I’ve been running a 4x8 RC1325 for about a year now, mostly nested cabinet parts in MDF and prefinished ply, and the dust side has quietly turned into the bottleneck. On a 12 mm compression bit running full depth I get a visible cloud coming off the cut and chips left sitting in the corners of the pockets, so extraction is clearly behind what the tool is doing.
What I can’t pin down is how much airflow this machine actually needs. I’ve been told everything from 800 CFM to 2000 CFM and the spread is wide enough that I don’t trust any of it.
What I’ve already been through: swapped the last 3 m of flex hose for rigid pipe, re-sealed a blast gate that was leaking, emptied and re-bagged the filters, and pulled the impeller to check for buildup. All of that bought me maybe 10 percent. The run from the machine to the collector is around 9 m with two 90 degree elbows in 150 mm duct.
So how do you size this? One big unit, or two smaller ones staged so the zoning actually works? Does the zoning change the number at all? I’d rather ask than buy the wrong thing twice.
