Shop Vacuums Northampton MA

Source: TOOLS OF THE TRADE Magazine
Publication date: November 1, 2000

By Joe Youcha

Dust can hurt you, and dust collection now stands alongside safety glasses, hearing protection, and hard hats as standard safety equipment. Recent tool design reflects this awareness. Dust pick-ups are being built into sanders, routers, planers, and saws. As with most safety equipment, the problem with dust collection is that it can be inconvenient and awkward. Festo, Fein, Porter-Cable, and Ridgid have all built portable, tool-activated vacuums that can serve as "local" dust collection systems. The idea works. I know, because I'm finally using these vacuums in my shop.

Features. With all these vacuums, you plug the dust-maker into the dust-collector, pull the tool's trigger, and the vacuum turns on. When you let go of the trigger, the vacuum turns off after it's cleared the hose of any remaining dust. I've had a shop vacuum for years. I hated using it for dust collection because it was very loud and ran all the time. The "remote" tool-activated feature fixes that problem, yet these tool vacs also let you disable the remote feature.

Performance. The Ridgid is a "carry away" model. The Fein is the size of a medium waste paper basket. The Porter-Cable and Festo vacuums are roughly the size of two small file drawers. The Fein, Festo, and Porter-Cable models work with a wide variety of tools. Festo's auxiliary outlets are rated for tools up to 12 amps. The Ridgid vac is rated and designed for light sanders. I tested each tool with a sander and with a power planer. All the tools did fine with the sander, but the Porter-Cable and Ridgid models choked on planer shavings because their hose-to-body connections are too restricted. The Fein and Festo vacs ate everything up.

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