Senior Moment

Mar 30, 2015 6 Replies

A while back I bought a workshop vac from Lidl, the type with the power tak e-off for power tools. As well as using it for vac duties I got it to use a s a dust extractor for my mitre saw. So duly hooked up the hose to the outl et on the saw and plugged the saw into the power take-off, the vac switches on every time the saw is powered. However, after a while I noticed the amo unt of dust around the saw seemed as bad as ever, I never expected it to to tally suck up all the dust but it should have done better.



By chance today I was cleaning up the laser housing on the saw only to noti ce that where the outlet port for the dust extraction was had a blanking pl ate across it, Doh! So all's well now and most of the dust is being extract ed



In mitigation for my stupidity what I cannot understand is why blank off an extraction port? Even if you were not going to use it the sh*t was going e verywhere anyway!



Richard


Richard

...

The idea is supposed to be that the port is so positioned so as to pick up most of the dust flying off the blade. With a lesser amount going underneath. With the port open and no hose you'd get a concentrated stream pumping out the back. You could always try it with the port open and without the hose to see if they've got this right, I suppose.

michael adams

...

My Ryobi electric planer has a debris collection bag that can be fitted to either side of the body. You have to turn a knob to switch between left and right, in the *opposite* direction to the side the bag is fitted.

And I use the tool so infrequently that I get it wrong initially every bloody time...

Er, have you not got a marker pen to put an arrow on the body indicating which direction the chips will go for a given position of knob?

Might be worth a try I s'pose.

The switch is labelled L and R referring to the side the bag is fitted viewed from the rear but the switch is towards the front so you don't see the labelling unless you turn the plane round and even then the 'which left?'uncertainty kicks in. It's Sod's Law that given a 50:50 chance, the messiest outcome will prevail.

In article , nemo writes

If you run it briefly in the air before using it in anger do you not get a draught on the selected port, telling you which divert is on and which off?

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