LT-1 Festool Vac Upgrade

[-woodsman-]

Has anyone seen this before?

http://www.lundblomtechnologies.se/festoolupgrade/

It sounds grate.  My sister is in sweden and I found this while setting up some U.K. purches of things [thumbs up] to ship to her there.  I am planning on calling them in the morning and if it seems legit Im going to do it.  I dont know when she will be back so I have to take advantage while I can.  There is not much of any mention of the company any where on the web, so if someone knows anything it would  give me a little more courage to take this further.  I will post my findings in the morning.

 

[peter halle]

If you do that, I hope that your CT is not under warranty.  If it is, I would bet that it won't be afterwards. 

Peter

 

[-woodsman-]

Well I think I nullified that on day one when i hardwired the pig tail onto the cord (I would have lost that thing in 48 hrs).  If that didn't do it than installing a single electrical outlet (for my Sy-radio that is always clipped to the vac below the cleaning kit) probably did.  I like things just so, and some times for the sake of making things easier I make sacrifices.  Very carefully planed out sacrifices.

 

[-woodsman-]

Ill post pics of it one of these days.  Its set up to a clear vue mint mounted on a 25 gallon tote with four blast ports and a power-strip thats plugged into the vac.  Almost no clean up at the end of the day, well maybe 10 minutes worth.

 

[Rick Christopherson]

To the best of my memory, the control board on a CT vac is epoxy encased and there are no components exposed at the board level that can be de-soldered and re-soldered. So if you couldn't accomplish this part of their installation, then the kit is worthless. Furthermore, unless you are very experienced at de-soldering components from a circuit board, attempting to do so is a great way to delaminate the board--turning it into a very expensive paper weight for your desk.

I have no fear of modifying my CT, and have done so to operate with my 240 volt Kapex, but this is surgery that I wouldn't willingly make to a functional CT.

 

[-woodsman-]

Good point with the circuit board.  Didn't notice the SMD resistor. I recently encountered this trying to fix a friends wife's hair straightener.  It was a very small board to control a led.  I fried the board and bypassed the led.  No led's to bypass on a CT 33.

This is their installation process

Disassemble the CT(L) 22/33/44 extractor using a T25 torx screwdriver (10 minutes).
Disconnect the controller PCB (5 minutes).
Remove one 1206 SMD resistor from the PCB and solder four wires (10 minutes).
Replace the controller PCB and mount the LT-1 PCB with the included double-sided tape (5 minutes).
Reassemble the dust extractor (10 minutes).

I also have no fear with these things, as long as I know what I'm doing or have good pictures and descriptions of what to do.  In this case I'm on the fence.  I have always thought that the vac should run a little longer after the tool shuts down.  Its very tempting, but maybe this is something I should recruit a friend to do, or a professional to do.

 

[-woodsman-]

Well, I got a reply from Lundblom Technologies HB.

I'm glad to hear you find our product interesting! I have used it my
self for many months and several friends have it installed in their
CT22's and use it every day.  The kit is only installed in the low voltage side of the control
PCB and no live voltage is involved during installation or when in use.  Still it seems like it is possible to get sued for whatever stupid
reason in the US.

I have reassured him that the warranty on my vac is already void.  If he is willing to sell me one I will have one of the guys at my local electronics store install it.

 

[Rick Christopherson]

But if the control board is epoxied, not even a professional will be able to install the kit. Before spending your money, I would ask the supplier for a copy of the manual so you can see what has to get changed. The supplier may have based his system on a control board that is not epoxied.

My personal opinion is that this is a solution to a non-problem, so I wouldn't be interested in doing it...not even considering that I could get a new control board with a phone call...you can't.

 

[-woodsman-]

But if the control board is epoxied, not even a professional will be able to install the kit. Before spending your money, I would ask the supplier for a copy of the manual so you can see what has to get changed. The supplier may have based his system on a control board that is not epoxied.

My personal opinion is that this is a solution to a non-problem, so I wouldn't be interested in doing it...not even considering that I could get a new control board with a phone call...you can't.

I am waiting for a reply to this very question.  You have made many good points Rick and this is why I brought this up here.  I would doubt that the vacs are any different over there.  Especially considering that we do not get ones that can be plugged directly into our outlets.  Thats a topic for another thread but I just have to say that I have always thought that this was more than a little bogus.  I'm not discounting your advice.  I am proceeding very cautiously.  I wish that I had my vac here and could open it up to see what it would involve.  I wont commit to anything until I can do this on monday.  I could tell that this might be a little over my head, I am hopeful though.  I am glad you are here Rick to keep me and my vac grounded.

 

[-woodsman-]

He doesn't seem to want to sell due to legal reasons[sad].  Why is everyone hate'in on the U.S. wait wait don't answer that.  Any way here is what he said about the Boards.

the circuit board in the CT22/33/... vacs are not molded in epoxi. They
started with that in the Mini/Midi vacs and in the CT26/36. I'm actually
working on a wireless remote for the CTx6 vacs. The idea is to make it
pluggable into existing connecters so that no soldering is needed. Let's
hope you get the CT26 to the US, it actually has some improvements
compared to the CT22.

Well maybe it's because I can't have one but I want it more now.  I'll find a way and let you all know what happens.