Ok, most people that buy this dust collector will probably not use it as much as I do so I might be a little harsh giving it just four starts BUT this might be something you need to think about. I run a small one man cabinet shop and I have a double drum sander. I put this dust collector right next to my Shop Fox 26" dust collector so that it would have maximum cfm pull on it and it works but with the 30 micron bags this has on it a lot of the dust just passes right by the bags. It's bad enough I feel like I'm going to die the next morning when I'm hacking all that junk back up. Not fun.
Anyway, if you plan on ever getting a semi-large sander you may want to get a canister dust collector or a cyclone dust collector with high enough cfm to cover the tools you plan on getting, otherwise you'll be selling this on craigslist for a hundred bucks and shop fox doesn't make a canister dust collector yet. SHOP FOX W1685 1.5-Horsepower 1,280 CFM Dust Collector
This machine is fantastic. The warranty is good too. I hooked this up to my thickness planer and man let me tell you "this thing really sucks"....but this is a good thing.
I shopped all over for this and Amazon has the best price. Free shipping helps but it did take a little while but it is very heavy so no complaints.
If you are looking for a well built central vac system for your shop then you have found it. I highly recommend this as your major dust remover and a great place to start for your system. I plan on hooking this up to numerous machines now that I see its performance and abilities.
The SHOP FOX is a great dust collector...quiet and powerful machine. The price is also excellent. The only problem I had was the directions...It was terrible. Luckily, I have a lot of patience but this instruction pushed me to the limit. I was able to put it together but took a long time. Other than that it works excellent.
A dust collector was something I always knew I would need once I started woodworking, but it was one of the later purchases I made. I'm happy I ended up with this one.
I originally was shopping around for the Grizzly 1.5HP that would work with 110/220V. When I ordered it, it was out of stock for a couple months. It was at that point that I remembered the "Shop Fox" name, as Grizzly sells some of their equipment as well. I ordered one first for my neighbor who was in the market for a collector, and when I saw how nice his was, I ordered the same unit. The best part is, I found this unit on Amazon for the same price as the grizzly shipped to my door overnight.
The setup of the unit took 20-30 minutes. It was fairly straightforward, although moving the motor around was interesting because of it's weight. It might have been helpful to have someone hold it while I was putting in the nuts/bolts. The instructions were basically a list of parts, and pictures of what to do. I was able to figure it out without much trouble.
The reason I was originally staying away from the 115v units was because of the power draw. This machine powers up with roughly a 16 amp draw, so it really needs it's own circuit, although once it's running, you can run smaller tools on the same circuit. I like the flexibility of moving the machine around the shop without worrying about having a 220v outlet everywhere for it.
As for the construction of the machine, it's definitely solid. The pipe that holds up the bags is solid enough that I don't worry about it folding. When moving it around, I like to make sure I push directly on the base, because I don't want any more strain on the bags than needed.
The air movement is also very good. I use both 4" inlets with one going to my Grizzly 1023SLW table saw, and the other as kind of a "floater" to handle other tools such as my Planer, router tables, and miter saw. I use the shop fox blast gates to shut off one or the other, but the flow is enough that I rarely have to. The airflow is strong enough that if I put the 4" hose behind my Bosch Mitersaw, it will suck small pieces of wood right off the table if you're not careful.
This machine gives a great bang for the buck, and is recommended for any small time woodworker like myself.
this little unit has a very nice small footprint. It comes with casters so you can move it around the shop or out of your way if need be, it went together in about 45 mins....yours may be faster as mine required some tweaking of the motor bracket in order to bolt it down. The unit though load is quite compared to other things like a shap vac for instence...it hums a long and it is amazing how much this unit can suck up before you need to clean out the bag. Why didn't I buy this sooner?...The one star knocked off is for the motor braket issue and also i was missing one bolt (thank god for the bolt jar right...lol) i have this unit hooked up to a table saw and a planer...i have not had much success hooking this unit up to my compound miter yet but thats my next project...can't seem to catch as much with that system as I like ...but on the table saw and the planer it was really heaven. I planned about 500 linear feet of 1x5 rough down smooth both sides and then changed the bag...just awesome..and most importantly it got it all....a quick note once running its a light draw so you can run this and a saw lightly on the same circut...just no 5/4 oak ok....enjoy
I previewed a whole group of dust collectors before making this purchase. I was very close to purchasing the 220V model that has a little more CFM, but due to the extra cost of running another 220V curcuit I changed my mind, and i'm glad i did.The 1.5 HP is plenty and the 1280 CFM is more vacuum than i expected. So far this unit has preformed with out any issues and isn't as noisey as the shop vac's that i was using. I read some where that, when your shop looks like a show room for shop vac's you need a dust collector, LOL. I would recomend this unit to any one or two man shop and by purchacing through Amazon.com I was able to save money and it was delivered sooner than some of the other venders offered. Thanks Amazon.com and thanks Shop Fox for an excellant machine that is preforming above expectations.
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