Suck it up buttercup

The other day I had to do a job for work that required me to drill holes into concrete. This of course creates a lot of mess. Unfortunately, while I do have a great wet and dry vacuum cleaner that I use in my workshop it is corded and useless for working anywhere other than the workshop.

So I took a trip to Bunnings and purchased an Ozito vacuum. The majority of my battery gear in my workshop is Ozito for the specific reason that I often shop at Bunnings. That's mostly because Bunnings seems to have more of what I need at better prices than Mitre10. Ozito is made by the same people who make AEG, Rigid, and I think they have some sort of tie with Ryobi but I'm not a fan of Ryobi. But now I have a battery operated vacuum which is what I've been needing for a while due to my workshop being limited in power. My workshop is entirely powered by a 25m extension lead that runs between the house and the workshop. The more I can move over to battery the better. And because my battery gear is Ozito... well decision made.

So I get this vacuum and set it up on the job site and didn’t pay particular attention to the inlet and when I switched it on all the dust got blown everywhere. I’d plugged the hose into the outlet and so my vac became a blower. Oops. Sucks to be the guy in the van parked beside me.

The vac performed well. After about 1/2 to 3/4 of an hour running non-stop the battery finally made it to 1 lighten my 4.0mAh battery. That’s pretty good considering the energy needed to spin that motor. Happy so far.

When I got home I put it into the shed and right in front of me I saw my current cyclonic setup made from an old Shop-Vac branded vacuum. I blew that one up after I ran it without the filter and the dust got in and killed the motor. But looking at the system I had and the fact I now have a new vacuum it kind of made sense to get rid of the old Shop-Vac bucket and use the 30l bucket from my current Ozito. Luckily the lid I made for the cyclonic system fitted the 30l bucket and so literally my upgrade was changing a lid.

The advantage of this new setup is that because my existing vacuum is Ozito and my new vacuum is Ozito I can once again use my Ozito hoses and attachments which I couldn’t do with my Shop-Vac bucket. This means all my Ozito tools can attach to the cyclonic system properly again. Yay, more efficient dust collection. Given that any woodwork shop generates dust by the tonne on any given project better collection is safer.

All in all my greater plan to move my workshop to battery is coming along nicely. Ozito just released a Power Exchange heat gun which I’ll move to as soon as they become available. Unfortunately Bunnings NZ is behind Australia in terms of getting the Ozito stuff which sucks so it could be months until we see that. I’m still waiting on the Power Exchange Glue Gun being released here. That just leaves the Trim Router to be moved to Power Exchange. I’m not holding out hope for the Sliding Compound Mitre Saw. They have one but it’s too small. My one is 254mm and the current Power Exchange one is only 210mm and is not a sliding saw. Given the ability to square off a 300mm piece is quite handy I won’t be moving my existing mitre saw just yet.

I won’t move my circular saw to Power Exchange either. Despite being the same size I use my circ saw in my Triton Workcentre and so having it corded is actually a safety feature because I can use the knee guard to shut off the saw or router depending what I’ve got installed at the time.

All in all my workshop plan is slowing coming together. My next project will be a mitre saw stand with foldout wings for stop blocks and support etc. Looking forward to that build but I need to create Fusion360 plans first based on my own saw. I’ll also add a dust chute to that because even with a vac most mitre saws shoot the dust away from the vac port which is moronic when you think about it.

Watch this space.