First time Festool owner, need help with ETS 125 REQ!

[Michael Kellough]

Agree that the best thing to do is find away to get the active dust evacuation dialed in, but if you can’t then use the bag.

 

[nickgdowski]

[member=79705]nickgdowski[/member]

One thing to add from the other comments.  The ETS 125 REQ is as you said a finish sander and has a 2mm stroke.  Very nice for fine finishes, but probably not the best sander for removing a lot of material with 80grit paper.

By comparison, the ETS EC 125/3 EQ has a 3mm stroke and ETS EC 150 modelss come in 3mm and 5mm stroke models.  These are better at removing material.

My first Festool sander was the ETS 125 REQ, I later got a RO 90 and the ETS EC 125/3 EQ.    I use the ETS EC 125/3 most.

Bob

Yeah. And I am totally fine with a quality finish sander. Will be a nice tool to finish marquetry and fine box projects with.
Thanks for the suggestions Bob.

 

[nickgdowski]

The post about the sander needing dust correction is incorrect.

It is true for the ETS EC sanders, but not the ETS 125 the OP has. The difference being, unlike most sanders, the ETS EC sanders do not have and internal ‘fan’ above the pad to eject the dust out of the dust port. This gives the sanders a low profile but means DC is required.

The ETS sanders have an internal fan and therefore come with a dust bag. And are fine to use as such.

But personally i would adapt the shop vac to be able to use with lower suction, with a simple method like the one mentioned above. Sanding with DC is miles better.

Thank you for clearing that up. I was worried for a moment there. And yeah I agree, dust collection is always preferable.

 

[nickgdowski]

One thing I didnt see mentioned is if you have already been sanding without an interface pad you may have damaged tje pad already to the point you will need to replace it as well. it doesnt take much to damage the hooks on the pad. so if your interfacevpad isnt sticking to the sanding pad good thats what happened.

Also Any vac will work but as others mentioned you need to have some type of gate valve to adjust how much suction is diverted to the tool. some after market hoses have a valve built in. Im a fan of thesethey have a valve built in and the quick clic system works great if you have different sized dust ports on your tools.

+1  Especially if you've been using 80 grit, the damage may already be done.

+1  You can use a bag but you risk a greater chance for swirls. I'd recommend a vac and the less suction the better, especially on the little ETS 125 sander, it's a finish sander so it does not remove much material in a single pass.

Make sure that when switching grits, you vacuum both the sanded surface and the sander pad to remove the previous chunks.

I'm surprised that it could potentially be damaged so easily, but I do not believe that has happened to my pad. The interface pad for the nets came in the other day and that sticks on just fine, and now the net discs stick too.

 

[nickgdowski]

It is the worst sander Festool makes (I’ve had two of them). Return it and get the “EC” version instead.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

unfortunate. I hope to get some use out of it yet. See what its capable of. I am not a high production operation at the moment.

 

[nickgdowski]

I disagree with Cheese about using a bag, assuming he is referring to the paper dust bag that came with the sander. If your powered dust extraction setup is too powerful you’re better off using the dust bag to reduce stiction and swirl marks.

The rule of thumb for adjusting suction is that it should be easy to lift the sander off the surface while the suction is on. Should not be much harder to lift than when using the bag.

I actually agree with you Michael if there are only 2 options. Either using a dust bag or using a shop vac on max that's pulling the sander "into" the surface. If those are the only options, I'd use the bag every time.

However, afish offered up these which I thought was a nice option and there's probably a size available that fits Nick's vacuum.

[attachimg=1]
https://www.centecsystems.com/standard-quick-click-adapters/

Ooh, those look like they would work perfectly for the time being.

 

[SilviaS7]

I wish I had seen this YouTube video sooner, it explains the interface pad use very well. 

 

[GoingMyWay]

Here's the video from the previous post:


The full URL (youtube.com) and not the shortened URL (youtu.be) needs to be used in order for the video to load properly on the forum.

 

[SilviaS7]

Thank you GoingMyWay, I was posting from my phone and couldn't figure out what I did wrong.