I know Festools are considered to be built like tanks...but

I left my CT mini running for 2 hrs on low as an impromptu air scrubber, is that excessive? Or can it take it?...or should I have felt confident to crank it up?

Not scientific but I have used mine  a number of times that I can't count for between 1 - 3 hours sanding at half speed. The way you used it it wouldn't have nearly the load on it as sanding so I don't think it should be a problem.

seth

The vacs are built to be used continuously for hours and hours. The thing you have to worry about is the motor heating up. That's why the motor is protected by a temperature sensor which shuts the vac off when it gets too hot. It shuts the vac off well before there is any damage done.

So you can run the vac as long as you like, and if any damage was about to happen, the vac will tell you all by itself by taking a break to cool down.   

Not the best of all advice to give.  I don't think this is the best of all tools for the job you are trying to do.  For the cost of the vacuum, I'd suggest getting an actual air filter, or build one from the squirrel cage from an old furnace.  Running it might not break it, but it will reduce the life expectancy of the motor.   I have a large DC and the motor comes with direct warring not to run it without the piping installed as you can damage the motor if you run without any resistance.  I would expect that the hose is giving that,. but you are putting load onto a motor and the end product is not very effective.

but that is just my opinion.

That's interesting, didn't really occur to me. I removed my hose thinking the less resistance the better (less noise too!).

I've actually been doing alot of research on air scrubbers for remodeling and it's surprisingly hard to find much info on.
It seems like there are 3 camps:
1) Squirrel cage with furnace filters - dirt cheap
2) Prefab all in ones (essentially a pretty squirrel cage with an upgraded filter)
3) hardcore multi thousand dollar units

I can't find anything between 2 and 3 :/

What do you do, just run with the hose off?  About how effective do you judge that to be?


It would be interesting to get that straight from Festool... safe to do with which models without risking the motor?

The CT's are not intended to be full room air filtration systems and I don't have any information about how effective they might be at such an application. However, there shouldn't be any harm beyond normal wear on the motor when running them for extended periods. They have electronics that will protect from overheating, shutting the unit down if the temperature gets outside of normal operating parameters.

Shane

I think that you would want to have a fairly robust clearing of the air on an indoor construction site, so a Festool DC which is designed for suction  through fine pore filters and hoses more than bulk flow at low pressure differences is probably not the efficient choice for the job.

Steve's example of 2.7 ACH is likely pretty minimal. I'm sure it's much better than nothing in a pinch but recommendations I've seen for a work environment, say like a commercial kitchen or laboratory are in the 10-20 ACH range.

You really think 2.7 total air changes for 1 - bedroom, 1 - living room, 1 - dinning room, 1 - kitchen, 1 bath room, halls and walk in closets for a couple of Vacs minimal?

I didn't know we were talking about the day to day HVAC needs for a commercial kitchen, or professional lab.  I was just thinking that we were talking about using Festools on a job site and keeping the place clean while we work. Just clean, not NASA clean or Sticky fish smell gone clean...

If we are talking about a dust free area for finishing... Heck no the CTs are not the answer.

Greenmonster started this with

"I left my CT mini running for 2 hrs on low as an impromptu air scrubber, is that excessive? Or can it take it?...or should I have felt confident to crank it up?"

That to me says... "impromptu = once in awhile not Cleanroom clean".

But that is just me.

Cheers,
Steve