Help with Festool 150/3 sander

[Mike Reinholtz]

I picked up a Festool 150/3 sander last week after getting hooked by a T55 Tracksaw. I have to say so far I'm very happy with the sander but my question/problem has to do with dust collection. I have a Porter Cable dust collector/Vac that works great on my Bosch sander as well as the Festool track saw but it's not even close to fitting the sander. The sander is threaded (male) and the saw is smooth, which the small PC hose fits perfectly. For those of you that have the Festool dust collectors, is there an adapter I am missing or parts needed to make this work? The sander has a much smaller O.D. than the saw.

[Jim Becker]

Yes, there is an adapter available from Festool to, well...adapt...the hose from your existing vac. It has the flexible rubber end that is necessary to accommodate the variety of dust port shapes on the various Festool tools. Creeker Bob Marino can help you out with that as he's one of the "bestest" Festool dealers on the planet.

One thing to note is that if your vac isn't variable speed, you may need to make provisions to bleed off some SP when you are sanding with finer grits. You don't want the sander to 'stick' to your materials from excess suction. The Festool CT vacs can be dialed down to deal with that.