Erika 85 Ec dust collection

Well after breaking down a full sheet of MDF into small parts this weekend I think I've formed my opinion on the dust collection of the Erika 85 connected to a Festool CT vacuum.

To get right to it, I have to say I'm a little dissapointed. It's not bad, but I expected better.

With the pull function the motor and sawblade ride in an aluminion extrusion that extends all the way from the front to the back of the saw as you can see in the picture below.

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There are 2 seperate black plastic covers that cover approx 80% of this dust channel extrusion. A small one that's approx 15cm long and the other approx 70cm. You should slide them both all the way to the back. 

As you can see in the picture, they can't cover the entire length of the channel, which struck me as weird at first.

But after using the saw and having a good look underneeth, I realised that's OK and it was intended this way.

When you pull the sawblade forward, the red plastic blade shroud, covers that part of the channel. Since the shroud follows the curve of the blade ends up inside the part of the channel that is covered with the black covers, so all good.

As I said, the covers are 2 seperate pieces so you slide can them apart and clean out any blockages of the channel in case that should happen.

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Mafell also thought of a very neat solution to close off this dust channel at the top when you pull the saw forward. At the back of the saw there's this flexible rolled up metal, much like their flexible track for the KSS300 I would assume, that gets unrolled as you pull the saw forward and rolls back up when you release. Thus creating a nice closed off, but not airtight seal of the channel to retain suction. See video below.

In the back of the dust channel there's a 36mm dust port. I assume they made this a 36mm dust port and not a 50mm one because they a) want to split the airflow of a single vac to the blade shroud on the table top. (If it were bigger all the airflow would simply be lost to the main channel.) And b) Probably because the momentum of the saw blade propels most of the dust into the curved blade shroud through the extrusion dust channel towards the dust port anyway.

Below are some pictures that give you a look inside the dust channel.

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Another thing that has me thinking is the blade shroud on the table top. First of all it has this weird diameter to which I havent found any other hoses to fit other than what Mafell provides.

I've covered the hole in front of the arbor for blade changes with some duct tape. There's also a series of slots at the front of the blade shroud. I don't know what they're for, maybe they're to improve dust collection at the point where the blade cuts the wood? I don't know.

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When using a single vacuum and and thus splitting the suction between the cabinets main channel and the table top shroud, I noticed there was very very little suction there on the table top shroud.

So you will only capture the most minute of particles that would otherwise get airborne there. It can't grab any of the larger visible particles and chips. So unless you really lower your blade and the shroud to cover the cut, you can expect to get some dust spray there.

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1st picture shows the supplied splitter.

2nd picture shows how a 50mm Festool hose fits loosely in the connector. 2 to 3 wraps of electrical tape makes it a snug fit.

3rd picture shows how the airflow is split to go both in the main dust channel and up to the blade guard on top of the table with the smaller hose.

4th picture shows how a 36mm Festool hose fits perfectly on the the dust port of the Erika.

I've noticed though that most of the dust on the top of the table is being blown out again at the riving knife!! I'm going to look for some kind of flexible bristles or something in that nature to furhter close off the entire blade shroud closer to the underside of the table top and see if that changes anything.

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You can see there's a small gap around the riving knife and it's there it throws out a lot of dust. You can clearly see the MDF stuck to the grease that's on the riving knife.

Anyway, a single vac isn't adequate in my opinion, or it simply needs a stronger vacuum than my Festool/Protool CT, to have a really clean table saw you could use inside someone's home.

I've ran some quick tests using 2 vacuums yesterday and obviously the suction and dust collection improved noticeably.

My solution as thus, will be to use 2 vacuums on the Erika. I therefore would have liked to see a 50mm dust port at the main channel to allow even more suction to reach the blade shroud. And I would have liked to see a larger 36mm port on the blade shroud on the table top.

From what I've seen after cutting a sheet of MDF there's was a fair bit of residue left inside the channel. When using the pull function, the blade shroud pushes this residue out of the channel through the hole in the front (the part of the extrusion that isn't covered up with a black plastic cover) So yes the channel gets cleaned out this way, but what isn't sucked out by the vacuum falls down to the ground, at the front, under the saw. It isn't airborne, but it's still there.

(Now that I'm writing this down, I realise I should get some more picture and or videos if possible to go along with this post. So I'll try to do so later on whenever possible.)

I do realise this is a portable jobsite saw and expectations should be accordingly. More to follow as time goes on.