Jet DC-650 Question

[Randy Meijer]

UPS just dropped off a DC-650 from Redmond in Atlanta. While looking over the manual, I discovered a spec that puzzles me. It says that the "VELOCITY" is 7480 CFM. I assume that CFM stands for cubic feet per minute and if so, that is "NOT" a unit of velocity. Can anyone clarify this spec for me, please?

I called Jet; but as is usually the case, either you get a recording(most of the time) or you get someone who doesn't have a clue and promises to get back to you.

[Jim Becker]

I am thinking this is a major misprint...it should likely be something like FPM for velocity and at that, only under idea/free-air situations. The "rating" for the unit is 650 CFM at free air. You will likely only get about 300-350 CFM tops through a short 10' 4" hose. That would be consistent with my experience with the same unit back in 1999 prior to moving to this property and moving to a cyclone. It worked fine as a chip collector off of a single tool at a time, although it had trouble keeping up with the planer when working on wide stock. You will want to move it from machine to machine for best results.

[Randy Meijer]

If we assume that only the units are incorrect, then the number works out to 85 MPH or 125 ft/sec. Whether those numbers are reasonable or not is something I can't judge,

Thanks, Jim!! My "shop" is a single stall garage and is equipped with a table saw, a drill press, a mini lathe, a small compressor, a couple of small bench tools and a meat smoker. The DC will only have to service the lathe and the TS and it will only require moving the hose as the DC will be located between the saw and the lathe. Not a terribly high-tech set-up; but perfectly adequate for my needs.

[Jim Becker]

Randy, that was exactly the same kind of environment I used the DC-650, too. It worked fine for what I wanted at the time and for the space I had to do it!

[Randy Meijer]

When I couldn't get a satisfactory answer from the JET CS people, I wrote them an email.....got tired of wasting my time hanging on the phone listening to their crappy music. The response to my email came today and they want me to call them again; because they want to ask "ME" some questions......go figure??? I hope others have had better luck with JET CS. I've called them 6 or 8 times in the past couple of years and have never gotten a fully satisfactory resolution without multiple tries.

Anyway, I was looking over some other Jet literature and found a spec sheet on all of the current DCs. Jims speculation was correct.....the figure should have been 7480 FPM!!! For those that may be interested, JET has units that go from 3/4 HP up to 3 HP. The volume runs from 610 CFM to 1900 CFM and the velocities go from 6200 FPM to 21,839 FPM. At the high end, that is 250 MPH.....that's a Class 5 hurricane or an F4 tornado if you are lucky enough to live in Texas where we get both???