Fein Shop Vac

[madman]

It's 'Fein' even though the logo looks a lot like 'Stein' - model 9.55.13

Well over a year ago, I found this in the trash in the alley behind my house. I left it outside in my back yard the whole time since then. In my defense, it seems well suited to shedding water. It was fine after all that time.

Being in lockdown and having time on my hands, I decided to tear into it. I powered it up for the first time, and the motor sounded pretty loud even for a shop vac, I kind of just assumed it needed bearings. I tore it up, and was surprised to find it pretty well built. It has a ton of foam sound insulation. It also has a neat feature that I didn't quite understand until I looked up this vacuum. It has an outlet on it, and you can plug in a power tool, and it will turn the vacuum on automatically whenever you turn on the power tool. That's pretty cool, I've never seen that before. It does have a circuit board, but it it entirely potted in flexible rubber, presumably to protect it. It works, and it also has a bypass switch, that as far as I can tell, is a hard bypass to the circuit board, in case it takes a dump.

The entire machine was caked in drywall dust. It looks like it was used a lot with no filter. All of the sound insulation foam was white with dust. I washed all the foam and everything else. It also looks like it was used often as a wet vac, all the screw heads and fan case were rusty. I've replaced all the screws with stainless steel screws, there's not a lot I can do for the fan case. It was a bear to get it separated from the bakelite motor base.

It's an Ametek motor. I ordered the cheapest skate board bearings I could find. They look exactly like the originals. I bet they're built to the same specs anyway, as they're just standard bearings. Also money is tight right now, so I'm not about to spend $20 on two tiny bearings. I had to take the armature to the shop and use a puller to get the little one off. Also this motor design is annoying because there's no way to hold the armature to unscrew the fan nut. I got it eventually (bent the fan a little). If I was at the shop regularly (lockdown) I would've just put an airgun on it.

The new bearings seem to have helped the noise. Like any shop vac it's loud. I haven't yet tried it with the whole thing assembled with the sound insulation to hear the noise level.

I think someone has been in this vacuum before, because the wire polarity was reversed. Further, the ground pin on the plug was missing, I assume someone ripped it out when they discovered the polarity problem. So I replaced the plug, too.

After looking up this vac, I'm pleased to find that it's a $400 vacuum. And that power tool on/off feature is pretty cool, and I could see myself using it when I'm doing house remodeling stuff (like I have been for the past 7 months). I will definitely be keeping this one. To think, some idiot abused then threw away a $400 shop vac, and all it needed was a couple of bearings, a plug, and some patience.

 

[vacuumdevil]

My dad had one of these years ago and his shop I remember it being rather quiet and pleasant. It turned on with a bandsaw and sucked sawdust. if memory serves me right the filters can be kind of hard to find probably easier now with the internet.

Would love to see a video of it running when he get it back together.

 

[madman]

I ventured out of the house today and picked up a filter for craftsman shop vacs (it's about an inch too long, but livable), and some bags... $33! The bearings and the replacement plug together were under $10 I suppose I might've saved a couple bucks buying on amazon, but then I'd have to wait a couple weeks.

It is not the quietest vacuum. But it is a shop vac. It's still not that banshee screech you get from most big shop vacs, but it's still loud. A crappy sound level meter app on my phone claimed it was 90db at 5 feet away, but I'm not entirely convinced of that. Also, the acoustics of the basement are probably not ideal. It has a noise that is only from the plastic housing vibrating, if you hold it still it goes away. I think I might try to mitigate that by putting foam weatherstripping tape between the mating surfaces of the plastic housings.

Though it does seem like the motor is a bit off balance. Not entirely sure why. The fan case is rusted together, so I can't really look at one of the fan blades and the stator. It's entirely possible either part is caked in drywall dust and throwing it out of whack.

 

[miskini]

That is a sweet vacuum. I own a building & woodworking company and we have our fair share of fein tools. All of our dust extractors are festool. Would like to add a fein.

 

[madman]

So I tore it down again. This time I actually beat the fan case open and examined the blades. They were absolutely CAKED in plaster dust. I swear it looks like someone used this as a wet vac, then immediately sucked up drywall dust with no filter. See the plaster in the fan blade in pic #1. That was definitely causing the fan blades to be off balance. That was the vibration and noise I was getting. (Likely it did not even need bearings lol) I did check the fan blades for balance - after a thorough cleaning - and they are not perfect. Not bad, but not 100%, maybe like 98%. But they're so lightweight that I'm not sure it matters much.

While I had it open again, I sandblasted the badly rusted fan case (pic #2), then primed and painted it. Sorry, forgot to take a pic of the painted unit. It looks good in (ironically) rust red. It should be obvious that this machine was used as a wet vac often.

About the filter: this machine takes some oddball filter, and who wants to deal with that? Not to mention I'd need some parts like an end cap and a retainer type thing... that I don't have. The filter I got is apparently a (generic brand) Craftsman Red Stripe - for any who might be interested. I got that one as opposed to the generic shop vac filter because the generic shop vac filter is about two inches too long, compared to the Craftsman being only one inch too long. It fits snugly, but I didn't have any kind of retaining device to hold it in, and to cover the bolt hole in the bottom of the filter.

See pic #3 for what I came up with. I took a 3/8" bolt, about 2.5" or 3" long, and I cut the head into a T shape to fit into the slot. It did work, but the bolt head could've been a bit wider, so I took it to the shop and welded onto the wings, and ground it down again to slightly more exacting specifications. The white thing in the picture is a plastic nut from a toilet water supply, I think, and it makes a good spacer to take up that extra inch between the filter and the bottom of the filter holding device (pic #4). Then there's a wing nut locked in place with a regular nut on the end of the bolt, that allows me to put the T shaped end in the slot and rotate to lock it. The loose wing nut in the middle allows me to take up the slack afterwards, there's a rubber grommet under it to give friction to keep it from unscrewing, and provides some air seal. A washer under that fills any gap over the hole in the filter. It works well enough, even if it's a bit complicated.

I reassembled it and sure enough it's much quieter now. Decibel meter claims 81-83db at 5 feet. Still not sure I believe that. It's about as loud as my Shark Rocket upright (which is quieter than quite a few uprights). I'm quite pleased, actually. I've got a $400 actually-quiet shop vac for about $40 and some elbow grease. One man's trash, amiright?