Mini Mach Vacuum Clamp

[mahking51]

Hi All,
Just got a second hand one of these in a bunch of stuff and always wondered how good they are.
Took it down to see Waka and have a play with it; when connected up to his festool vac and placed on his clean benchtop and switched on it stuck to the bench like the proverbial to a blanket - all good so far I thought.
However when we tried covering one or more of the top cells with pieces of flat wood it was much less impressive and very inconsistent.
It never really gave us the confidence that we could,say, use a router without it coming adrift with dire results.
The seals all look to be in good nick and we oiled the ball valves.
Anyone had any experience with these before I junk it?
Cheers,
Martin

 

[woodbloke]

Hi All,
Just got a second hand one of these in a bunch of stuff and always wondered how good they are.
Took it down to see Waka and have a play with it; when connected up to his festool vac and placed on his clean benchtop and switched on it stuck to the bench like the proverbial to a blanket - all good so far I thought.
However when we tried covering one or more of the top cells with pieces of flat wood it was much less impressive and very inconsistent.
It never really gave us the confidence that we could,say, use a router without it coming adrift with dire results.
The seals all look to be in good nick and we oiled the ball valves.
Anyone had any experience with these before I junk it?
Cheers,
Martin

Hi Martin - some years ago I had the Vac Pots that go with the AirPress and they were also impressive but only under certain conditions. They were best used on a piece of impervious dead flat material (such as a lump of Contiboard...not that there's ever been anything like like that in my 'shop )and also the material being held had to make a really firm seal with the Pots. Once connected up to the vacuum pump the grip was very good (I flogged them on the Bay 'cos I didn't use them much) Also Waka's vac cleaner may not be sucky enough to pull enough of a vacuum - Rob

 

[SVB]

Don't shop (and normal) vaccum cleaners required flow to keep the motors cool?

Using one for any length of time to run a vac press / clamp may cause overheating problems.

Just a thought.

Regarding holding power, woodturners have the same problem with thin / end-grain / spalted woods so an over spec vac pump with the ability to bleed off some vac to avoid turning 'solid' items inside-out is the only real solution.

I can't picture the exact item, but if you are not totally covering the available 'holding' surface with the workpiece then you need to block up the rest with some thick poly sheet etc to give usable holding oomph!

Best of luck
Simon

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Martin,

I was after that! I didn't see the point of bidding against you so I left it. Glad it's not as useful as I was hoping :wink:

Dave

 

[wizer]

oh, well I'd placed that on my wish list. But even if Martin's negative comments didn't put me off, SVB's have. I have burned out a Henry once through keeping it on for about an hour. So if it's constantly under load then it's sure to blow up.

I'll save my pennies for a proper Festool type system.

 

[mahking51]

Interestingly, where the vacuum attaches to the unit is via a conical 'plug' that has deep grooves all along it so that the vacuum is still pulling air to presumably keep it cool. Or is it some kind of venturi effect?
Will try it on my fairly powerful Aquavac and see if it is any better.
Cheers
Martin

 

[DaveL]

Martin,

I remember Trend demoing these using their own shop vacuum to power them at shows, so it should work with your Aquavac.

 

[John. B]

Tom,
at £826.00 I think you'll have to save a little more than pennies to buy one of these Festool systems.

John. B

 

[wizer]

More than that for the full kit I think John. It's not high on my list tbh. I can think of other toys i'd like first

 

[ivan]

"good" workshop and industrial vacs have "bypass" motors, which have separate fan/ducting for motor cooling, and thus don't overheat when main input is blocked. Some items like the minimach may be supplied with a deliberate built in leak so some air always flows, to protect vacs with non bypass motors.

Typical cleaner vacs can only pull 3 or maybe 4psi (even multistage sprayer vac motors do around 6) so you need quite a few sq inches under vac to get a very firm hold.