and the nasty that typically lives underneath them. Not sure what I'm talking about go remove your air filter and look. 2. Clearing out condensate lines in the event I run out of Nitrogen, happened last week during a job. 3. Drain pan water removal. I love the design and compactness of this vacuum. Everything has it's place to live and those pieces stay put, no flopping hoses or cords. At first I wasn't sure about the location of the power switch, but I get why they put it there. No accidental startup and the handle protects it from being damaged. This vacuums has decent suction and I'm completely satisfied with performance. With any 1.5" hose vacuum, it's not hard to clog so as long, so don't expect it suck up large chunks. Additionally, If you purchase this with performance expectations of a 10 gallon shop vacuum, lol, don't buy this. "It's not the vacuum your looking for." Battery Operation: I emptied that drain pan on battery power only using a 4amp hour battery. Sure it has a little more power when corded but that's not why I purchased it, the cord is plan B if the battery dies and I'm out of spares. Improvements: I wish it had three slots for extension wands and another slot for bristle brush attachment. I'd love to see it charge the battery while using the power cord. All in all I'm very happy so far with this vacuum and I wouldn't hesitate to purchase another or recommend to a friend.

A couple useful mods really help

With over 200 reviews there's not much else to offer, but I made some modifications to mine that made it a bit more useful and addressed two of it's biggest cons. First, I got the three Shop Vac brand 14" extension wands, to extend the reach of the short hose and save me from bending over. I then mounted 3 sections of 1.5" PVC pipe cut into 9.5" sections on the bottom of the canister.This gave me a place to securely store the 3 wands and strengthened the base a bit, in case it gets dragged around in rough ground enough to eventually wear through the canister. To mount the PVC, I used six 1/4" carriage bolts and washers on the pipe side, with bonded sealing washers (metal washers bonded to thick rubber washers) and hex bolts inside the canister. The smooth round end of the carriage bolts inside the pipe acts to lock in the wands a few inches before the end, and they slide in and out easily but stay in securely. Next I took the little dusting brush that Amazon says is frequently purchased with the 3 extension wands. I wanted to keep this tool with the vac along with the included nozzles. Just as I went to screw in a pipe strap to hold the brush to the vac (a setup I didn't really care for), I noticed the the outlet/blower hole. The brush fits tight in there and solves another annoying thing about this vac. The air outlet tends to blow things around, particularly for a right hander. With the brush in there, it directs the air flow up and away from the material you're trying to vacuum, and diffused the air stream as well. All told I think the mods cost me around twenty bucks, and added just a little weight and height to the vac, but really increased the vac's usefulness and convenience, at least for me.

-This thing can suck a golf ball through a water hose without its ...

This thing is a beast! I'm a bit of a DeWalt fan and own many of their corded and cordless products, so this was definitely on the list of items I wanted to own. Pros: -Its cordless AND corded!! -Its not as heavy as it might look, my fiance even uses it without complaining! -This thing can suck a golf ball through a water hose without its lipstick transferring -The accessories fit the hose snuggly and don't fall off like other shop vacs -Easy to clean, just dump the black plastic bottom/bucket and shake off the twist-lock dust filter -Compact size but big enough to handle REAL tasks -My batteries are from a drill/impact set and roughly 4 years old yet still last for over 25min vacuum time -PLENTY of power while using it as a CORDLESS unit -It sounds a bit more powerful while using CORDED power (higher overall operational frequency), but do not have an effective means of measuring this -I beat the s*** out of my tools and have shown this unit zero mercy and can vouch for its overall toughness/construction. I do fear that I will eventually break the hose (due to its flexible nature) and will probably trip up and step on the other accessories (this is how all of my vacuum accessories reach their demise). -5 stars would purchase again!! Cons: -The d@mn exhaust for this thing is on the wrong side for a right hand dominant individual. I hold/carry the unit my left hand and manipulate the hose/accessory with my right hand and the exhaust/blower port will more often than not blow in the direction Im attempting to clean. BUT, this minor flaw is not a deal breaker! Just mildly annoying for someone who is a bit more OCD than not. I have, however, found a rather interesting solution to this...I take the wide angle accessory and shove it in the exhaust port. Not only does this make the machine just a bit quieter, but it also angles that air in any direction you'd like. Preferably away from what you are attempting to suck up. -The blower side doesn't blow very hard with the hose attached to it. This is most likely due to degree of bend and ribbed inside of hose or the blade design. Not sure. -Battery Removal: OLD STYLE SOCKET Battery a bit difficult to remove for an individual with large hands. I do not own the newer flat style battery. Things I HAVE used it for: -Vacuuming up drywall and garage debris -Cleaning baseboards -Cleaning automobile interiors, floormats, dash+center console, ect -Vacuuming up wood dust -Portable cleaning solution for general in-home use Things I have NOT used it for: -Sucking up liquids

One of my favorite things--period

I used a Black and Decker 18V hand vacuum for about two years and was pretty happy with it until the rechargeable battery wouldn't hold a charge. When I attempted to replace the battery, I found out it was going to cost more than it would to replace the entire unit (how ridiculous is that?). I didn't love the unit, so I wasn't going to go that route again, and since I use the Dewalt 20V Max tools, I was excited about the possibility of getting a portable shop vac that would run on the same power. I ordered the DCV581H, which is even more compact than I'd imagined, and I really like the design. Elegant simplicity, very thoughtful design. We use the Dickens out of this thing! It lives in the bathroom, where the litter box is, and works beautifully. It sees a lot of action in the kitchen, after big cook sessions, the living room sofa, where our two cats and dog battle for position, for hunting 'ghost turds' that whirl around like tumbleweed in our apartment, in the car, where I can vacuum up debris from dumpster diving for lumber, and, yes, even as a shop vac! It's small and underpowered for any serious shop work, but as a benchtop cleaner, yeah, it's pretty nice. My wife is probably a little sick of hearing how much I adore this thing.

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