New from Festool for Europe - September 2018: CT pre separator with cyclone tech

Ordered one today from Healystools in the UK. FWIW, I asked FFX when they expecting to restock and was told Festool were saying October 1st.

Hopefully the SYS will cope although I imagine it'll have a harder time once the bin starts to fill up.
 
Scorpion said:
Underpowered in that there’s not enough force to separate correctly or that the vac becomes less effective somehow?
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Hi [member=27782]Scorpion[/member]

I think from the perspective that the velocity of the debris that enters the cyclone would be too low to have an efficient separation. It should not reduce the overall performance of the vacuum by more than 2 - 4%. I am really tied up with some other work and cannot do a test with the CT Sys but I would think that it would be better than 80% and could be as high as 90% efficient. Given the relatively small size of the extractor bags that would be a great help, particularly if you are using (say) either a saw or a hand (HL) planer.

Peter
 
Peter Parfitt said:
It should not reduce the overall performance of the vacuum by more than 2 - 4%.
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Do not underestimate the effects of turbulent (non laminar) airflow.

Air ducts for example go through great lenghts to avoid sharp corners (to keep the airstream laminar), the Festool contraption on the other hand (compared to directly using the VAC) introduces at least 4 extra ones - two in the 90° elbows of the hose between the extractor and the VAC*, the other two in the outlet side in the head).

(* you might remember the discussions about the Kapex extraction where some said they have better effect with a straight connector to the VAC instead of an 90° one)
 
ear3 said:
Would having this separator make a specialty vac like the CT36AC less necessary when doing larger amounts of drywall sanding, because it would reduce the amount going into the main body of the vac and the filter?
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  This is why I bought my Oneida UDD in the first place, for ANY finer dust sanding, wood, drywall, plaster etc. Unlike another posters comments, I don't feel I EVER had to 'cobble' something together with it to make it work, and my unit is a VERY early one. Oneida gave us the upgrade kit a few years after I had been using mine on multiple Festool Vacs with no issues at all.  They wanted it installed, so I complied with some of it since it couldn't hurt my usage[ Ground straps were added on the sides of the lower tub and the Cyclone went from transparent plastic to Black Plastic...  I miss the 'show' of swirling dust from my original Cyclone... [wink]]
I DO believe that my choice of using a Festool AS Boom Hose helps in controlling static build-up, but I bought it with 2 purposes, to allow putting a Systainer or Sortainer under the UDD, on top of my vac, by having that longer 50mm Boom hose in place of what Oneida sent with the original kit AND add Anti-Static grounding if I wasn't sure about the hose the kit came with.  For Me, it's been a WIN WIN with the UDD all these years.
Drywall and Plaster sanding is a non-issue, it all just works, including using my Planex sander.
Moving the whole Vac unit up and down stairs means you break it down into smaller chunks with the UDD simply coming off, then reassemble it once you're ready. Not hard, and not heavy.

I hope the new Festool unit works as well for anyone who buys it.
 
 
So I vacuum up 25 pounds of saw dust, weigh the bag before and after and then cut the bag open to see what made it into the bag !!!!!                       
 
Don Ware said:
So I vacuum up 25 pounds of saw dust, weigh the bag before and after and then cut the bag open to see what made it into the bag !!!!!                       
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Thought - the % dust per air traveling through the hose probably makes a difference as to how much gets trapped.  Meaning it make take hours to accumulate a pound of dust while sanding.  If you stick the hose in a pile and suck up a pound of dust, I’d expect more to get captured become the air to dust ratio would be less...there’s probably better language.

Simple version, I’m not sure sticking the hose in a pile of sanding dust would separate the same way as sanding for however many hours it would take to suck up the equivalent amount of dust.  Wondering if the pile test is real world enough..

I’m not bashing the collector, I ordered one and will be satisfied if the collector captures 50%.
 
If anything, I think the test Don did was more than real world. He basically overloaded the cyclone and forced it to produce results. The results were pretty astounding. I’m pretty slack-jawed with the results.

I’d expect that with the amount of debris that Don introduced into the cyclone and with the frequency that he kept introducing the debris that the cyclone would become overloaded. That would lead to a higher level of debris in the bag which was not the case.
 
I don't see a problem with Don's method as it is the same as the one that I used earlier.

I have a gut feeling that if the dust to air ratio is high then one would expect more dust to get through to the CT bag.

Peter
 
While I would be interested to see a comparison to other systems for the sake of curiosity, the Festool CT appears to be so efficient for general use that better performance would have little practical application. Ease of use and form factor become more important when one might have to fill more than 25 (or 50?) internal bags before a 1 bag difference shows up for efficiency.

The differences may be more profound for something like drywall dust. That testing is likely to be much messier and more tedious so we may not see the results soon.
 
Cheese said:
If anything, I think the test Don did was more than real world. He basically overloaded the cyclone and forced it to produce results. The results were pretty astounding. I’m pretty slack-jawed with the results.

I’d expect that with the amount of debris that Don introduced into the cyclone and with the frequency that he kept introducing the debris that the cyclone would become overloaded. That would lead to a higher level of debris in the bag which was not the case.
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Hm, good point.  Didn’t think about overloading.
 
Cheese said:
I’d expect that with the amount of debris that Don introduced into the cyclone and with the frequency that he kept introducing the debris that the cyclone would become overloaded. That would lead to a higher level of debris in the bag which was not the case.
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Depends on the material you want to separate. Wood => resin => sticky... sawdust that sat in a container for a while might have clumped more or less (depending on the wood type) - then a cyclone based separator will have a way easier life as the heavier the particles, the better the separation.
Thus putting the nozzle inside a pile of settled dust quite possibly is different to having a tool generate it fresh.
 
I used saw dust that was not more that a week old. A lot of sanding RO 150 on Lumber 40 grit, Demo of a 850 planer, Domino 500 and 700, Routing I chamfered 50 of our MFT squares to send to amazon and Sawing ( manly domestic hardwood plywood ) Humidity was 52. I've been using this for a month and I can tell you how full the bucket is makes a really big difference !!!!! ( yes I over filled the bucket on the cyclone...…….. guess what at that point it fills the bag, All you have to do is be smarter than the vacuum...…………. I failed ) LOL !!! But all that makes a big difference !!!! but the fuller that clear bucket gets makes a difference too. But it really does work, If you can come by the shop I'll show you !!!! I like things that work !!!!! And Peter's video's are Great been watching them for a long time !!!!!! There are just some many variables in this one. So putting a number on how much dust is Hard !!!!! If you have a better way , Let me know …….
 
I'm so stoked to get one of these in the shop. I loved the dust deputy, but I'm so bad at remembering to check the black box that it often negates the purpose of having it in the first place when it overfills during a heavy planing session and fills up the CT. The clear tub is the real money saver, for me at least.
 
I have a minor technical point of agreement with Scorpian and Gregor. Sucking up big clumps of pure dust is not similar to using a saw/vac (or any other tool). A substantial amount of dust within a clump passing into the clear bin is shielded from the updraft airstream that goes to the vac bag.

This makes the ratio of total weight in the bin compared to weight of the bag a little off in favor of the CT Cyclone. Not nearly enough to discredit the test. Thanks for doing that Don!

Still think making 20 cuts in mdf with both systems would provide a measurable amount of dust and be a good simulation of actual workshop use.
 
I have seen some comments from people who actually bought one that adding one reduces the suction of the vacs quite significantly because the seals on the ct-va-20 aren’t that tight. Someone care to comment on that?

I don’t really mind a bit less efficiency in separation vs other solutions but losing suction I don’t really care for in some applications.

 
Mine arrived yesterday but I only had a short time to play with it. I did notice a reduction in suction more with the SYS hooked up than the MIDI. This was using the empirical hand-over-the-end-of-the-tube test and the cyclone top was left untouched between switching vacs so the seal should've been the same for both.

I'd guesstimate the reduction being vaguely in the 15% (SYS) and 5% (MIDI) range, but that's in no way reliable [big grin]. I didn't empty out the bags or clean the filters; they were hooked up as they were. The SYS was ~40% full and I didn't check the MIDI bag but, IIRC, it's somewhere near half full. Another factor could be the hoses as I used the old ribbed D27 with the MIDI and the new slinky D27 with the SYS.

Tonights plan (kids willing!) is to try them again with new bags, the same hose and to clean their respective filters as best I can. I am a wee bit concerned that the SYS perhaps struggles more thus putting more strain on the motor (or it could be the bag as it's been reused many times over). Will see tonight.
 
You need to watch emptying and re-using extractor bags. I used to do it with my CT26 but stopped after doing my dust study years ago.

Basically, the bag material is an important part of the filtration process as air passes through the material of the bag on its way to the main filter. It does not take long for the bag material to become saturated with small dust particles which then clogs the weave and reduces the effectiveness of the extractor. It is usually noticeable when a discolouration of the bag material is evident. This often happens as the bag becomes full for its first time of use. If you then empty and re-use the bag then the starting point will not be ideal and things go down hill from there on.

This is the reason that I stopped emptying my bags and went over to the UDD. With that setup I periodically check the bag in the CT and find that it only needs to be changed about once a year (more energetic woodworkers may need to do the change more often).

Peter
 
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