240 volt dust extractor with a 110volt port - does it exist

[kitfit1]

I’m US based and have quite a tool collection, but I’m moving to the UK. Is there a 240bolt dust extractor that could run my 110volt tools?

I was thinking it would be amazing to not have to sell off my tools just to rebuy them in the UK and less hassle than running a separate 110volt workshop in the UK.

I can do without the whole ‘sell your tools’ replies, just asking if there is an option for this circumstance.

All domestic mains outlets in the UK are 230v to allow the use of 220v appliances.
The ONLY way you can re-use your 110v tools in the UK is purchase a site transformer:

Along with these 110v plugs and fit a plug to each of your 110v tools. You will need to sell your 110v vac though and buy a 110v Vac in the UK, UK 110v Vacs use 110v plugs and sockets:

You might also need one of these:

All the above are in standard use all over the UK on construction sites, that's the law,
What could be problematic is any 110v battery chargers you have, it might be a good idea to sell them in the USA and buy 230v chargers when you get to the UK.

 

[mino]

As per bove.

Sell all the "big" tools and get 230V versions of them once in UK. Ideal moment for an upgrade as well. UK building "site" tools are 110V but I presume you are not a building site "animal" ..

Keep the "small/loved/etc." tools and get a site transformer to run them. Still a good idea to replace the plugs with UK ones. Any electrician can do that for you.

Once you are in the UK with the US 110V tools in your baggage, it would be much harder to offload them.

 

[Coen]

[...] replace the plugs with UK ones. Any electrician can do that for you.
[...]

Why pay someone else to do something that basic?

 

[kitfit1]

As per bove.

Sell all the "big" tools and get 230V versions of them once in UK. Ideal moment for an upgrade as well. UK building "site" tools are 110V but I presume you are not a building site "animal" ..

Keep the "small/loved/etc." tools and get a site transformer to run them. Still a good idea to replace the plugs with UK ones. Any electrician can do that for you.

Once you are in the UK with the US 110V tools in your baggage, it would be much harder to offload them.

If the OP is emigrating from the USA to the UK, the chances are all his belongings (including power tools) will be coming over in a container, so no need to get rid of any big tools (only the Vac and battery chargers). As the power tools are 110v, they will be no more difficult to sell in the UK than any other 110v power tool. It's not as if there isn't a huge market for them in the UK, there are hundreds of thousands of construction workers in the UK all using 110v power tools. The second hand market is massive, just look on Ebay.

 

[mino]

[...] replace the plugs with UK ones. Any electrician can do that for you.
[...]

Why pay someone else to do something that basic?

Because giving an advice to an illegal activity is ... not the best aproach. AFAIK it is illegal in the UK to "mess" with above-safe voltage wiring. Unless one is a qualified electrician. This is the same here in CZ, not sure about NL though.

That many do so is for another discussion ...

One can always flaunt the law-mandated safety. But should always be on one's own volition.
Advising such to someone whose skills one has no knowledge of is not "helping" on my side of the roundtable of morality. *)

*) Just yesterday I was at friend's cottage which had "new wiring done" by "local exlectrician. Guess what. That "local electrician" who is no electircian to begin told the friend he: "Required "no (separate) grounding of the property if GFCI device is employed (and the property is connected to the grid as that will provide the grounding suffient for a GFCI to work reliably)".

Where is the problem - besides that advise breaching all kinds of building codes here? Well, the grey text was not spoken but implied in the "electrician's" statement. Guess what? Friends place is not grid-connected, never was, but had no grounding done BASED ON THAT ADVISE. So he had a buncha of GFCI devices, worth $5k easily in total that only created a false pretense of safety ...

That the same "electrician" also setup an extension cord for the same friend which has 3-pole plug and socket for concrete mixer BUT he use a 2-wire cable, leaving the cable "appear" grounded while it was not ...

And no, I am not a pro, so not "money in the game".
But just came from a yesterday visit the friend where the whole story started with him proudly stating how he "saved" on the grounding works by not listening to the "overly protective" qualified electricians I asked him to borrow me a meter and went around his house checking stuff. Needless to say the only reason no one got killed is the wiring was new-enough to not develop any primary faults. The friend did then mention he got a couple "shocks" but that "it was normal" as he was told ...

Long story short, he saved $5k to now need to spend $10k for rewigin half the stuff he just lately put into the walls ... and making brand-new retrofitted grounding install which will set him another $10k instead of the $1k it would have cost when he had earth moving equipment around ..

Sorry for some OT, but possibly above story may bring some humility also to the OP.
In my view, and a strong one at that, if someone (needs to) ask if plugging a 110V device into 230V sockets is "OK" then such a person has no qualifications to rewire things. Not without supervision of a qualified person. Take that as you might.

 

[mino]

If the OP is emigrating from the USA to the UK, the chances are all his belongings (including power tools) will be coming over in a container, so no need to get rid of any big tools (only the Vac and battery chargers). As the power tools are 110v, they will be no more difficult to sell in the UK than any other 110v power tool. It's not as if there isn't a huge market for them in the UK, there are hundreds of thousands of construction workers in the UK all using 110v power tools. The second hand market is massive, just look on Ebay.

Big tools as in a planer, vac, table saw, etc.

A US-certified tool will, generally, not be contractor-usable in the UK for insurance reasons. Even if it will technically work after a plug change. That puts the price these can sell below what a "UK-native" tool will fetch. So selling in the US, where one has all the contacts, should give a better price/value ratio. IMO. I see this more from a practicality perspective as do not own stakes in Maersk ...

The US "big" tools tend to be current-hamstrung while at 230V they are not so get a bit of "wings" for free. Importing big/high-current 110V devices into the UK makes little sense to me. Unless these are "emotional relationship" tools, that is.

 

[kitfit1]

A US-certified tool will, generally, not be contractor-usable in the UK for insurance reasons. Even if it will technically work after a plug change. That puts the price these can sell below what a "UK-native" tool will fetch.

One in the UK, plug changed for a UK 110v plug, PAT tested and certified they will be worth the same as any "UK-native tool" With a PAT test and a Cert they can be used on any UK construction site.

 

[Coen]

Festool prices in the USA are often on a higher level than Festool prices in Europe, so selling in the USA and re-buying in the UK might not even that expensive to begin with.

[...] replace the plugs with UK ones. Any electrician can do that for you.
[...]

Why pay someone else to do something that basic?

Because giving an advice to an illegal activity is ... not the best aproach. AFAIK it is illegal in the UK to "mess" with above-safe voltage wiring. Unless one is a qualified electrician. This is the same here in CZ, not sure about NL though.
[...]

No such rules in NL. In the UK they used to learn in school how to wire plugs, since many appliances were sold without plugs. No idea if they changed since, but seeing that the UK arrests ten times as many people for 'wrong speech' on social media as Russia, they might very well have more stupid rules I don't know about.

Their 230V plugs contain a fuse too.

As for your grounding story; GFCI's work regardless if there is grounding. They work by measuring the difference in current leaving and current returning. If any (above a certain threshold) leaks to ground, be it a grounded chassis or a human touching a live wire, it switches off. The first generation worked by measuring current in the ground wire; that one obviously doesn't work without grounding, but also doesn't switch off if the fault is through a human.

Adding an earth rod is also not $10k. The last one I put in was like $150. Wrong wiring in the wall; well, dumb building standards... expensive fixes, same as UK. Put conduit in the wall instead of cable and you can re-wire everything for next to nothing in time and material.

As for the sh*tty electrician. Well, that's the big problem, isn't it... If you don't know what to do... you can't check their work. If you know what to do... might just as well do it yourself. Except for things that you just can't, but know what it should result in. Like soldering electronics for me... I suck at it because I regularly have a little shaky hands.

I have a property that I rent... whenever the go0ns hired by the landlord do anything, it turns to sh*t. They added a mains-fed smoke alarm and when doing so they messed up the neutral connection in the junction box for an outlet. Their typical response is; "We will stop by between 0900 and 1600 to fix it." Yeah.... don't bother... the problem *cough* fixed itself *cough*.

 

[mino]

A US-certified tool will, generally, not be contractor-usable in the UK for insurance reasons. Even if it will technically work after a plug change. That puts the price these can sell below what a "UK-native" tool will fetch.

One in the UK, plug changed for a UK 110v plug, PAT tested and certified they will be worth the same as any "UK-native tool" With a PAT test and a Cert they can be used on any UK construction site.

A "plug change" which can be done (technically) at home for 5 pounds/plug is certainly not PAT tested nor certified. Hence anyone buying it for contract work would need to get a certitied person/company do that .. which means you cannot sell it for same as a "certified" tool normally on the market.

That said, I am not sure you can even fast-certify a tool which was never declared as complying with the EU/UK regulations to begin aka has no CE (or equivalent) mark. One can still do it, but at that point becomes "manufacturer" as per EC/UK norms and thus has to provide a declaration of conformity etc. etc. becoming legally liable if it causes an accident etc. Sure, it is possible. But gets Not worth it.TM very fast. If a tool already has a CE mark (some do), then it can be as "simple" as you describe.

A non-certiied tool can still be very much practical for a hobby user. So it would still sell. But it would be reflected in its price on the market. Excepting any specialist tools which are not available in the UK normally. A friend got a TS 55 R 110V that way for €150 from a contractor moving out from UK post Brexit. That same saw would have fetched € 300+ if 230V. And that was still with CE marks ...

IMO the shipping + re-doing + having to use a transformer (or sell for less) are, IMO, just not worth it. Unless there is some emotional/personal attachment that cannot be simply translated to money.

 

[woodbutcherbower]

If I were the OP, I'd already have lost the will to live.

[attachimg=1]

Answer = No. It doesn't. That's all the poor guy wanted to know.

 

[timwors]

Quite.

It’s all got way too complicated. I would buy one of these and be done with it - no plug re wiring to do, or PAT testing, etc etc

Transformers

 

[Jacks Moonshiner]

If I were the OP, I'd already have lost the will to live.

totally…I’ve lost the will to live just from trying to wade through all the information in this thread
[attachimg=1]

Answer = No. It doesn't. That's all the poor guy wanted to know.

Or does it?….

 

[Jacks Moonshiner]

[Oh good it went through! Finally
Been trying to post this for a week now but couldn’t get the darn pictures through… I think they were too big so trying now again with smaller JPEGs ….]

When I just started out a few years back , I got my first Festool on eBay , it was a used 110v US RO150, and the moment I realised it needs dust extraction so it can actually do what it was made to do, I purchased a 240v UK MIDI-I ,also on eBay. I wrote about this here on this good forum, and the good folk here helped me out on how to handle the situation. Later on also got an ETS-EC 150, also 110v from the US.

After a while I fabricated this contraption: The Sys Transform. It’s just a step up/down transformer bolted to an aluminium chassis , tucked in a Sys T-Loc II . A few cuts with the Dremel made some holes in the Systainer for the cables goin in n out,similar to the Sys Power Hub . Got some accessories on Amazon , the socket housing with protector, and two industrial grade adaptors for UK n EU sockets.

I don’t use it so much anymore cause since then I got both those machines in 230v , but it’s served me well for the time I needed it. No issues except the occasional circuit trip upon turning on the transformer ,in which case I would just leave the transformer on ,go flip the circuit breaker back on, and I was good to go. I’m no electrician, but I’m guessing if my place had a larger voltage capacity that would not even happen( dunno the proper terminology).Used it for extended periods of time too, and the transformer would never heat up or anything.

It was pretty heavy to lug around, but when I used it, like you see in the pics, it was mostly sittin snug on the MIDI .

A big bonus ,that I only figured out later on, when I mustered the gusto to try it, was that the MIDI’s auto-on function worked flawlessly when I connected the Sys XForm directly to it( used it with a Bluetooth Remote up till then) . So that was cool.

Hope this helps any.

 

[Frank-Jan]

Beautiful solution, love the custom decal.

 

[Jacks Moonshiner]

Thank you Frank-Jan!

I made quite a few of those decals using Photoshop… that too was a year or two ago.
I’m still with the intention of getting back to that for the rest of my lil Festool Family…

Meantime I’ll be glad to share what I have thus far.
I’m just not very tech-savvy regarding the internet and apps n all that, so I wouldn’t know the most effective method of posting these…

 

[Frank-Jan]

I don't know much about photo-editing and stuff, (my sister does need it for her clothing webshop, she has a professional camera, and uses photoshop and lightroom etc.)

I just take a pic with my phone, and resize it with irfanview, then I insert it as a clickable thumbnail.

 

[sancho57]

when I moved to the UK for 4 years I took my Festool 110v tools with me. I did exacly whet kitfit suggested, buy a tranny, make sure its a good one that has the capacity to power your 110v tools and they all run off your CT