Shakey ETS EC 150/5!

[onocoffee]

My friend was complaining to me about his ETS EC 150/5 - that the vibration is extreme. I had a look at it and it is pretty extreme. He recently put the blue pad 202640 on it and I noticed he also had the 203348 Interface Sander Backing Pad on it as well. Strangely enough, the interface pad was smaller than the blue pad with a mm or 2 inside from the edge. I thought this was odd because I recall my 203351 Interface pad fitting just right on my ETS EC 150/3.

When I turned it on, the sander shook worse that my 20 year old blue Ryobi - especially if I felt it at the Plug-It port, then the vibration was pretty severe (for Festool).

Despite the holes being properly aligned with the pad and the Inferface pad, I noticed a build up of dust that struck me as odd. Was the sander not sucking enough? But I thought to remove the Interface Pad and the sander became as vibration free as normal.

Have any of you run into this issue? The ETS EC 150/5 is about a year old, so I told him to call Customer Service to see what they say. But now I'm curious.

 

[luvmytoolz]

There was another similar one posted sometime last year, can't seem to find it now. Very strange. I've used Festool and Mirka interface pad savers on both my ETS EC's without any noticeable change in vibration.

A build-up of dust is not good though as the ETS EC's don't have a built in fan and require dust extraction in use.

Curiously the blurb from Festool specifically mentions vibration control:

The "Vibration Control System" teaches the motor to think. Active regulation of the speed automatically reduces the operating performance when vibrations are too high. The result is smoother operation and a greatly improved feel when sanding with noticeably fewer vibrations.

 

[Cheese]

I've experienced some vibration issues when attaching the thicker interface pads. Not a big deal but certainly surprising considering these things are only rotating at around 6000 or so and are nothing but air...so very little mass enters into the equation. Simply repositioning the pad has always worked for me.