1400 Dust Collection

[Brighton]

Hello everyone,

Been lurking around every now and then but decided to join and try to get more involved so I can make better use of the tools I owe and the ones I'll buy in the future. I own quite a bit of festool stuff and it seems like I add a new tool or accessory every week. I recently took the plung (no pun intended) into the Festool router world. The 1400 router is an amazing tool but I'm having some trouble with the dust collection. I am doing some dados with the router hooked up to a CT Midi. It seems like I'm not getting any (or very little) dust/chips collected. Do I need to be using my CT 36 with the larger hose? Or is there something else that I may be doing wrong?

Thanks in advance for the help...this is a great site!!!

 

[semenza]

Hi,

  Welcome to the forum!  [smile]

      The vacs all have the same amount of suction. Unless your Midi is several years old. The motor was upgraded to have the same power as the larger ones.  However the D36 hose definitely makes a difference for the 1400 router. But I can tell you that the Midi will fill really fast when routing dados.

    Dados are a bit hard to collect from to begin with. The dust tends to stick in the dado or shoot out the end because it is being flung along the dado channel. I usually end up just making a second pass or a back track pass through the cut dado to get the dust sucked out.

Seth

 

[ear3]

Welcome.  Assuming everything else is copacetic (CT bag not full, plastic dust shield inserted in router, etc.), it could be a function of the bit and/or feed rate -- I assume what is happening is that there is a lot of sawdust left in the channel?  I sometimes get that when I use some of my lower quality straight bits, as opposed to a spiral upcut bit.  I would only be worried if we're talking about ambient dust spewing out in the air.

Otherwise, my experience of the 1400 has been that it has amazing dust collection.  I noticed a slight improvement when using the 36mm hose, but even with the 27mm hose the collection is great.  Since Midi and CT36 have same motor, it shouldn't matter which is hooked up to the router.  Only time when dust collection rate drops for me is when routing edges, but that's true on all routers.

 

[drross]

I have had good dust collection by starting the dado about a 1/4" inboard of the edge with a plunge cut. Complete the dado then come back and finish the dado through the starting edge. This way there is no channel for the dust to shoot out and it gets drawn up by the vaccum quite well. Not my idea. I read it somewhere else.

 

[peter halle]

Welcome to the FOG!.  Interesting way to handle this.  I will try it out.

Peter

 

[sroxberg]

I have had good dust collection by starting the dado about a 1/4" inboard of the edge with a plunge cut. Complete the dado then come back and finish the dado through the starting edge. This way there is no channel for the dust to shoot out and it gets drawn up by the vaccum quite well. Not my idea. I read it somewhere else.

I read this before as well and it works well for me.

 

[Birdhunter]

Dados and brooms seem to go together.