Workshop sooner?!

[jmbfestool]

Finally the most important part of a dust extractor filter bag.

Well what can I say felder..... To be honest I bet I can just remove the filter bag and turn the extractor on and I wouldn't be any worse off. The amount of dust you can see coming out of the felder filter bags is a joke!!!  It's worse when you turn it on because the bag is so deflated it bangs open.  The dust just flys off.

Startrite used a heavier dusty fabric so far I can't see dust coming out so if I can't see it im
Happy. [eek]

 

[jmbfestool]

[member=5671]jmbfestool[/member] I'm assuming you went AF series DC from Felder .. not the RL series?

It'll be a while before I pull the trigger on Felder gear, but I was considering an RL140 in the mix. They're over $6K here and that would buy a significant piece of kit in an alternate brand!!

I don't see anything on the AF series that justifies it's 2~3x price over the rest of the market. I'm not a fan of that collector style in the workshop anyway unless you add the big filter cartridge. To me they belong in an external/closed dust room.

With the sort of equipment you've got I would have thought (if Felder) an RL200 would be the kind of unit you'd need.

I won't be buying felder based on this felder extractor.  I know the felder extractor I have is a budget extractor but I don't think it's worth more than £300 max.  When you look at alternatives much better.  I know the startrite cost little more but you are getting soooo much more.  I expected felder to be of that standard just a single bag and a less powerfull motor but I got everything crap. Not a single thing I like about the felder extractor.  Even the strap to attach the dust bags is crap it rips the plastic bags and is a nightmare to fit.

Startrite use loose clip rings easy to fit bags and doesn't rip them.

Regarding the more industrial extractors you are referring to..... They are expensive!! lol
I'm running low on money! 
It's something I will look at in the future.  I still want my dust extraction outside freeing up my workshop space. 

Problem with having extractor outside in a shed or using external extractor I would be removing the air from inside my heated workshop which has no air in it's pretty well sealed.

 

[Alan m]

jmb.
I have that same startrite dust collector.
it is a beast.
its the most powerful and moves the most air that I could find in single phase.
im running the cartridge filters on mine (only put them one last week) and a thien baffle and 8" metal ducting/.
after 60 +feet of 8" and 3 90 bends I still have loads of suction.

 

[Kev]

Problem with having extractor outside in a shed or using external extractor I would be removing the air from inside my heated workshop which has no air in it's pretty well sealed.

LOL - I have a mental image of you working in a pressure suit to protect yourself against the vacuum. At least it'll be quiet with no air in the workshop [big grin]

Losing heat would have been the last thing I would have considered .. I'm obviously spoilt by a mild climate.

I actually like the look of the Laguna mobile cyclones, but nobody brings them into Oz.

I'm very much with you on the flimsy frames and rubbish wheels. It's not just Felder - a lot of the other expensive branded DC's are the same. The very notion that you'd buy a mobile DC for a workshop and not expect to roll it over debris and expect it to be sturdy [eek] Just dumb!!

 

[jimbouk]

I would search for a second hand industrial unit and duct the place out. There are some great deals out there.

 

[jmbfestool]

I would search for a second hand industrial unit and duct the place out. There are some great deals out there.

I had my Cnc second hand I had problems and still do nothing to major but still it's down time when I'm about to be needing it for a job.

Like the dust extractor broke down just when I was needing it.

My mate has a workshop full of second hand machinery and there is always something which needs fixing.  I couldn't stand it my self. 

Second hand is a gamble and even if it is cheap you can spend money on days off for transporting, looking around, going over to check if the machine is in working order. Etc

Then you could end up days off fixing it when it breaks down.

Buying new you carrying on working then have a day of for delivery.  Manufacture sets it all up checks it over calibrate it while you carry on working on a job.

You have a problem you call them up and say OI it's broke down.  You can go and do another job at no cost to you while they fix it. Yes it's hassle but not as much hassle as a second hand one.  You have to pay for an engineer and parts or you find the problem your self and order the part and then fix it your self.

I don't always think second hand is that practical for a business.

 

[jmbfestool]

Problem with having extractor outside in a shed or using external extractor I would be removing the air from inside my heated workshop which has no air in it's pretty well sealed.

LOL - I have a mental image of you working in a pressure suit to protect yourself against the vacuum. At least it'll be quiet with no air in the workshop [big grin]

Losing heat would have been the last thing I would have considered .. I'm obviously spoilt by a mild climate.

I actually like the look of the Laguna mobile cyclones, but nobody brings them into Oz.

I'm very much with you on the flimsy frames and rubbish wheels. It's not just Felder - a lot of the other expensive branded DC's are the same. The very notion that you'd buy a mobile DC for a workshop and not expect to roll it over debris and expect it to be sturdy [eek] Just dumb!!

Yes I agree. I looked at this one and I like this one
http://www.mmtoolparts.com/store/laguna-stationary-cyclone-10hp-mdc1300-0145
Still a lot of money for me at moment with all the spending I've been doing over the years.  Gotta save now with my missus being pregnant and all.

Don't forget felder only has two wheels which swivel!  Why would you do that??? It's not like you push a dust extractor like a trolly for long distances. It's so frustrating you have to lift the extractor up and swing it round or you end up like a car doing 3 point turn to get it parked where you want.  Back and forth back and forth.  When you are near a wall you just want to push the entire extractor against the wall but it won't let you with two swivel wheels. 
I just can believe how daft it is.

 

[Cheese]

Just curious why you're using bag based collection rather than cartridge based collection, especially inside a shop?

 

[mikeomalley]

Changed the fixed wheels to swivel which helped, agree JMB this is not a quality product.
mike

 

[jmbfestool]

Just curious why you're using bag based collection rather than cartridge based collection, especially inside a shop?

Don't think I've ever  been to a work shop who has a cartridge based collection.

Only a massive workshop maybe but they have a 100k outside dust extractor.

 

[jmbfestool]

Changed the fixed wheels to swivel which helped, agree JMB this is not a quality product.
mike

I was planning on using the wheels I removed from the startrite and fix them on the felder.

The startrite I didn't want movable any way. I didn't know it had wheels untill it turned up.

 

[Yeti fan 19]

Hi JMB
I've been following your workshop build with interest recently, as a lot of your kit & issues have been similar to my own. Setting up a workshop from scratch takes a huge amount of energy & commitment, as you well know. The startrite extractor that you've just bought, we installed in our workshop about 4 years ago. It is a fantastic bit of kit, at a pretty good price. Ours has had an absolute beating in the last 4 years and has not let us down once. This was the first permanent D/C we installed and it was the best investment I ever made. Heres a pic of our D/C installation

 

[jmbfestool]

Hi JMB
I've been following your workshop build with interest recently, as a lot of your kit & issues have been similar to my own. Setting up a workshop from scratch takes a huge amount of energy & commitment, as you well know. The startrite extractor that you've just bought, we installed in our workshop about 4 years ago. It is a fantastic bit of kit, at a pretty good price. Ours has had an absolute beating in the last 4 years and has not let us down once. This was the first permanent D/C we installed and it was the best investment I ever made. Heres a pic of our D/C installation

Hopefully it will last me a good few years also. 
When it got delivered I was pretty happy with the build quality for the money.  My local dealer has a couple of extractors in mainly for hobbiests but the prices are not that much cheaper than startrite but they do feel a lot less solid.

Nice spindle moulder!

I haven't really been keeping up with my workshop build on FOG. 
I will update a bit more when I get round to it.

There is always something currently internet
We are with BT on main property but BT are terrible. I'm sure that's a known fact across the UK. Customer support is terrible the engineers are terrible the entire system is terrible.  Last few months our phone line has been down so even calling on landline was rubbish. 

We had engineer come out suppose to check broadband and phone line but because his job sheet said phone line he would only check phone line. With his testing equipment said it was working fine however when you pick up the phone all you could hear was cracking sounds but he still signed it off as everything is okay.

  Suppose to get 9MB internet but it often cuts off and we do get 6Mb sometimes but most the time it's 1-2mb.
Which isn't enough to tap off to supply my workshop with Internet.

So been climbing on the roof to see if I could get 4G on my mobile.  Yes I can and hitting speeds of 80mb download and 30+mb upload.  So ordered a SIM card router and Anttena still waiting on antenna but the router is actually picking up 4G inside although hit and miss so can't wait for Anttena so hopefully be way forward and get rid of BT broadband and phone line.  Then I'm going to convince our neighbours do the same just so I can stick two fingers up to BT tossers

 

[Andy UK]

We had similar problems with our home BT phone and broadband too.
Stuck it out until the contract finished then switched to PlusNet (which also turned out to be cheaper).
Funnily enough BT own PlusNet but nearly a year on it's still all working as it should and 100% better than we had before.

 

[jmbfestool]

We had similar problems with our home BT phone and broadband too.
Stuck it out until the contract finished then switched to PlusNet (which also turned out to be cheaper).
Funnily enough BT own PlusNet but nearly a year on it's still all working as it should and 100% better than we had before.

Won't be sticking it out lol.  They won't be getting the last 3-4 months payment nor are they getting any money for the new BT hub which they said we had to pay for but would solve the problem but it hasn't. Plus we have said we want money back for the last quarter payment which they did say we would be compensated for.

Would you expect a client to pay you 100% of your bill even though you only partly fitted the kitchen ?  BT are supplying 10% of their  service so we ain't paying more than 10% of the bill and want 90% back from the previous months.

We  have told them to cancel everything but they said you can't cancel while we are trying to solve your problem.  Only untill the problem is solved can you cancel.  [eek]
So what do BT do take months to try and solve the problem?
So they expect you to carry on paying? LoL

Funny thing is a couple of days ago our phone line started working again. 

Engineer did come out to us again(different engineer) and said its strange can't find a problem (like the previous engineer did).  The phones didn't make any more cracking sounds.  We did see a engineer at our exchange box which is pretty far away doing some work the day our phone line worked. 

We said it seems very odd that the day an engineer was working on the exchange box was the day our phone line worked again.

So we asked our engineer did BT send engineer to  check the exchange end.  He said no they sent me to day to come check your end.  We said we already had an engineer check our end and found everything to be okay but yet our line was still down. 

He told us it's likely the engineer who was working on the exchange might of knocked some wires which happend to fix your problem or he might have noticed some bad wiring and while he was working on the exchange decided to fix it.  He said I my self would often be working on a exchange and if I notice something I would fix it.

So by luck our phone line is back on. Yet broadband still keeps dropping out.

 

[Andy UK]

The BT routers are not fit for the purpose in all cases. I remember earlier in the year seeing the BT tv adverts announcing their new routers and that they reset their self faster or something when the signal dropped out.
Rather than solving the problem of why their routers are dropping signal in the first place! 
When I contacted them about the problems we were having they offered to send an engineer out BUT if he couldn't find a problem we would be charged (£90 I believe it was).
As our problem was intermittent I knew dam well that chances were against us that the engineer would find the fault, so we just lived with it.
Glad we moved to Plusnet though.

 

[jmbfestool]

The BT routers are not fit for the purpose in all cases. I remember earlier in the year seeing the BT tv adverts announcing their new routers and that they reset their self faster or something when the signal dropped out.
Rather than solving the problem of why their routers are dropping signal in the first place! 
When I contacted them about the problems we were having they offered to send an engineer out BUT if he couldn't find a problem we would be charged (£90 I believe it was).
As our problem was intermittent I knew dam well that chances were against us that the engineer would find the fault, so we just lived with it.
Glad we moved to Plusnet though.

Yeah it's something like that might be bit more than £90 now I think.

If the engineer finds a problem on your end you must pay.  I think it's funny because I think that's why they always send the engineer to look at your end of the line first.

We have had a few out.  We said we ain't paying for the engineers from the start.  They still keep sending them to our end of the line and both had said our end was fine. 
So they can't charge anyway if the problem still exists.
It's hard to get get an engineer we keep demanding them every call we make to BT only had 3 come out.  We have had many engineers over the years.

I think next doors is with plusnet he's had engineers come out because his isn't very good either obviously.  The engineer renewed his line in.  Didn't help much but he told my neighbour to be honest the line from your house to the exchange all needs renewing really it's all old.

We are on the same line as him.  So we have been asking our  engineers do you think the lines need renewing but non will comment. They just say I don't know.

 

[jmbfestool]

Thing about the router you can't go and buy a non BT router.

Years ago we had a Netgear router and when we had a problem we called BT they would just say must be your router call Netgear then we called Netgear and get the same answer.

So you kinda stuck with the BT Hubs so they can't give you an excuss then to why it's not working correctly.

 

[jools]

My BT hub 5 was the worst thing ever especially with apple products. Went on hub manager ( how to on the net ) and turned off the advertising pages, and split the 2 band widths ( Apple has a problem with the higher hz one) and it's been fine ever since. Running 3 iPhones, 3 TVs, Mac, skybox, 2 iPads, 4 sonos  speakers, Xbox, printer etc. No drop outs and good speed although not as fast as claimed by BT. Won't help if the service sucks from them though [mad]
Regards
Jools