I’ve got a serious dust problem in the garage shop and I finally took a step towards conquering the problem.  Say hello to my new JET Air Filtration System (AFS-1000B).  I saw that Rockler (and apparently many other woodworking stores) were running a sale on JET products so I figured now was as good a time as any to pick up the unit.  It’s pretty straightforward…nothing weird about setup or installation…pretty much just plug and play!  As many other reviews have stated, the only thing that could be tricky is lifting the unit for mounting, but lucky for me I have an awesome wife who can lend a hand when I need it  🙂

So here’s the unit in the box, and pulled out of the box.  Pretty exciting, right?

 

The handles on the sides of the unit proved to be very helpful and their placement closer to the heavier end of the unit was well thought out:

 

Here’s the back side where all the clean air comes out:

 

This is the clip that holds the removable filter in place:

 

The remote is….in one word….awesome.  The remote turns on and turns off the unit.  It also has the 3 speed selection as well as the timer feature which is nice to come into the shop and you can just select 2, 4, or 8 hours and forget about it.  I have found that you need to aim the remote right at the unit for best remote control performance.  No biggie.

 

Parts in the box (other than the unit and manual) include mounting brackets, screws and nuts, washers, bolts for hanging the unit, some adhesive pads, velcro for the remote and a couple AAA batteries.

 

Hanging the unit was actually pretty easy with a helper.  After measuring and installing some bolts in the ceiling joists, I hung chain from each and cut to length.  Then I lifted and held the 60 pound unit over my head while my wife moved around on the ladder hooking the chain to the unit.  Hanging the unit took about 15 minutes.

So far so good on this little monster!  Even though I knew the dimensions ahead of time, it still seemed pretty big when I got it (my garage shop is about 20×19).  That’s fine with me though.  It’s also surprisingly quiet.  Don’t get me wrong, you can definitely hear it but at the low speed it’s almost unnoticeable…at the medium speed you do notice it…and at the high speed you definitely know there’s a unit running, BUT it’s not bad at all.  I really expected it to be much louder, and it’s also very stable with pretty much no vibration/shake.  Blowing some dust in the direction of the unit I could easily see it get sucked into the filter.  If you don’t have one, go get one.

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