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Would you ever want the festool boom setup. If so you may want a ct26 sized dust extractor vs the mini. If yo know you are gettnganother sander they have combo pricing discounts that mght be worth waiting a bit longer for vs just buyng their shopvac next week.
Glad its my shop I am responsible for - I only have to make me happy.
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Rick,
I have quite a few dust extractors and have had and sold a few more. I have a Fein, Festool CT midi, several Rigid shop vacs and a wall mounted central vac unit designed for a whole house. I have had and sold one of the Dewalt and Proter Cable models. My favorite hands down is the CT midi. I opted for it to get the little bit of additional capacity over the mini and the cost difference wasn't that big. I use the CT for my sanders so I wasn't real concerned about the capacity which is why I didn't get one of the bigger units. The thing has loads of power when you turn the power up but it is still very quite. I would say it has more suction than even my large Rigid vacs. When the power is turned down to use with the sander the sound of the air coming in the hose is louder than the vacuum motor. If you wanted to pair it with one of the pre separators it will work really well too. I also really like the self cleaning bags. It seems to maintain is power. The Festool vacuums are expensive as are most of the other vacs labeled dust extractors. Not all Festool products are head and shoulders better than their competition but in this case I think you get what you pay for. If I got a fantastic deal on another brand unit I might consider buying one but unless there was a deal I couldn't pass up I'd buy the Festool every time
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Location: Southern California
The midi also takes a stack of systainers for your sanders and other tools. Don't know about the mini. I never saw myself getting anything more than the tracksaw - which got used outside for sheet breakdown. Well now I have the vac, 2 sanders and a router. Stuff multiplies.
Thanks, Curt
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"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."
-- Soren Kierkegaard