Dyson DC35 Animal (purple) stops after a few seconds and makes a funny noise

Our Dyson DC35 Animal hand-held vacuum cleaner (the purple one) developed a strange fault recently. After a few seconds use it would cut out. it would also make a strange noise as it vacuumed, probably some in-built 'alarm' system to indicate a blocked vacuum feed.

The fault
The fault turned out to be a jammed butterfly valve on the dust collector (the part that the extension tubes clip on to). The purpose of the butterfly valve is probably to stop dust falling out as the cleaner is inverted. It should be completely free moving but on ours it was jammed shut with dust. The valve has a switch on it, see the socket that connects the switch to the cleaner. The cleaner has some logic to turn off it the switch is closed.

The solution
Just remove the plastic dust collector and run hot water through the valve, maybe help it a little with an old toothbrush.

Ensure the butterfly valve moved with complete freedom.

Ensure the dust collector is completely dry before re-assembling. Placing it a warm (not hot) place will aid this.

Dismantling
If you are not able to dismantle this unit into its component pieces, you should probably not be undertaking a repair of this type, simple though it may be.

The [[Media:dc35_uk_manual_300611 pdf.pdf|user guide shows]] how to dismantle this cleaner