power sander dust collection - advise please

[John Piwaron]

What or how is done to collect dust from an ROS?

I've got 2 PC 333 sanders. Both have the little canister on them. There does seem to be a good amount of dust inside, but plenty more escapes. Would attaching a hose to the port instead of that canister then to a vac be of any use?

If so, which vac? A vac with an especially flexible hose would seem to be needed.

What's your advise?

PS, same thing for a router when used hand held.

[Steve Clardy]

Most any decent shop vac with a small flexible hose will work.
I use a fein mini on mine.
You may have to chase down and adaptor from hose to sander.

Fein sells some that go from 1 1/4 hose to 1"

[Jim Becker]

Would attaching a hose to the port instead of that canister then to a vac be of any use?

Yes

If so, which vac? A vac with an especially flexible hose would seem to be needed.

Any shop vac will do...the quieter, the better. It may be a good time to consider something like the Fein or Festool or WAP offerings in this area. They also offer very good filtration which is important when sanding.

PS, same thing for a router when used hand held.

Hard to do, but possible in certain situations.

[Harley Lewis]

I use an adaptor for my shop vacumm and attach it to the sander. No dust seems to get away. For more flexible hose, I use an old hose we had laying around from a worn out upright vacumm. I attach it to the sander and to the shop vac with a universal shop vac attachment. Some of the newer PC sanders have adaptors you can get that fit the shop vac hoses.

Harley

[Russ Massery]

Before I when with a Festool setup. I used a shop vac with hepa fiter. And had a power activated switch the sears sells. Worked pretty well, the fiter had to be removed once in awhile. Because the dust would cake up on it. Love my Festool vac. You might want to look at a Fein and Porter Cable. They also make power tool activated vacs. Though I can't comment on how well they work.

[Robert Waddell]

John,
If you have a dust collecter, the best thing to do for the sander is to build a bench top down draft table. Basicly, it is a specially designed box with peg board on top that can be connected to your dc system. You should be able to locate a plan by doing a search. A vac doesn't do a great job with that sander. Some of the sanders, ie. Festool, works great with a vac because of managed air movement. A vac on the router is about the only thing you can do and it won't be 100% effective. I believe Bosch has the type hose you will need.
As far as vac's, the best one and of course, the most expensive is a Festool. Some people like the Fein's but I haven't had much luck with mine. The previous mentioned are very quite. Regular shop-vac types, providing you can get the hose fittings to fit your tools, work fine but are very loud.
Hope this gives you some useful direction.
Rob

[Tom Jones III]

My shop vac is cheap and incredibly loud so I tried to hook up my ROS to my dust gorilla and it works great. After sanding there is no visible dust in the air, I'm not sneezing and wiping the board with my hand yields very little dust.

[John Piwaron]

Shop vacs ARE lound. When I use mine, I grab the hearing protection to guard what's left of mine.

I've the very optimistically rated 6hp Craftsman shop vac. It's doing a pretty good job of sucking the dust and chips from my planer. But that hose - yikes! It seems kind stiff for a sander. Maybe there's another hose that can be substituted or maybe a Fein is in my future. Yeah, I've read that some people love theirs and others have bad experiences with them. That's making me leery of spending the big money Fein charges.

A downdraft table looks good for individual parts, but not so much for final sanding of completed projects. Am I wrong on that? Can/do projects get stood on it?

[JayStPeter]

Before I switched to Festool, I used a PC333. I bought a drywall sanding kit from HD that included a sanding pad and nice peice of flexible hose. The hose that came with the kit fit perfectly on the 333. The Festool hose (which fits any typical vac) fits PC and dewalt stuff well. I used it with a Craftsman vac w/CleanStream filter. Loud, but effective.
As for the router, it depends on your router. There may be some adapters available for it. There is a kit available for my Bosch 1617 and my Festool OF1400 came with some. I find on either router that they do a decent job in about 50% of operations. In other operations they at least help contain the chips to a smaller area.

[Sparky Paessler]

John

I use the hose from my CPAP machine (constant postive airway pressure for sleep apeta <sp>) to hook to to my PC333. It fits onto the the port great and then I use an adapter on the other end to the vacuum. If you know anyone with a CPAP machine they usually replace the hose every month or so and should have plenty of old hoses. I have several laying around already. Mine also have a nice swivel fitting that keeps the hose from kinking.

[Bob Childress]

Attaching any vac to the PC sander will make a huge difference! But . . . as pointed out most shop vacs are LOUD so wear ear protection. I have a Festool CT-22 ( which is fairly quiet) that I hook to my PC 333 and it sucks nearly all the dust, period. In fact, you can pass the sander over the wood when turned off and it acts like a vac attachment.

As for routers, the vac will help some, but not that much. If you have a router with a DC shield (such as Festool) you can pick up a lot of chips when routing a dado, for example, but not so much when the router bit is extended below or outside the piece, as the chips tend to eject toward the floor.

[John Piwaron]

Thanks for a lot of good advise.

For anyone keeping score, I've ordered an air cleaner per one of my recent posts, and SWMBO gave the green light to buying a new saw. The groups advise is not falling on deaf ears.

Now theres more to chew on for taking care of the sanders and routers.

One upcoming task is routing MDF to make some templates. I haven't heard much good about collecting from the router, so this sounds like I'd better do it outdoors when the weather permits. I've routed MDF before. It's an especially dusty job. In fact, it was the only time the router got choked with dust and had to be disassembled to be cleaned.

[Terry Flowers]

I believe that my PC sander is a 333, and the port is not a standard size. Adapters are available (Fein makes a nice step adapter), but PC makes a nice vac hose that fits that and other PC tools (including their bisquit joiner). It is a handy length, flexible and a smaller diameter than some hoses, and therefore less in the way and more maneuverable. The other end of the hose fits a standard size hose, but needs an adapter for my Fein vac.

Contrary to another post, I find my PC ROS sander dust collection to be superb, rivalling my Festool sander. it is virtually dust free.

Terry

[John Piwaron]

I believe that my PC sander is a 333, and the port is not a standard size. but PC makes a nice vac hose that fits. It is a handy length, flexible and a smaller diameter than some hoses, and therefore less in the way and more maneuverable. The other end of the hose fits a standard size hose

Contrary to another post, I find my PC ROS sander dust collection to be superb, rivalling my Festool sander. it is virtually dust free.

Terry

Cool. I'll look for that. Good thing my local Woodcraft has a sale this Friday and Saturday.

[glenn bradley]

I picked up a 2 1/4 to 1 1/4 adapter and hose set at the BORG thinking it would get me by till I got something more flexible. It worked out much better than I thought it would and I have not upgraded yet. IIRC it was about $10.