$1000 Upgrade, 2 Fein's & a Milwakee?

[mnrite]

I have a two year old Alpha with a PC router and a single Ridged vac. I have a buget of $1000 to upgrade the system, and I think my best option would be 2 Fein Turbo III vacs and a Milwakee router. Anyone have other suggestions. I cut small plywood parts, some full melamine sheets, signs, a variety of stuff. I will be at IWF next week if there is something I should check out before the upgrade.

Thanks
Mike

[richards]

I have two Fein Turbo III vacs and a 3-hp spindle. The 2nd Fein Turbo didn't do much for me. If I had it to do over again, I would stick with just one Fein. There is no increase in holding, just an increase in air flow (leakage allowed). At about 5-inches of mercury (2-1/2 lbs per square inch), I don't think that there is enough vacuum to warrant the use of more than one Fein. By the way, the single Fein works very well for large, cabinet sized parts, especially if I leave a skin to trim away with a laminate trimmer. For small parts, I always turn to my GAST vacuum and AllStar tape.

[patricktoomey]

I run 2 vacs mainly to get the extra airflow to hold down warped sheets of plywood. 9 out of 10 sheets I get I can run with one vac. Once in a while though I get a sheet that's a little too warped and I kick on the 2nd vac for the extra flow to help suck it down. The truth is, once it's down one will usually hold it but the 2nd one gives me a boost to get all the corners down. Unless you are doing tons of work with plywoods that tend to warp like prefinished birch, the 2nd vac probably isn't necessary. I don't cut too much in the way of bare MDF, I'm wondering if that would require 2 vacs since it's porous enough to let lots of air through it. Whenever I've run bare MDF I've run both vacs just in case but maybe it would hold fine with only one on.