Another dust extraction lost soul

[Chris70]

Hi there,

Like many, I have a small workshop (7.0m x 4.0m x 2.7m) and need some better dust extraction for various tools. I'm another amateur floundering on what to buy on a budget.

My Festool CTL Midi copes admirably with my Kapex60 and RO150, but I find myself continually clearing up after using the OF1400 and/or the DeWalt DWE7485. Record Power is what I'm considering. What exactly would you recommend. Any advice is very welcome. Thanks!

Chris

 

[sams93]

I have a space about 2/3 of the size of your space, and I am very pleased with my rather cheap clone of the Record DX1000 attached to a cyclone separator which was from amazon with 50mm ports. It lives in a small cabinet where it can sit out of the way hooked up to the cyclone etc. I use it with good success on all of my tools, including a planer/thicknesser and it copes with the serious amount of wood chips that produces. I do have to use a small adapter with some relief holes in when using with the sanders else they can end up being too sucked into the workpiece.

Works perfectly with bandsaw, contractor table saw, Dewalt chop saw, rotex sander, ETS sander, TS55 Track Saw, Router, and planer thicknesser. I also use it for general hoovering around the shop.

If I had more room it would be good to have a larger blue bin for the cyclone, but my chop saw is mounted on top of the unit so I couldn't make it too high. It is still easier for me to empty the blue bin once every couple of weeks rather than clean out the whole extractor itself and filters etc.

I use a 36mm hose most of the time which serves the sanders and chop saw, table saw, bandsaw and tracksaw etc absolutely fine, but if I am using the planer thicknesser I use a 50mm hose which works fine. It is a smaller planer thicknesser though (204mm) so possibly if you have a larger one it might prefer to have a larger hose.


I debated for a while whether I wanted to have a ducted system with dedicated ports for each machine, but as all my machines are on mobile units mounted on castors, it didn't seem to make a lot of sense as they often need to be pulled out anyway to use them. In such a small space it hasn't been an issue to just move the hose to whatever I am using at the time.

I had some really good success as well with a couple of custom adapters so that I made by Keith at 'The Wood Elves' who has an ebay shop here. He does loads of adapters on his shop already but made me a few custom ones as well which worked perfectly.

 

[Chris70]

Thank you for the tips @sams93 I’ll have a think about the stuff you’re using. Sound interesting. Chris

 

[fleyh]

Like many, I have a small workshop (7.0m x 4.0m x 2.7m)

LOL. I have a decent English size "workshop" - L2m x W2.4 x H2m (about 40% of single car garage)

It is served by dual motor Record Power CGV286-4 which lives behind the workbench (between it and the wall) and takes next to no space at all.
See circled area in the photo - if you can spot it

If I had to chose again I would have gone for CGV336-4 (slightly taller model), which would stil fit behind the workbench and (having bigger bucket size) would make my cyclone separator optional.

Most of the time I use CGV286-4 with a single motor except for the mitre saw and bandsaw. Even with 2 motors active - bandsaw dust collection used to be miserable until I fitted a PVC pipe directly under the bandsaw table. Now it is adequate.

90% of my router use is with the router table (mostly as jointer) and CGV286-4 is great for that, leaves no noticeable dust.

I do not own a real table saw, but would be surprised if any dust extractor was able to produce satisfactory results with a job site saw unless that saw is modified to improve dust collection.

Before CGV286-4 I used domestic 2KW Bosch vacuum for several years and it produced the same suction pressure as CGV286-4 in dual motor mode. If my Bosch did not throw so much dust back in the garage and did not overheat so quickly I would not gain anything by upgrading to Record Power CGV286-4.

TL;DR: I assume that with Festool CTL you have neither issues of my Bosch so - before getting a new dust extractor - have a search (google/youtube) to see how people modified equipment similar to yours (tablesaw, router) to improve its dust collection.

If I was in your situation - (taking into account you already have a vacuum) I would consider a workshop air filter first. Large dust particles can be dealt with using a broom/brush, while tiny ones (floating in the air for hours) can do real damage to your lungs and no domestic dust extractor (regardless how amazing it is) can remove all of those.

Thank you for the tip about 'The Wood Elves' ebay shop @sams93.

 

[sams93]

Yeah Keith at The wood elves made me a couple of bits, I wanted to reduce my Planer output from 100mm to 50mm for the 50mm hose and a right angle elbow for it too. And I wanted to be able to use some Henry attachments for general cleaning so he made me adapters for those bits up and I was really pleased with them.

I have a job site table saw (it’s a clone of the DWE7485) and surprisingly the dust collection is quite effective from it using my extraction system.

Like @fleyh experiences, the poorest collection I experience is from the band saw, but I think that is more related to my bandsaws poor dust removal design which is too open to be effective.

As the extraction ststem is fixed in my shed, I have it wired in so that when I use certain sockets (labelled ‘extraction’) then the extractor automatically comes on. This is the same as your system on the CTL and makes using it a much more pleasurable experience, particularly on things like the chop saw.