Thread: Budget Shop Vacuum Suggestions

Originally Posted by j4r0d

Instead of venting it out, which requires building modifications and which sounds environmentally/neighborly non-helpful, can we just make a contraption to make the air damp instead?

So you want to actively encourage mould and rust?

I worked for a company that had a back to back downdraft table that used water to trap the metal dust but the reason they bought it was because they had a few fires in the filters of the conventional downdraft tables. They worked really well but I can't tell you how it was done because i was never around to watch maintenance clean them up. After the water bath there were water impinging filters to keep the water from getting to the impeller. Here is the link. Hydrotron Wet Dust Collectors Maybe there is something on the site that will satisfy your curiosity. There was't any mould but the water level window was green with algae sometimes when maintenance was overdue.

Pete

Originally Posted by j4r0d

---trim---
Instead of venting it out, which requires building modifications and which sounds environmentally/neighborly non-helpful, can we just make a contraption to make the air damp instead?

This does exit, it is called a water scrubber. They are usually used on engine exhausts, but they do exist for dry wall dust and wood dust too. I do not know if anyone makes these commercially for wood dust; most that I have seen are DIY constructions. There are many different types of scrubbers and some are better than others. Be warned, they are horrible to clean, you end up with a messy slurry that wants to stick to everything. Google water scrubbers and you can see some.

I forgot about Water Filtration Vacuums. They suck through water instead of or in addition to HEPA filters. They could be overtaken trying to keep up to a saw or router or even the floor after a day making dust but they might keep up to a sander for a session. There may be an industrial/shop type out there somewhere.

https://homevacuumzone.com/water-fil...cuum-cleaners/

https://www.kaercher.com/int/home-ga...-cleaners.html

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KCE3PM4/

PIGG Water Filtration HEPA Vacuum Cleaner | eBay

Pete

Of course there are industrial water filter vacs.

https://www.alibaba.com/product-deta...e9034363ckNQ86

https://www.alibaba.com/product-deta...4363ckNQ86&s=p

Originally Posted by j4r0d

As the only dust-making machines I have at the moment are handheld circular saw, router and possible portable table saw with small ports, does it mean that it would be better to have it connected via a shop vac for now?

A shop vac will collect the chips but miss out on the fine dust. However, you can also deal with this via forced ventilation. The target is 20 shed air changes per hour. Calculate your shed volume (ignore the shed contents) and purchase and install fans that produce the 20 room air changes per hour.

Instead of venting it out, which requires building modifications and which sounds environmentally/neighborly non-helpful, can we just make a contraption to make the air damp instead?

Its not as "environmentally/neighborly non-helpful," = you might think. Outside urban air already has millions of dust particles per cubic metre in it anyway, country air will have anywhere from 10 million (hot dry summer) to 100 thousand (lush green areas in winter) so the amount you add to that will be minuscule in comparison. Everyone generates dust in one way or other. Folks who drive more than others pour dust out of car exhausts and wearing of dust from tyres. If you mow your lawn more often you are a greater dust maker than those who do not. If you BBQ (even using gas) more often you will make more dust. Using wood for heating makes a lot of (harmful) dust for long periods of time. Etc. Being a woodie and venting your DC outside is just another dust making activity.

Most dust collectors that are well sealed and have no leaks may output air that is cleaner that the air outside a shed in urban environment. Every time I have measured the dust levels coming out of my DC enclosure in the last 7 years the levels have been below background. The reason to vent DCs outside is they eventually all leak and you don't know when they will do this. The leaks vary from tiny undetectable leaks to major holes that pour out 1000's of millions of particles per cubic metre. Inside a shed a major leak will contaminate the shed in minutes while a smaller one may take days. if you could constantly monitor the dust levels from a DC you could even have it inside your shed. I could do this but the other really good reason to locate outside, or enclosure and vent outside is the DC noise. I don't even like the sound of their going through the ducting so the noise of the DC really gives me the tom tits.

Fortunately there are relatively few woodies scattered throughout the suburbs.
It's a bit like peeing in a large pool - if only one or two people do it per session the system should take care of it.

As for a water scrubber - that takes up even more space, and injects water into the air so you need good ventilation or you will get mould everywhere - you might as well just use the ventilation for the wood dust to begin with.

Originally Posted by elanjacobs

So you want to actively encourage mould and rust?

I think what I meant is making the air coming out of the dust extractor/collector damp. I would like to assume that this takes care of the fine dust so you can just have passive air ventilation.

I'm just avoiding the scenario that neighbors would freak out when they see me venting something outside. Even if I explain them the whole thing (which I would just gladly skip as I'm not sure if they would even understand) they might just say something like "if that's so bad to release inside your garage then why are you releasing it into the outside air which everyone breathes? I know you guys get what I mean

Originally Posted by BobL

... Outside urban air already has millions of dust particles per cubic metre in it anyway, country air will have anywhere from 10 million (hot dry summer) to 100 thousand (lush green areas in winter) so the amount you add to that will be minuscule in comparison. Everyone generates dust in one way or other. Folks who drive more than others pour dust out of car exhausts and wearing of dust from tyres. If you mow your lawn more often you are a greater dust maker than those who do not. If you BBQ (even using gas) more often you will make more dust. Using wood for heating makes a lot of (harmful) dust for long periods of time. Etc. Being a woodie and venting your DC outside is just another dust making activity.

Forgive me in saying this and I know I will be flagged for this but those points that you mentioned above are the things that make me scratch my head and contemplate

I'm not saying I won't do it as it's always better to have it than nothing BUT it's the whole idea of spending lots of money and effort to make your shop's extracted/collected air quality up to "standards" but the air that you breathe outside daily and vent into the shop is not even up to scratch. I know there might be a loop hole to my reasoning and please do let me know so it's easier for me to justify all these.

More stuff you probably didn't want to know.

Originally Posted by j4r0d

.. . . . . . air that you breathe outside daily and vent into the shop is not even up to scratch.

The health risk from air depends on.

The particle size profile (PSP), the sheer numbers of particles (# particles) and the mass of particles per unit volume, and the make of those particles.

In outside air:
1) The PSP consists mainly of sub 1 micron particles. These penetrate further into the human body (not just lungs) and those that are breathed in are largely breathed out again.
2) The # particles is low, yes I know a million particles of dust per cubic meter sounds like a lot but that's how we have been living for the last millions years and in most cases we can cope with this.The mass of dust per cubic meter is also generally very low - maybe 10 micrograms per cubic metre in cleaner areas, to 500 micrograms per cubic meter in places in India or the middle east.
3) The dust mainly consists of,
- combustion products - these days in cities it's mostly vehicle related but in the past it has been coal and wood. Wild forest fires are still a major contributor - there are over 100,000 of these a year and they pump large amounts of dust into the air.
- there are about 1500 active volcanoes at any one time on earth - this dust travels right across the globe and stays in the air for years.
- plant and pollen parts, powdered dung, decomposing plant material, fungal spores and oceanic ally produce aerosols.
- dust due to natural erosion (this is huge with dust from places like large deserts circling the globe for many months) , farming, clearing including burning off, construction and mining all make a lot of dust.
In urban areas the dust also contains dust from vehicle tyres, paint and shed metal oxidation and industrial processes other than mining.
Most of us have in some way or other adapted to most of these over millions of years of evolution although there s plenty of evidence of shorter life spans in duster countries. Many of us, like children, seniors, people with existing health problems, should take precautions with outside air so just adding wood dust into their environment will only make things worse.

Now compare this to a woodies workshop - with no filtration
1) The PSP is skewed well above the 1 micron range - the image below is for sanding by 80 grit pine. The stuff above about 30 microns falls out of the air very quickly and never reaches an operators nose and mouth. The particles between 2 and 5 microns enter the body easily (not just lungs) and tend to stay there.




2) The numbers of particles in a shed can easily reach 100 million particles per cubic metre, and in the direct spray of sawdust such as that exiting a power tool. because the PSP consists of a lot heaver particles the mass per unit volume can easily exceed 100 Miiligrams per cubic metre (that's 10,000 times greater than clean external air). Just sweeping my shed floor after a few days of not using my DC and cutting up some MDF sent it to 12 milligrams per cubic metre.

3) The dust is almost pure wood dust a substance listed on the National Instutes of Health since 2002 as "Known to produce cancer", it also causes allergies and other things we probably don't know about.

When all these things are combined it's a no brainer to want eliminate the highly concentrated, bad PSP, wood dust from a workshop.

We are all going to give different answers. My setup is a shopvac with HEPA filter and a cyclone (triton bucket mod). I have now set up a chinese cyclone on a plastic bucket that also works well. I also use a decent face mask. I used disposable ones for some time and was shocked how much better this one was. https://www.amazon.co.uk/GVS-Filter-...ords=dust+mask
I haven't progressed beyond the Triton work centre so don't have anything with 4" dust outlets, so will stick to this system for now.

I am little confused...

So there is no such thing as a budget shop vacuum. Correct?

Is there such a thing as a good shop vacuum at all which can replace my crappy Aldi Shop vac?

Originally Posted by perthwoody

We are all going to give different answers. My setup is a shopvac with HEPA filter and a cyclone (triton bucket mod). I have now set up a chinese cyclone on a plastic bucket that also works well. I also use a decent face mask. I used disposable ones for some time and was shocked how much better this one was. https://www.amazon.co.uk/GVS-Filter-...ords=dust+mask
I haven't progressed beyond the Triton work centre so don't have anything with 4" dust outlets, so will stick to this system for now.

Cheers mate. Would you be able to share where did you get HEPA filter and your mask from as the link doesn't ship to Australia. Can you also share a pic of the shop vacuum with HEPA filter setup?

Originally Posted by perthwoody

We are all going to give different answers. My setup is a shopvac with HEPA filter and a cyclone (triton bucket mod). I have now set up a chinese cyclone on a plastic bucket that also works well. I also use a decent face mask. I used disposable ones for some time and was shocked how much better this one was. https://www.amazon.co.uk/GVS-Filter-...ords=dust+mask
I haven't progressed beyond the Triton work centre so don't have anything with 4" dust outlets, so will stick to this system for now.

Cheers mate. Would you be able to share where did you get HEPA filter and your mask from as the link doesn't ship to Australia. Can you also share a pic of the shop vacuum with HEPA filter setup?

Originally Posted by j4r0d

Cheers mate. Would you be able to share where did you get HEPA filter and your mask from as the link doesn't ship to Australia. Can you also share a pic of the shop vacuum with HEPA filter setup?

Unfortunately the Shopvac and filter were from Masters. I got the 25 litre 1800 watt unit which I haven't seen elsewhere in Aus. Our local Stratco has had a smaller unit, I think 20 litre 1400 watt. The HEPA filter replaces the standard filter or you can also replace the standard bag with a HEPA rated bag. I don't have the setup here, it is at our holiday home where I have been working on some projects. I think the mask is available on EBAY. I bought extra filters for it on ebay, a pack of 3 sets. https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/SPARE-FI...YAAOSwjXRXb9gf He may also have the mask.

As I said in an earlier post, the ShopVac is great. I bought mine from Godfreys - don’t know if they still stock them.Heres a list of sellers from the ShopVac website

Shop Vac Australia - About Us, Shop Vac Corporation, Wet/Dry Vacuum Cleaners, World Leader

I run mine through a cyclone and use material filter socks (avaiable from Bunnies) over the pleated filter.

Bought another Shopvac, this time from auction. Got a 45 litre Shopvac Ultra for $18 (missing large rear wheel and axle). I recently set up one of the cheap Chinese cyclones that I connected to a 30 year old Nilfisk vacuum that won't die even full of wood dust. Tried the Shopvac on it and it is quite a lot better and now I can get a HEPA filter (Total Tools list it at $40).