CTL Midi I - when is the bag full!!

[Keith Cocker]

I have recently got a CTL Midi I which I am delighted with. A rather naive question - how do I know when the bag is full? Is there any indicator light or signal to show this? I can't find anything in the manual or searching here. Or is it simply the common sense answer that when the suction power gets lower the bag is filling up??

 

[Hawkeye0001]

My experience is that Festool vacs simply don't care  [big grin]

1: the bag is new to half full: it howls like a Vulcan bomber
2: the bag is almost full: a slight loss of suction but still very good
3: your bag is full-full: you get showered in chips from your tool and have to pry out a 20 lbs compacted brick of wood chips and dust from your extractor.  [eek]

 

[DeformedTree]

You won't know other than you start getting sawdust around where you were not before.

Only had this once with my CT26, as mentioned, you open it up to find a nice formed shape bag.  It takes a lot to get to this point. I will open my CT with the cyclone from time to time just to find there isn't much there, my other one has no cyclone, still takes a long time.  I noticed no change in sound or anything like you get with shop vacs.

It takes a lot to fill these up, and since the filter is filtered, you don't have the typical shop vac situation where the filter is shot long before it fills.

 

[AlexThePalex]

My experience is that Festool vacs simply don't care  [big grin]

1: the bag is new to half full: it howls like a Vulcan bomber
2: the bag is almost full: a slight loss of suction but still very good
3: your bag is full-full: you get showered in chips from your tool and have to pry out a 20 lbs compacted brick of wood chips and dust from your extractor.  [eek]

My experience with the Festool Mini & Midi is very different.  [huh]

1: the bag is new to half full: it meows like a new born kitty
2: the bag is half full: suction reduced to the level of a rheumatic larva
3: your bag is full-full: I never even seem to get there. Bag is changed long before.  [sad]

The CTL 22 & 26 I had where better though, but stil not stellar. The Starmix based vacs have so much better suction.

 

[mrboult]

Honestly I have days where I agree with what Alex said and days where I think like Hawkeye.
I think my opinion depends on the environment, and how 'dust conscious' I am, or the tools I'm using.

The few times I'm doing cuts and sanding in peoples finished homes I notice dust a LOT more than I do when I'm in a workshop space.

And while sanders and the track saw usually extract perfectly on a semi-full bag, I know that with my router I'm gonna notice the reduced suction in the extraction.

 

[Crazyraceguy]

My experience is that Festool vacs simply don't care  [big grin]

1: the bag is new to half full: it howls like a Vulcan bomber
2: the bag is almost full: a slight loss of suction but still very good
3: your bag is full-full: you get showered in chips from your tool and have to pry out a 20 lbs compacted brick of wood chips and dust from your extractor.  [eek]

Yeah, I have even had it go so far as to totally fill the hose. Funny thing is, the hose was still sucking, it just couldn't take any more chips.

 

[Steve1]

I have a couple different hoses that I plug in, depending on which tool I am using it on.

When the bag is full, when I change hoses, I start seeing an accumulation of wood chips at the connection to the vacuum.

....er... kinda like I have been seeing now for about a week.