Sub £30 wet/dry vacuum cleaners

[Trainee neophyte]

I don't get out much, so I have only just discovered that Amazon sell ludicrously cheap vacuum cleaners, such as this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/AUTLEAD-3-fuct ... 260&sr=8-5

There seem to be a number of them, all around 1,000 watts, and all with both great and appalling reviews - the great reviews seem to have been parsed through Google translate, as per usual. My thinking is that for £30, why not get one for each dust producing machine, including sanders, drills, and possibly every chisel!

Has anyone done anything similar? Obviously these things will be the worst plastic rubbish, but just to get the motor and blower for £30 seems a pretty good deal. Or does it? It's not as if I will be cleaning rugs with it, so all the pipes and attachments are irrelevant.

I know you get what you pay for, but are 4 pants vacuum cleaners better than one goodish one?

 

[Selwyn]

Wickes £35 plus 10% trade card

 

[nev]

Why do you assume that the motors will be any better built than the rest of the unit?
I'd rather not have 4 electrical fire hazards built to the lowest cost possible with the cheapest components and thinnest wires by a company that has no cares about electrical safety or loss of reputation, placed strategically around the workshop with a ready supply of fuel.

 

[fezman]

I used to use a karcher wd2 which i picked up from their outlet store for £20 - yes just £20 about 5 years ago (https://www.karcheroutlet.co.uk/product ... sp?id=5189) they are £35 now. It served me well until i broke it (my fault).

I then got the cheapest Titan from screwfix. It was louder and had too little capacity. it's in a shed somewhere

A few months ago I got the Bosch GAS 35L - it's great , but there is no way it is worth the money. Power take off is nice though.

When it dies i think I will go back to the karcher, but add one of these https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cen-Tec-System ... B07NZ5N75S . Gets around all the minute changes in diameter for the hose ports on my smaller power tools.

 

[Lons]

Apart from my dust collectors I have an Aldi vac I bought years ago which gets moves around and used constantly without issues, can't remember capacity but a lot more than those piddling 10l tanks.

Nev is spot on with his comment regarding safety and we all know that many of the Amazon and Ebay sellers are peddling fakes. There are several sellers listing fake vernier gauges as Mitutoyo on Ebay, I've reported one seller several times and despite Ebay saying they will take action they have not!

I've just seen this on another forum and whilst I was aware it just reminded me how devious some of these chiwanese companies are. https://www.ybw.com/vhf-marine-radio-gu ... -mark-4607

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Apart from my dust collectors I have an Aldi vac I bought years ago which gets moves around and used constantly without issues, can't remember capacity but a lot more than those piddling 10l tanks.

Nev is spot on with his comment regarding safety and we all know that many of the Amazon and Ebay sellers are peddling fakes. There are several sellers listing fake vernier gauges as Mitutoyo on Ebay, I've reported one seller several times and despite Ebay saying they will take action they have not!

I've just seen this on another forum and whilst I was aware it just reminded me how devious some of these chiwanese companies are. https://www.ybw.com/vhf-marine-radio-gu ... -mark-4607

Wow! I bet all those cheap vacuum cleans have a "CE" mark!

Isn't globalisation marvelous.

 

[Trevanion]

There are several sellers listing fake vernier gauges as Mitutoyo on Ebay, I've reported one seller several times and despite Ebay saying they will take action they have not!

They're giving eBay their 10% sales tax so why would they bother doing anything about someone who's actively making them money? If they sorted out all the fake junk and general rubbish sellers there'd be no one left on eBay! It's the same reason they don't sort out sellers that "bid up" items, in the end, it makes them more money on their 10% tax.

 

[Sideways]

Do a little research.
A whole bunch of the premium dust extractors all use one version or another of the same basic vacuum unit (all in one motor plus turbine) made by Domel in Slovenia.
Those things are good. They will run 8 hours a day and are designed to last for a few thousand hours.
Apart from a change of brushes (watch the video where Peter Millard does that himself), they're not meant to be repaired and a new unit costs around £60-70 street price.
Now ask yourself what quality are you getting when buy a whole vac for just half the price of the other guy's motor ?

 

[sunnybob]

Working through some assumptions... 4 x 30 quid cheapos is 120 quid spent.
Assuming the normal rules apply of the more you pay the (slightly) better it is, why not buy 2 x 60 quids?

Or, 1 x 120 quid? Which logic dictates will be 4 times better than a single 30 quid one.
I had a sip 100 quid canister dust extractor and that was amazing at its job. It did fail after 4 years of hard work, but how many times are you going to replace the 30 quid ones in 4 years?
I've never heard of "its too cheap so I will buy lots of them" before. (hammer)

 

[transatlantic]

I think vacuum cleaners only work well with hand held power tools (sanders, tracksaws, routers etc), and as those are already 'portable', you only need one vac for them all. I don't see the benefit in having multiple vacs for these tools when they're so easy to switch between.

For any other larger stationary tools (mitresaw, tablesaw, bandsaw, planer etc) a vacuum won't cut it, and is not worth bothering with as you will still have to spend the same amount of time cleaning up afterwards.

With the larger tools, I think there is the argument for several of these type of extractors, vs one large one and loads of ducting. More so for the hobbyiest. If you're trade running all day, then they would need emptying too often.

 

[John Brown]

No branch of logic I'm familiar with...
Although maybe some backwater of inductive logic.
What about the law of diminishing returns?

 

[Inspector]

With the larger tools, I think there is the argument for several of these type of extractors, vs one large one and loads of ducting. More so for the hobbyiest. If you're trade running all day, then they would need emptying too often.

I would disagree. With the stated 30 micron bag you are going to have a lot of dust blow through. If you don't wear a good mask too you'll be doing harm to yourself. You are free to do as you like but telling someone that doesn't have a good knowledge of what is needed and safe isn't going to help them better their situation.

Pete

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Thank you gentlemen (and ladies, obviously, and anyone who choses to be either, neither or both). I was probably a little tongue in cheek with it, but just wondered if anyone had gone the route of quantity over quality. I really don't know if 4 cheap machines will all die before one that is 4 times as expensive, especially if it is something like Hoover, which has to cover it's advertising budget along with everything else. However, 4 times the fire risk from dodgy Chinese kit, with extra Corona virus sprinkled on top makes you think twice, does it not?

Given that I don't need to collect my dust (I can just throw it outside directly on to the compost heap), one of the Axminster jobs might be the way forward, but probably not one with an Axminster label. Throwing all the warm air out of my tool shed is actually a good thing for 10 months of the year, and for the other two I can wear a jumper. Investigations continue...

 

[Inspector]

I'll toss in something for you to consider. Get a central vacuum and put a cyclone in front to get most of the bigger debris. You can easily vent it outside and if the neighbours bedroom window is on the other side of the fence, add a muffle/silencer to the exhaust.

Pete

 

[sunnybob]

I have the axminster craft one linked to. Its a poor substitute for my sip on a like for like test. The sip would pull a wallpaper stripper off the bench, the axminster struggles with anything that isnt dust.
The sip was stupid loud, but an enclosure bought the decibels down to below the axminster noise levels.
I regret trading the SIP. As and when this axminster dies I will go back.
Although to be fair, build quality of the axminster is streets ahead of the sip and I expect it to last me a long time.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

I'll toss in something for you to consider. Get a central vacuum and put a cyclone in front to get most of the bigger debris. You can easily vent it outside and if the neighbours bedroom window is on the other side of the fence, add a muffle/silencer to the exhaust.

Pete

I don't have neighbours - only the wife to annoy. (Obviously, I do have neighbours eventually, but you have to walk quite a long way.) SunnyBob has shown me his extractor before :wink: and it looks the part - I could build a separate soundproof bunker for it - might help keep it cool, too.

 

[sunnybob]

point of order captain mainwearing..... :shock:

What keeps the smaller vacuum cleaner motors cool is the air they suck in through the filter which is diverted across the motor, not the surroundings they are in. So as long as your box has enough air escape passages, the thing will never overheat because it is always pulling air in from the end of the hose. Of course, if that air is 45c to start with..... :roll: you might want to think about an intercooler =D> =D> =D>
This might have been a contributing factor in the death of the motor on the SIP, but it was a cheap motor, and it did last almost 4 years of quite heavy running hours.

The bigger extractors, using large separate impellers (and that includes the axminster craft I now have), have much larger stand alone motors that have their own cooling fans on the end of the shaft. this is much quieter and does not need to be boxed in.

Note that in my particular case, although both of them had 100 mm pipe connections, my system is entirely in 62 mm tubing, due to lack of space. I suspect 100 mm throughout will make everything last longer.

 

[transatlantic]

With the larger tools, I think there is the argument for several of these type of extractors, vs one large one and loads of ducting. More so for the hobbyiest. If you're trade running all day, then they would need emptying too often.

I would disagree. With the stated 30 micron bag you are going to have a lot of dust blow through. If you don't wear a good mask too you'll be doing harm to yourself. You are free to do as you like but telling someone that doesn't have a good knowledge of what is needed and safe isn't going to help them better their situation.

Pete

Fair enough, I hadn't noticed the micron rating. The point was, having local chip extractors (as opposed to vacs), rather than one large extractor and lots of pipework. Doesn't need to specifically be the one I linked to, others exist, such as this