I have the above sander, I like it but I'm not happy with the shop vac hose adaptor. The hose end doesn't fit any shop vac hoses I have but no big deal, I got around that with some duct tape and scrap plastic pipe I had laying around. But the attachment to the sander sucks. It has a pair of clips that hold the adapter to the sander and they are way too easy to break. My first one broke years ago and I got by with duct tape to hold it on for years until about a year and a half ago when I bought an OEM replacement which just broke today. Had a look at the Bosch Canada website and they have 4 comments on the adapter, 3 out of 4 complained about the clips breaking, one guy said the clips broke the first time he installed the adapter. These reviews are two years old, lot's of time for Bosch to redesign and come up with a more durable solution.
Anyone else have this issue? Any better solution out there other than buying another OEM replacement at $11.25 CND? I'm sure this would be a good candidate for a redesigned version using a 3D printer with a set of beefier clips . Since I don't have access to a 3D printer I'm considering drilling a hole thru the adapter and the nozzle on the sander and threading the hole in the nozzle so I can secure it with a machine screw. Any other suggestions?
I also have a filter which I use when I'm not connecting it to my shop vac. Interesting, the filter clips on the same way as the adapter, but on the filter the part which broke on the adapter is about 3 times wider and I've never had it fail. Bosch could easily redesign the adapter clip so it was the same size as the one on the filter.
Here are a couple pictures of it, and a picture of my proposed solution obviously the attachment point of the clip to the body is way too small.
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