Thread: mobile dust extraction for drop saw & other tools

Fein, which is now owned by Festool, make dustys with similar specs and options. More often than not at a better price. I have a CT33 and a small Fein unit. The Fein unit I use mostly on site.

Cheers

The Festool CT26 in Australia comes with a HEPA rating so it doesn't need to be upgraded, it comes with a 27 mm anti-static hose but you get better extraction with a short 50 mm hose and you will need get whatever connector your saw requires.

Connecting to the saw dust port is one thing, but catching the dust that doesn't get taken out via the dust port is another. I have a 2000w wet/dry with 50mm hose connected to my Makita scms. I would conservatively say more dust gets expelled into the air behind the saw than gets captured via the dust port. You will need some type of hood behind the saw, coming up the sides and over the top to capture the dust. Do a search for an excellent post by Chris Parks but his set-up is not really portable.

There have been various attempts to place tent like shrouds around the back of mitre saw to reduce the escape of dust but if the suck on the shroud is undertaken with with a vacuum cleaner all the shrouds do is reduce the chip scatter. A vacuum cleaner simply cannot provide the air flow needed to capture fine dust over the volumes and distances involved. The only way this will work is with high volume dust extraction which puts it out of the mobile range. In fact you need either a honking great DC, or a large DC and a VC.

This also makes a class M vac a bit pointless since most (far in excess of 50%) of the fine dust is going to escape from the saw anyway.

I'm not sure where you are working but an alternative to a HEPA is a BIG shop vac that sucks and blows. Put a 50 mm hose on the outlet and hang that out a window. It's still far from ideal but this avoids having to ever clean/replace a HEPA.