Robbo3":15fwoxqz said:
phil.p":15fwoxqz said:
I seem to remember from looking before it's 1400w - it might be different now, of course. I know it was too low for my 1700w router.
I used to run a 3HP (2250w) router powered by the socket on a Nilfisk Alto shop vac without any problems.
You
probably can do that in this case, too, but Lidl/Parkside cannot legally tell you that you can (and neither should I!).
Blame the post-war property rebuilding effort, which gave us our ring main system (because it was slightly less demanding of then-scarce copper), which in turn gave us fuses in plugs and the 13A (or 3kW) limitation. At the time the biggest load that was likely to be plugged-in would have been a room heater or portable electric cooking ring (still is, usually). The rectangular pins used in our mains plugs are nowhere near as good connectors as the old round-pin system, and both the pins/receptacles and the fuses heat up a lot if run at 13A continuously, which is why you often find scorched and blistered sockets in kitchens, where kettles have been plugged into the same place for years. It's also why our system has historically been the root of house fires (e.g. heaters left plugged into adapter sockets unattended overnight).
Conventional fuses, as found in UK plugs, are intended to blow at
double the rated current, mainly to deal with conditions of sudden. massive overload, but not to blow for small current spikes, as produced by induction motors starting up. I've been careful with my Lidl/Parkside vac, not overloading it, but I must have used it for hours at a time connected to a 4-way socket pattress on the end of an extension cable. This means both the vac and the power tool would have been used together without burning out either of the
two fuses in series taking the entire load (one in the 4-way socket block and one in its plug. The vac's plug is irrelevant here).
Honestly, for all but the most powerful tools, it would
probably be fine in practice, but, as I said, neither Lidl nor I can recommend you do it because of the 13A official limitation, per plug. It is not a limitation of the vacuum's design as such.
The third-party sensing switches, such as the ones Axminster and others sell,
may be arranged so that they avoid this limitation but if so they need to electrically isolate two 13A circuits completely from each other (so that the vac's circuit is independent of the tool's), or be permanently wired into the supply, or use a radio system, or something similar. The vacuum-power-take-off socket arrangement, be it Parkside, Vax, Festool, doesn't need the isolation, so can be cheaper, but with the overall current (or power) constraint.
It might be worth mentioning in passing here, that blue or yellow "Commando" plugs are rated at 16A (in the smallest size). They should be current-limited by the breaker of the circuit they're on (not a ring!), so they don't have fuses included. That would give you
nominally 3.84 kW available (again subtract the vac's power to get the power available for the tool).
It then depends on the robustness of the internal voltage- or current-sensing circuit used in the vac's power talke-off socket, which is presently an unknown. Also, obviously, if you then convert back from 16A to a 13A plug to put in the wall, you're back at square one.
And if you do connect a jackhammer and then burn out the vac's electronics or melt the plug or the cable, don't blame me.
Our household currently has two Henries, one old Earlex (workshop) and the older, big Lidl/Parkside (also workshop), and I think the Parkside one is a jolly good 'shop vac for the money. The Earlex was roughly the same price, has a smaller bin, rather less suck, is really noisy, and had to be physically converted to take Nilfisk/Henry hoses (i.e. the standard ones). And it kept falling over as the castors were too small and close together (later ones are better, I believe).
Your mileage, etc.
E.
