Thread: Which shop vacuum ?

Quiet? I doubt any of them. I know the Aldi one needs earplugs to use for any length of time, I'm guessing these will be similar.

Make sure which one you buy has a power point on it so you can run you power tool on

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Originally Posted by harry wall

I saw some wet and dry vacuums in Bunnings and wondered which (if any) would be a quiet and effective choice for cleaning up my workshop.

If you mean picking up chips, then they will all be effective, but all of them will recycle the finer dust as it will pass straight through the filters to fill your air until it settles out all over the place. To make matter worse their motor cooling loops produce even more fine dust by mincing coarse dust into fine dust. My testing shows that using these types of vacs will contaminate the air in most DIY sheds well above OHS levels within a couple of minutes of use.

To get around this you would need to spend a lot more and get a proper HEPA vac ( and even then maybe not get proportional results) or you could put the vac outside and reticulate the shed with 50 mm ducting and tap into that. This also solves the noise problem at the same time.

The other option is to put the money towards improving your shed dust collection at source of the dust generation. This is better for you health wise as it cleans up as you make the dust and doesn't depend upon you cleaning up your shed.

FWIW I have the RYobi and its loud - I don't use it inside my shed but inside the house and connect a hose to the outlet and dangle that outside a window.

Originally Posted by coffenup

Make sure which one you buy has a power point on it so you can run you power tool on

I don't recommend this.
For a start it limits the power available to the Vacuum cleaner and the tool.
If the vac is 1500W then the most you can run on top of that is about an 800W tool. This rules out using something big sanders like a big sander or router.
The best thing to do is to gets as powerful a Vac as possible and run that on one circuit (i.e. 2000+W) then run the large power tool on a separate circuit.

The other thing is the vac should not be turned off as the same time as the tool. The vac should be left ON well after the tool is turned off to help clear residual dust. For a vacuum cleaner I would leave it on for as long as you can stand the noise.

The shopvacs fitted with power points are very effective in my experience though I use them with power tools not large machines. Also, mine continues to run for (I think) 10-15 seconds after the tool's turned off.

10-15 seconds?? Which one do you have?
My Festool vacs don't even make 5 seconds after the tool is off

Originally Posted by coffenup

Make sure which one you buy has a power point on it so you can run you power tool on

Originally Posted by BobL

I don't recommend this.
For a start it limits the power available to the Vacuum cleaner and the tool.
If the vac is 1500W then the most you can run on top of that is about an 800W tool. This rules out using something big sanders like a big sander or router.
The best thing to do is to gets as powerful a Vac as possible and run that on one circuit (i.e. 2000+W) then run the large power tool on a separate circuit.

The other thing is the vac should not be turned off as the same time as the tool. The vac should be left ON well after the tool is turned off to help clear residual dust. For a vacuum cleaner I would leave it on for as long as you can stand the noise.

Absolutely agree with Bob. I do have a vac that will take a 1500w tool, and I almost never run a tool off the outlet - perhaps when I'm outside and outlets are scarce. There are a number of reasons for this:
1. As bob said, the vac needs to run significantly longer than what the manufacturer thinks is ok.
2. If you are running a duct system off the vac, as I do, then the vac needs to run even longer still. (and having a ducted system is the lizard's gizzards!)
3. For repetitive work, such as multiple cuts on the mitre saw, the constant start stop start stop of the vac is very irritating to myself, and I'm sure the neighbours. Better to leave it as a constant noise because that becomes ignored after not very long. I even do this during sanding when I'm changing discs quite frequently - the discs I use are super quick to change.
4. To run tools off the vac is a bit of a PITA - have to constantly change the cords into the vac. With a ducted system I just flick a blast-gate, and most of the tools are always plugged in. I do this even for using the hose on the floor - the hose has its own separate blast-gate.

This is one of the tools that you need to throw some money and effort at, as it it is a critical piece of machinery for your long term health. Bob may not like this part, but it's probably more important than a DC in most shops - but that's just because it will be the most used in most shops - that's just the way it is. On my mitre saw and router table I use the VC and the DC at the same time.

Also, try to use bigger hoses than what is usually specified. For example, Festool recommends 27mm hoses for most of their tools, but 36mm hoses deliver a far superior result, especially at collecting fine dust. The hole of the INSERTED 27mm fitting chokes it down to 19mm, but the 36mm fitting goes OUTSIDE the or over the machine port which yields a 36mm (in the case of my mitre saw anyway). That represents ~3.5 times the cross sectional area (36mm compared to 19mm).

Unfortunately my thread on the ducted vac system got the pics deleted in a forum upgrade so the text doesn't make much sense now, but you can see the pics without captions in the album:
https://www.woodworkforums.com/members/62924-albums-1114

Maybe time to do an upgraded thread on vac ducting?

Originally Posted by elanjacobs

My Festool vacs don't even make 5 seconds after the tool is off

No, and you'd think with all their "Smarter Faster Better" guff that they'd make it variable from 0 to say 30 seconds, wouldn't you?

A couple of options here.

Buy any of the three. You'll be happy. And when you reach your mid 50s to 60 buy a couple of hearing aids. (DAMHIKT)
Buy the Ozito and buy HEPA filter replacement and a good set of hearing protection ear muffs.

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

No, and you'd think with all their "Smarter Faster Better" guff that they'd make it variable from 0 to say 30 seconds, wouldn't you?

You'd also think that they'd make sure their locking mechanisms locked properly out of the box

Originally Posted by elanjacobs

You'd also think that they'd make sure their locking mechanisms locked properly out of the box

Yup.

Originally Posted by elanjacobs

10-15 seconds?? Which one do you have?
My Festool vacs don't even make 5 seconds after the tool is off

Maybe I'm wrong mate. I never bothered timing it ... I just know it keeps running long enough for me to notice

It should be relatively easy to extend the shutoff time though these days with everything integrated, maybe there are no accessible electronics

Originally Posted by seriph1

The shopvacs fitted with power points are very effective in my experience though I use them with power tools not large machines..

Two power tools that won't run for long on a 1500W Vac on a 10A circuit are the bigger (2200W) Triton router or the large 100mm Makita belt sander (1200W) .

10-15 seconds is nowhere near enough, i'd say 10 minutes is more like it but no one would put up with that and I'm the same which is another reason I don't use vacs inside my shed.

Thanks guys (& gals?).
FYI the Karcher $399 runs for 5 seconds when an attached tool (eg: a sander) is turned off. This is from the manual:
Note: As soon as the electric tool is
switched on, the suction turbine starts with
a 0.5 second delay. If the electric tool is
switched off, the suction turbine continues
to run for approx. 5 seconds in order to vacuum
up the remaining dirt in the suction
hose.
Although the Bunnings website says the Karcher is "2000W" the specs I see from Karcher say it is 1300W. Can anyone throw any light on that discrepancy?

Given the Karcher is the more powerful of the three I listed, I guess it can be placed outside the shed and it may be strong enough to vacuum through a 4m run of say 50mm PVC in the shed. Would I be correct ?

BTW.... the vacuum will be used mostly for cleaning dirt and sawdust off the floor. I have separate dust collection for each main machine (jointer, thicknesser, band saw, sander) via a modified 2HP Carbatec dust extractor.
Sometimes (and outside the shed) I will connect the new shop vacuum to a random orbital sander to minimise dust flying around. I realise it is not perfect but I also wear a P2 type dust mask. I'm sure the new vacuum, whatever it is, will do a better job than my 20 yr old ex house vacuum cleaner.