Peter,

2 more questions:

1. Static?
2. Will the 36mm hose plug right in, or will it require some mod?

Thanks,

Mike

I didn't even use the copper tape they supply, and I have had no static problems. I'm a little surprised, as I did have problems with the older bucket-style DD.

I don't know about the 36 mm hose attachments, as I don't have one. But I'm pretty sure it attaches with fewer problems than the 27 mm hose. I think it just plugs right into the side of the cyclone.

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I don't have as many Festools as Fred. Or Marcou's, or Brese's, or Lie-Nielsen's, or Lee Valley's, or Blue Spruce's, or Harold and Saxon's, or...

The black box is supposed to have carbon as an ingredient so it's should conduct static on it's own. In Paul-Marcel's very dry climate it might need the extra conductor.

The vac connection hub on the 36 mm hose is the same size as the 22 mm hose, which is the same size as the hubs on standard 2-1/4" hoses from the big box stores.

Based on Ron's picture in another thread, I don't think that the boom arm would be any problem with the UDD.

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I don't have as many Festools as Fred. Or Marcou's, or Brese's, or Lie-Nielsen's, or Lee Valley's, or Blue Spruce's, or Harold and Saxon's, or...

CT33 w/boom arm and hose garage:

I don''t think that the carbon content of the UDD's black box does anything to eliminate static buildup from the system. The Festool system consists of hoses and fittings that are made of antistatic materials, and when connected to the vac allow any buildup of static to be discharged. For this to work, all parts from the tool-end fitting all the way to the vac must be made of materials that conduct electricity AND the vac must be plugged into a grounded outlet. Placing a cyclone in this system can interrupt the continuity of the required electrical path that removes the static electricity if certain parts do not conduct electricity, or not well enough. It is the cyclone body, not the UDD's black box, that is inline and, despite being constructed with a static-dissipating material may not conduct electricity well enough to complete this circuit. The hose and/or fittings supplied with the UDD may also not have the necessary antistatic quality to complete this curcuit. The UDD's black box is the least important part of the product to have antistatic properties, as if it were the only non-antistatic part, it would not interrupt the continuity of the electrical path -- it may be beneficial for this black box to also be antistatic, but unless connected to ground, that property is totally useless. So, the parts of the UDD that need to conduct electricity are the cyclone body, the hose that goes from the cyclone to the vac, and all hose fittings.

I'm pretty sure that when we talk about the Festool vacs the terms, anti-static, static dissipating , and "materials that conduct electricity" are all synonymous. The green/black hoses and all the black fittings, and I presume the black parts of the vacs, all contain carbon and conduct electricity just enough to shunt excess static to ground via the power cord.

If I'm right about the black parts of the CT vacs then the carbon fortified DD black box continues the static shunt up to the cyclone. I don't know if the cyclone is static conductive (dissipating, or anti-static) but I don't have much static problem using it and I don't have the black box nor have I run any additional conductor from the cyclone to the vac. But, in my location we only have a few days of extremely dry air in a whole year.

Ron, your setup looks extremely stable. Mine looks like it would fall over easily but it's hasn't yet. If I kept pushing when a wheel ran over a cord it would tip but with the Kord Kicker it just plows cord out of the way.

As Corwin probably remembers, I played with "updating" my UDD by changing the cyclone hose that came with the unit for one of Festool's AS hoses off the boom arm kit. I also added the copper tape to th cyclone body, but not to the detail that Corwin and others have gone to. I agree that in dry climates you'll need to go the extra trouble since others have posted getting shocks with their stock UDD set-up at times.
As for the hoses fitting the cyclone via stock Festool items, the inside of the coupler for the 27mm and the 36mm are different, and so fit the inlet of the UDD cyclone differently in terms of depth/snugness. Someone else posted pictures of this quite nicely, there's a difference in the internal plastic coupler of the hose end between the 2 sizes, so unless you modify either the hose or cut the inlet of the cyclone a bit to change the fit, you may run into a hose being too loose on the inlet.

As POTO said, if you mount a Systainer, or a Sortainer in my case, on the top of your extractor, and your UDD on top of that, THAT'S when you'll need to repair or modify the stock UDD feet or bottom locking tabs to correctly allow the 'sys' to latch onto the UDD box.
Here are two shots of my updated set-up with the first aid sortainer under the UDD, and the boom arm hose added in place of the white hose from Oneida. My basement is the usual cool/damp set-up, so static is the least of my worries....

Attached Thumbnails

   

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Leaky said,

"there's a difference in the internal plastic coupler of the hose end between the 2 sizes, so unless you modify either the hose or cut the inlet of the cyclone a bit to change the fit, you may run into a hose being too loose on the inlet"

I forgot about this and it's probably what Mike had in mind. I cut the inlet port on both my cyclones back about 1/2".