Chips, fines & air
Chips on the floor are a nuisance; the dust you cannot see is why this category matters. Wood dust is classified as a Group 1 carcinogen by the IARC, and the fine fraction is the part that stays airborne. We compare chip collectors against workshop vacuums, cyclone separators and ambient air filters — on airflow, suction and filter class.
Wet and dry · automatic start
A wet-and-dry workshop vacuum with tool-triggered start, at a third of the price of the professional machines here.
Best for: General workshop cleanup and light sanding extraction on a budget
≈ $450 / £255 / 155 €
1 250 W · 120 m³/h · 5 L
A €79 three-in-one extractor that publishes its airflow — and that airflow figure tells you exactly what it is for.
Best for: A single small machine at a time — a sander, a small router, a bench top
≈ $235 / £79 / 79 €
2 × 18 V · 30 L stainless · Ø 36 mm hose · bare tool
A cordless wet and dry vacuum with a 30 litre stainless drum — the machine that goes to the dust rather than waiting for it.
Best for: Site and garage clean-up, and extraction at small tool ports away from a socket
≈ $490 / £155 / 165 €
Spare inner filter for the AC400 two-stage air filter
Not a machine: a replacement filter cartridge, useful only if you already own an AC400 — and 60 per cent dearer in Spain than in Germany.
Best for: AC400 owners replacing a clogged inner cartridge
≈ £25 / 39 €
Chip collector · wheeled · 4 adaptors
A proper chip collector on wheels, with four machine adaptors in the box — the right machine for a planer or a table saw port.
Best for: A planer, a table saw or a band saw with a 100 mm port
≈ $380 / £185 / 140 €
1 200 W · dust class L · semi-automatic filter clean
The professional L-class vacuum with semi-automatic filter cleaning — the feature that stops suction fading halfway through a job.
Best for: Site and workshop extraction where suction has to stay constant all day
≈ £840 / 480 €
Dust class M · automatic filter cleaning
The M-class machine on this page — ten times less fine dust returned to the room, which for hardwood is the whole argument.
Best for: Hardwood work in an enclosed workshop, where the fine fraction is the point
≈ £620 / 580 €
550 W · 1 150 m³/h · 75 L · Ø 100 mm hose
A €169 chip extractor that moves 1 150 cubic metres an hour — and publishes nothing at all about what it filters.
Best for: Feeding a planer, a bandsaw or a table saw in a single-machine workshop
≈ $635 / 170 €
Prices quoted in these summaries are dated readings. The live price is shown next to each product.
