I have a large Rigid shop vac that is somewhere around 15 years old. It lives outside in the rain, sun, whatever. It’s done many things in its life, but mostly, it is used for composite work. I have left it running with near 0 air flow for weeks on end. Unlike my over priced “dust extractors” (cough vacuums) (Festool Fein) it does not have auxiliary motor cooling. Apparently it should be dead, but alas, it isn’t. Anecdotal, yes. Anyway, I can buy over 8 of them for the cost of one of my Festool vacs. And I can treat it accordingly… I like the latter the most.
When you say you like the latter the most, are you referring to the Festool, Fein, or being able to treat your equipment accordingly?
I like being able to treat my equipment accordingly. I could throw that Rigid shop vac out of the back of my truck into the rocks, I’ll feel fine, and it’ll be fine. I’ve thrown it from boats in anger, frustration, and just because. My Festools on the other hand are made of brittle junk, they are heavy, and there is nothing industrial about them; but they do have bluetooth :). Same goes for all of my Festools. I’ve dropped a number of my circular saws, standard and worm gear, from roofs, ladders, tables - Fine. But I set that Festool track saw down like a piece of ancient papyrus. All tools have their place I guess. Work, Vanity, or the Trash can.
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Haha I suppose it’s similar to why I don’t envy people with brand new trucks - sure they’re nice but they come with a large price tag and then you want to baby them like sports cars.
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I blew out two Craftsman shop vacs - probably because I wasn’t able to keep up with the filter cleaning - this prompted me to go the cyclonic route - and led me to that Dust Cobra (which is overkill just for a CNC, but I’m making use of it for a handful of tools). I think a regular old HEPA vacuum with a Dust Deputy or other cyclonic attachment is really sufficient.
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I like the Onieda stuff and if my DC100 ever quits I will replace it with a cyclonic Onieda probably the Dust Cobra. Fortunately or unfortunately the Jet DC100 is built like a tank.
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JET makes some pretty reliable stuff.
I did until I let the smoke out of it, then I bought a new one(wife was proud of me I believe. I heard a couple of comments about my woodworking abilities). that is where I decided to find a way to hook up my dust collector, much quieter and made to run for extended periods.
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First post, but I’ve been following the board for a while.
For years I had a Ridgid vac mounted inside a cabinet with self-built sound enclosure lined with noise deadening material. I later added a Dust Deputy on top. Noise was quite bearable.
When I got the Shapeoko, I plugged the router into a switch that would turn the vac on whenever it ran. Using the Shapeoko dust attachment, the air was clear and no further sound enclosure was needed.
A while later, the vac died and I replaced it with a Fein in the same cabinet, but after running a long file, it too kicked off. When I opened the sound cabinet, it was really hot inside and fortunately, when the vac cooled, it came back to life, so I realized it was overheating. I then ran it with the sound enclosure door wide open and found it ran cool, but also that the noise level was so much better than the Ridgid, even with the door closed. I’m very happy with it now.
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