Patent ID: 8615845

Claim:
A vacuum cleaner system that has: a motor/fan assembly that has a brushless motor that is controlled by an electronic controller that is mounted on a face of a generally planar circuit board that has a first lateral edge on a first lateral side of the circuit board and an opposed lateral edge on an opposed lateral side of the circuit board; a cooling fan on one axial side of the motor; a relatively planar chassis wall on the assembly that has an impeller opening that leads to the motor/fan assembly and a hose opening that connects to a vacuum hose; a tank that receives debris through the vacuum hose; a lid on the tank that helps to keep debris in the tank when the tank is removed, mounts to the chassis wall, has an outlet that connects to the impeller opening, and has a separate inlet that connects to the hose opening; an intake that opens to the environment, is positioned on the front of the vacuum cleaner system, and serves as a source for the cooling air for the vacuum cleaner; and ducting walls that form part of a cooling air pathway that leads from the intake to the circuit board, and then to an axial side of the motor opposite the cooling fan, through the center of the motor, to the cooling fan; the circuit board being arranged so that the flow of cooling air from the intake flows first past one of the opposed lateral edges of the circuit board, then across the face of the circuit board toward the other of the opposed lateral edges of the circuit board before flowing to the axial side of the motor.