A while back, Per started a discussion about maintenance, or lack therof. He showed us pics of what happens when one does not take time to clean those fancy filters inside of the CT33 and/or CT 22.
Sometime before his posts, I had hooked up my CT 33 to a cyclone top mounted on top of a 5gal bucket. I had, at the same time, put a new filter bag into the machine. Of course, it is very easy with the CT's to just raise the back/top and remove the full filter bag, and when in a hurry, don't bother to check those fancy rectangular and pleated little numbers in the very top. I just pulled out the bag and inserted new bag and back to the more important (??? ???) tasks at hand.
As time progressed, i began to notice that the CT just did not seem to have its usual oomph while hooked up to that cyclone. I just chalked it up to the fact there was an extra implement the air had to suck thru on its way to the CT and did check the buckeet every now and again. I was emptying each time as it got to be 1/2 to 3/4 full. Still not much vacuum seemed to be happening.
Today, I found time to go down to the shop to do something. You knoowww, anything to avoid getting into the Honey-Do-list that I was being reminded of everytime i came in sight of my Dearly Beloved.
Well, I have no projects started right now and nothing along WW'ing I had planned on startingg right away. Soooo, i got to thnking about Per's exciting :
project of late with his CT. It just might be possible there could be some dust caught in those HEPA filters. Well, I opened 'er up and discovered the bag inside had evidently not seated properly when I had installed it. The bag was half full, the compartment was packed full of dust (all the heavier stuff had stayed in the bucket each time, but the dust evidently goes right on into the CT. Not only was the compartment jammed full, but the HEPA filters were packed smooth. They looked like a couple of blocks of compressed sawdust. I took my old shop vac and vacuumed off the surface dust and sure enought, there were two filters there, just like it shows in the directions. I pulled them out and took them out to the barn where i have my large compressor. Those pleats looked like they were packed with solid blocks of wood. i have been using pine, white and red oak, brazillian walnut, american wallnut, cherry, purple heart and maple. Just about every shade of wood you can think of. It was all packed into those pleats nice and neat so some of the folds actually looked like wood grain. nice and purty. That is until i gave a whack on the loader bucket of my tractor. That was two hours ago and i am still hacking up dust from my lungs.
Whacking only took care of about two thirds of that packed in dust. My compressor is set for about 95 lbs pressure and it took several minutes to dislodge what could not be knocked out manually. I'm back in business now. In looking back, even with all of that congestion, the CT worked with both of my routers (OF 1000 and OF 1400) as long as I worked slowly. It did fine with my ATF 55 as long as I held my hand in front of the action so the dust fed back into the suction hose. I have not tried working with the tools since i cleaned the filters, but there is now REAL suction, even going thru the cyclone top and bucket.
I have an old Milwaukee shop vac that stops sucking completely as soon as the bucket gets full to the top. As far as i can understand, there is just no way that CT should have been sucking anything the way everything was packed, and i mean "packed" solid. This is definitely not a testament to my own aggressiveness at maintanence, but it sure is testament to the efficiency of those CT vacs.
Tinker
Sometime before his posts, I had hooked up my CT 33 to a cyclone top mounted on top of a 5gal bucket. I had, at the same time, put a new filter bag into the machine. Of course, it is very easy with the CT's to just raise the back/top and remove the full filter bag, and when in a hurry, don't bother to check those fancy rectangular and pleated little numbers in the very top. I just pulled out the bag and inserted new bag and back to the more important (??? ???) tasks at hand.
As time progressed, i began to notice that the CT just did not seem to have its usual oomph while hooked up to that cyclone. I just chalked it up to the fact there was an extra implement the air had to suck thru on its way to the CT and did check the buckeet every now and again. I was emptying each time as it got to be 1/2 to 3/4 full. Still not much vacuum seemed to be happening.
Today, I found time to go down to the shop to do something. You knoowww, anything to avoid getting into the Honey-Do-list that I was being reminded of everytime i came in sight of my Dearly Beloved.
Well, I have no projects started right now and nothing along WW'ing I had planned on startingg right away. Soooo, i got to thnking about Per's exciting :
project of late with his CT. It just might be possible there could be some dust caught in those HEPA filters. Well, I opened 'er up and discovered the bag inside had evidently not seated properly when I had installed it. The bag was half full, the compartment was packed full of dust (all the heavier stuff had stayed in the bucket each time, but the dust evidently goes right on into the CT. Not only was the compartment jammed full, but the HEPA filters were packed smooth. They looked like a couple of blocks of compressed sawdust. I took my old shop vac and vacuumed off the surface dust and sure enought, there were two filters there, just like it shows in the directions. I pulled them out and took them out to the barn where i have my large compressor. Those pleats looked like they were packed with solid blocks of wood. i have been using pine, white and red oak, brazillian walnut, american wallnut, cherry, purple heart and maple. Just about every shade of wood you can think of. It was all packed into those pleats nice and neat so some of the folds actually looked like wood grain. nice and purty. That is until i gave a whack on the loader bucket of my tractor. That was two hours ago and i am still hacking up dust from my lungs. Whacking only took care of about two thirds of that packed in dust. My compressor is set for about 95 lbs pressure and it took several minutes to dislodge what could not be knocked out manually. I'm back in business now. In looking back, even with all of that congestion, the CT worked with both of my routers (OF 1000 and OF 1400) as long as I worked slowly. It did fine with my ATF 55 as long as I held my hand in front of the action so the dust fed back into the suction hose. I have not tried working with the tools since i cleaned the filters, but there is now REAL suction, even going thru the cyclone top and bucket.
I have an old Milwaukee shop vac that stops sucking completely as soon as the bucket gets full to the top. As far as i can understand, there is just no way that CT should have been sucking anything the way everything was packed, and i mean "packed" solid. This is definitely not a testament to my own aggressiveness at maintanence, but it sure is testament to the efficiency of those CT vacs.
Tinker
