I tend to over think things a lot. But the plus side of that, is it slows down my purchases and lets me re-evaluate for a better option for my needs.
I THINK I should get the CFlux 2HP. there is the 1.5 HP PFlux which although less power at the same cost, does have some nice features and has a little smaller footprint which is nice for a small 2car garage.
How I came to that conclusion.
-Ultimately, I can't do any ducting and the garage space is small, so decided portable was necessary (1 tool at a time). I could exhaust through a wall, but this is a garage, so the wind would need to be favorable to benefit from that, plus, I'd then need to use like 15-20 ft of flex hose which kills performance.
-Originally was going to DIY with the Pennstate direclty on a SDD, but the rotation directions don't match.
-Consided briefly the HF DIY option, but it has pretty poor specs though it is good for the very budget minded. I'm not very budget minded, just semi budget minded :P
-Was looking at the 2HP grizzly canisters, but they seem to not have the best filtering and they plug up easily without modifying with a baffle. Also pretty loud from what I hear.
-Then looked at the Jet canister. They have their own "cone" vortex which helps clogging somewhat. Almost went there, then I said "f it. I can afford more then settling with this old tech. I'm being too frugal." Then my budget went up to $1500.
-Cyclones can get expensive. My budget priced out Oneida (well, the not the mini, but it has sub par CFM) and clearvue is too big, too much and requires ducting.
-Short cyclones in general don't perform that well. The new Laguna models however seem to be much better than the old short cyclones Laguna had (and Jet, JDS, Grizzly (portable)). The Toolmetrix youtube reviews are fantastic.
-since I'll sometimes roll the DC out my garage and onto my gravel drive way, the 1 piece rolling of the new laguna is nice (jet and grizzly have detached drums).
So, nowI'm pretty sold on the Laguna. It hits the check boxes I need and is in my budget. By the end of the day, I'll buy one of the two listed. The Pflux has some nice bells and whistles and the CFlux has more power. I love that Laguna does real world performance measurements on their CFM. Even with an 8ft of 4" flex hose, the PF1 can hit almost 800 CFM and if I use a 6" and reducer at the tool, it'll be in the mid to high 800's. As I type this, knowing I just use 1 tool at a time and don't have a big sander and only an 8" jointer, it seems like it'd be just fine and I get the extra features over the CF2. The CF2 would get me at the 1000+ CFM mark though...
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Originally Posted by Tony Gomez
