This may be ho-hum to most, however, I received enough feedback to the original post at LJ on 29th. May, 2018, that made me realise I wasn’t the only bunny that didn’t know about this before I read my article.
So here it is again, simple and handy.
In memory of my faithful Hitachi dusty that sadly passed away on the 03/09/2021… out of respect for the family, I won’t disclose whether that was in March or September.
While this may be old hat to most, I've had enough friends (another one today/yesterday) saying that it's a good idea, so I thought it might be worth a shout out.
If you have a shop vac with an automatic outlet and share it amongst a number of tools during the one session, bridge the two with a power outlet plugged into the dusty.
You can then plug each of the power tools into a spare outlet and give them all access to the dusty without dancing the power point shuffle.
No matter which tool you turn on, it will automatically activates the dusty… just don't forget to switch the hose… and watch both ends if you have more than one hose feeding the one dusty.
I use the same concept sharing the same dusty between my 2 mitre saws,
with a gentle reminder sign to get my act together,
which is toggled depending on the status of each saw. This sign is a very recent addition making clean up a less arduous chore…
MY other (central) dusty also has provision for sharing, albeit loosely attached, as it is used to vacuum the full workshop and occasionally used for tools,
If you already perform this practice, there's no need to read this article.
If your first cut is too short... Take the second cut from the longer end... LBD
An early version 2010 still working today I had to put metal tape on it to stop it biting me! $5.00 at the time Yee haa!...I bet its over $20 + now groan!
my auto switching power point died when I tried to run my table saw on it so beware of the load rating on the switch, which is in most cases around 1200W ample for sanding or even synchronized sanding if you used both hands and two ROS at the same time and doing a bottom wiggling for incorporating Zuma exercises, ...but I dont need to see a youtube production thanks!
I noticed that on one of my powerboards that feeds my shop-vac... I plugged in an iron to that common PB to iron out some dings in the timber and it kept tripping the switch when I turned on my ROS.
If your first cut is too short... Take the second cut from the longer end... LBD
Just a side note, Robscastle: Many of the switches sold have less than high quality soldering, so can fail at an easily repaired (re-soldered) joint.
I have an auto switch on my miter. It died about a year in. I was bummed and tossed it, but became curious on its guts, so I broke it loose from the back and was dismayed at the crap quality of the joints. I re-soldered several of them, plugged everything in and it has been going strong two years later.
Most Multi boards have a mechanical over current circuit breaker incorporated in them, identified as a "red" button and should be no more that 10 Amps, over time they become unreliable as well.
The units I had (and there were two of them) were Kemo units, completely potted and good German Engineering too, (almost as good as Hungarian ones)
They were rated to over 2kW but still could not handle the inrush current of my 12" table saw and eventually failed. Being potted made them not able to be inspected or serviced. So when I set off to buy more they were no longer produced. (see the purple Tag on it) There was a whopping 16 Amp Job but it had a prohibitive price, so I ended up resorting to just manually switching on gear.
