Connecting vacuum hose to ATF 55 e

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Oct 31, 2009
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I just bought a slightly use ATF 55 e plunge cut saw.  It has the "Dust Deflector", but there is no way to hook a hose up to the saw.  I went to the Festool site and cannot find a fitting that would allow me to hook a hose up to this saw.  There is no mention of an adapter in the manual, it just says to attach a hose to the saw.  So, what does this look like?

Thanks for helping with this,
Charlie 
 
The 27mm hose stuffs into that rectangular port that the deflector is in.  They used to think the rectangle port held the hose better than round.  Stuff and twist it in there, it'll work just fine.

Chris...
 
Charlie,

Chris has it right, the hose adapter's end is rubber and will squeeze right in there will some effort; the dc port configuration on the ATF configures to the side profile of the saw.

Bob
 
As soon as I shut my computer off I realized that I should have mentioned that I have a Fein vacuum.  I made the assumption that the end on the Festool vac is hard plastic like most others.  Of course it is not like the others!  There must be some kind of an adapter?
 
We have Fein vacuums at the place I work. The hoses don't connect to any festools! I brought my own ct mini in, no problem for me. But just out of curiosity I put the festool hose to the fein and it worked! Maybe you have to get yourself a Festool hose... I'm not aware of any adapters...
 
I read this question here this morning and when I saw the ATF55 this afternoon on a bazar with 2nd hand tools this afternoon I had a good look at it. I doubt there's any adapter that will fit in the square opening, and since there's no way to look up what kind of accessories Festool offered when they still had the ATF55 in production, there's no way to find out if there was an adapter for it. Perhaps Shane Holland can find something through his inside channels.

But the ATF55 I saw this afternoon also had the deflector attached and it does look like you can use it to attach/tape any hose to it you'd like. As far as I can think of, it's either that or get a Festool hose like EcoFurniture suggested.
 
The regular Festool vac hose fits perfectly in my Fein  Vac.

Tom in Central Pennsylvania
 
You can also use the 36mm hose, it fits right over the squarish opening.
 
One of the best and cheapest solutions is to buy the Festool 27mm hose end (487071 @ about $17.00). It won't fit your Fein hose as is but it has three pieces to it. If you remove the hose retaining ring and pull out the interior threaded ring you can then re-insert the retaining ring. You will find that your Fein hose end will now slide into the adapter and fit perfectly. The retaining ring will pop off when a screwdriver tip is pushed into one of the two detent windows that you can see from the ouside. Takes about one minute and looks like it belonged there all along by design.

At this point you cqn adapt your fein to any of the Festool tools for which the 27mm hose is designed.
 
When you stuff the 27 mm hose into the fitting on the ATF 55 (and probably the ATF 75 >>> I'm guessing), be sure the hose sort of clicks into place.  you can feel it.  Be sure it locks in both top and bottom.  If you don't feel it (you won't hear it snap in) snap into locked position, it will slip out of place as you work.  I also find that old hose ends (used and thus softened up a little) seem to be a ot easier to snap into place than new hose ends.  I have several "pig tailed" hoses that I have cut to about 18"s that I can leave monted to the tool I am using and that way I just have to switch the short hoses back and forth to the main suction of the 36mm hose hooked up to my CT 33 or 22.  It is much quicker than trying to reset the hose onto the tool i am using.
Tinker
 
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