Thread: Fein 1350w vs Metabo 1400w vacuum cleaners

If you are only using the saw in the garage and not taking it to other worksites consider a central/built in vacuum. They are less money and you can exhaust them outside.

I'd post a link, but the following is a cut and paste from Festool's page on dust

In summary
type L = low risk dust
type M = Medium Risk dust
type H = High risk dust

Dust Types

L Class (Low Risk) Dust

L Class (low risk) dust includes simple house dust and materials such as soil. The occupational exposure limit for L Class dust is >1 mg/m3, which means you need a dust extractor that catches 99% of the dust.
The CTL 26 and CTL 36 come with HEPA filters as standard, which goes above what's required for an L Class classification but makes them even more safe.
For dust generated by working with plaster, the CTL 36 AC PLANEX is recommended with a high performance filter.


M Class (Medium Risk) Dust

M Class (medium risk) dust includes wood dust, dust from repair compound, filler and clear coats, dust from cement, concrete and tile cement, quartziferous materials such as sand and pebbles, and even paints such as latex and oil paints. The occupational exposure limit for M Class dust is >0.1 mg/m3, which means you need a dust extractor that catches 99.9% of the dust.
For dust generated by working with concrete or materials containing Crystalline Silica, the CTM 36 HD AC is recommended with a High Performance filter.
Read more about M Class dust here.


H Class (High Risk) Dust

H Class (high risk) dust includes dust containing carcinogenic or pathogenic particles as well as mould spores, asbestos, mineral fibres, bitumen and artificial mineral fibres such as glass wool. The occupational exposure limit for H Class dust is >0.1 mg/m3, which means you need a dust extractor that catches 99.995% of the dust.
Festool H Class Dust Extraction range includes:

Respirable Crystalline Silica Dust

What is Respirable Crystalline Silica dust? It's a natural mineral found in construction materials such as concrete, bricks, tiles, mortar and engineered stone.
The amount of crystalline silica in products can vary. Examples include:

• Brick 5-15%
  
• Concrete <30%
  
• Ceramic tiles 5-45%
  
• Reconstituted stone 80%

Silica dust is harmful when inhaled into your lungs. It is 100 times smaller than a grain of sand, so you can be breathing it in without knowing. If you’re not sure if a product contains crystalline silica, check the safety data sheet (SDS).
Exposure to silica dust can lead to the development of lung cancer, silicosis (an irreversible scarring and stiffening of the lungs), kidney disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. It is estimated that 230 people develop lung cancer each year as a result of past exposure to silica dust at work. Not all exposed workers will develop cancer; cancer risk increases with long term or repeated high level exposure.

Today, all States and Territories in Australia have work health and safety laws that explain duty of care for employers and workers’ responsibilities:

• Construction dust: respirable crystalline silica - worksafe.qld.gov.au
  
• https://www.safework.sa.gov.au/healt...lica-exposures
  
• https://www.worksafe.vic.gov.au/dust...struction-work

The Australian exposure standard for airborne crystalline silica is 0.1mg/m3 over an 8-hour day. This limit is based on preventing silicosis and lung cancer.

see my post above re what the different dust classes mean.

what follows are some general comments on the situation you have described.

Originally Posted by Caligula

I use Metabo jobsite tablesaw in my garage with Fein dust extractor. I mainly cut MDF and laminated chipboard.

Fein probably sucks 60% of all dust and the rest of it falls down on the floor and covers all other equipment around. I can't afford a powerful dust system as I absolutely do not have any space for it. The portable dust extractor is the only one solution.

At the risk of having BobL either bite my head off or jump down my throat ...

The one best upgrade you can do is vent the extractor's exhaust to outside the garage in the direction that the prevailing wind will not bring the dust back inside.

I own a Rigid wet/dry vac and this is what I do when I can -- connect the 2 m hose to the vac's exhaust and poke the hose outside the garage door.
So my first recommendation is to exhaust the vac to outside the garage.


The next best upgrade is to try and collect more of the raw dust at it's source -- MDF and laminated chipboard would, at a minimum, generate lots of M class dust.
So try as much as you can to increase the amount of dust you collect at source -- or failing that do ALL your cutting outside.
Can you build an enclosure for the saw that allows you to collect more of the dust at source? Don't forget to enclose the bottom of the saw.
Can you add a zero clearance saw blade insert to the saw?

Originally Posted by ian

So my first recommendation is to exhaust the vac to outside the garage.

The next best upgrade is to try and collect more of the raw dust at it's source

That's a big problem with vacs in general, they simply don't collect enough air to collect enough of the fine dust.
Any DC (especially a vac) collecting 90% of the visible dust may still only be collecting 10% of the invisible dust
Vacs typically collect about 100 CFM, most DIY level DCs using a 100 mm ducting/flex collect < 400 CFM, to collect more than this rehires 150mm ducting and a larger DC.

The other thing to consider helping deal with invisible dust in smaller DIY shed situations is forced ventilation, a couple of bathroom fans set in walls opposite the major opening to the shed is better than nothing.

Originally Posted by Caligula

Now they discontinued Fein and I can't find the spare bags.

Hi Anatoly,
Have you considered fitting a cyclone to your Fein? I fitted one to my Festool vac and now I hardly ever need to replace the dust bag. I have the Oneida Dust Deputy, but there are now cheap knock-offs on eBay that I'm sure would be just as good. Here's an example:

High Efficiency Cyclone Powder Dust Collector Filter Top Quality For Vacuums AU | eBay

Originally Posted by Caligula

Hi,
I use Metabo jobsite tablesaw in my garage with Fein dust extractor. I mainly cut MDF and laminated chipboard. They recommended me this vacuum cleaner at Total Tools a year ago. Now they discontinued Fein and I can't find the spare bags. By the way they were quite small and expensive.

Hi Anatoly

Fein also make a permanent filter so you do not have to keep buying expensive replacement bags.
fein.com/en_us/surface-finishing/vacuums-dust-extractors/turbo-i-0313218/
You may need to go to a German or british website to get this.

..........
I made a research and tried to compare the performances of that Metabo and Fein. I found that Fein is L class cleaner and Metabo is M class. I am not sure if it is so important for my conditions.

.......

I very much doubt that the Metabo will perform $1,000 better than the Fein. Usually, Fein products are a little better made than Metabo, but there is some overlap.


Seasons Greeting

Graeme

Originally Posted by ian

.....
The one best upgrade you can do is vent the extractor's exhaust to outside the garage in the direction that the prevailing wind will not bring the dust back inside.
.....

Cannot disagree with your suggestion, Ian, but there does not seem to be any easy way of attaching an exhaust extension to the Fein vacuum. I have only seen pictures of the Fein so I may be wrong.


Seasons Greetings

Graeme

Thanks everyone for answering my questions.
I read very carefully all proposals and made a decision.

I use my table saw just on Saturday for no more than 4 or 5 times X 15 or 20 minutes with short breaks. Or just an hour a week in total. As I mentioned in my other post I have to use Fein in the garage as I simply do not have any reasonable spare outside for any other dusting sistem. Plus I do not want to disturb my neighbours with any other noise. That's why I had to buy that Fein and it served me for a year and there wasn't any complain from the neighbors as well. I have some other machines in the garbage such as a bandsaw but it is connected to another dust extractor. So I need something just for the tablesaw as it brinks more sawdust as no other machine.

But now I decided to use Fein as a garage floor vacuum and buy a bit more powerful vacuum dust extractor. Following the advice from this thread I bought a permanent filter for Fein.
Then I investigated the market and watched tons of Youtube videos. I decided to buy Metabo 50 litre vacuum extractor as I found it was for most practical solution for my situation.

I bought it from Sydney Tools as they gave me the most professions advice and demonstrated everything. The price at Total Tools was around $980 but Sydney gave me just $920.
I installed the new vacuum very quickly as all adaptors were compatible with the table saw. After that I made my first cut with the new dust extractor. I notice a huge difference without any exaggeration. The suction was much stronger than with Fein. I mainly cut laminated chipboard but much less dust felt down on the floor. Some small white particles still came out from under the blade but in much less quantity then before.
But what I found that probably every 10 minutes I had the red light on the panel. It requires me to clean the filters by pressing the button. It lasted for about 10 seconds and than I could cut again. It is M class vacuum so probably it has a program to clean the filters much often.

Today I will travel to CarbaTec as I definitely want to buy and install Oneida Dust Deputy. I just want to bring the Metabo hose with me to make sure it is compatible with all ports and I wouldn't need any adaptors.

Just another question to the experts. If I install Oneida Dust Deputy between the tablesaw and the dust extractor, will be any loss in suction ? I plan to use Metabo extractor only with the table saw, so it will be permanently installed in one place. It comes with 4 m hose. I definitely do not need so long hose as it requires extra space around that area. But that hose comes with the unique adapter which is perfectly compatible with the Metabo table saw. So before cutting that original hose I need to think 10 times.
Is the length of the hose affects the suction as well ?
I mean a vacuum with, e.g. 2m hose sucks stronger than a vacuum with 4m hose ?

You also recommended to made zero tolerance insert for the blade. I completely forgot about that idea. If i use it instead of the original one will that insert decrease to quantity of the laminated particles which fly from under the blade as the gap would be much smaller ?

Unfortunately I still do not know how to inclose the space under the saw as it stays on the trapezoidal legs and doesn't have any solid metal frame to attach anything reasonable to catch the falling dust. I just place a big plastic box underneath and some of the dust falls inside it.

Thanks everyone and a Merry Christmas !!!

Best wishes, Anatoli

I have bought and installed Oneida Dust Deputy. The hose which came with the kit was a bit wider than the dust port of my Metabo dust extractor. So I used the original Metabo hose and cut it on two parts of 1.2 and 2.8m.

After that I cut a few sheets of MDF and laminated chipboard. I can't understand how I could live without that accessory. It is my best investment in my business for many years. After cutting just 3 sheets of approximately 1 x 1 m, the level of sawdust in the bucket was three fingers height.
Now I need to make zero tolerance insert for the blade. I hope it will reduce the flood of those laminated particles which came out from the saw blade.
Thanks again to everyone who share their experience with me .