Thread: Dust extraction advice needed for an irresponsible girl!

I want it to suck up big and the smallest particles possible. When I know there are filters out there that catch 0.5 microns it puts me off getting a 2micron. As long as its powerful and collects EVERYTHING, that's all I care about. I just don't know what to do. The big dust extractors are going to get the big stuff but the Festool vac has the HEPA filter and collects microparticles.

A HEPA vac will capture the fine dust produced by some power tools well, from some power tools not so well, and as you know they won't handle most machinery produced fine dust and chips. Don't be fooled by the fact that they have a HEPA. Eventually they all will leak and its motor cooling circuit will become contaminated and produce more fine dust anyway so like larger dedicated DCs vacuum cleaners are best located in an enclosure that is vented outside, or the vac is directly located outside a shed. Using any vac is a sure fire way to let more fine dust than necessary escape into a shed and a vac cannot be used to vent a shed as vacs move very little air.

A largish DC will (given the gotcha below) handle machinery and it will also handle power tools with internal fans provided at least 50 mm hoses are used. This means the connections will not be quite as ergonomic/flexible/easy as Vac hoses but in most cases you can get away with it. DCs also leak so their location need to be treated in the same way as vacs. At least largish DCs move enough air that they can vent a shed of fine if required.

Location or external venting gets rid of the need to "capture and hold fine dust" issue, instead you are expelling the fine dust - but before you do that you have to catch teh fine and thats where largish DCs have a decided advantage over Vacs simply because they move more air.

When a Vac or a DC is located in an enclosure that is vented outside, or directly located outside a shed, this means running ducting. 6" ducting does not come cheap and needs to be figured into most DIYers budgets.

The other gotcha referred to above is that stock DCs and machinery are usually setup for 100mm ducting which is not always able to draw enough air to capture fine dust at source. The amount of air flow needed requires at least 150mm ducting and the dust ports on most machines need to be opened up to 150mm otherwise it can be a bit of a waste of time using 150 mm ducting. Are you prepared to do all this?

Don't forget ventilation - for a small DIY operation that only operates machinery for a few hours a week, good ventilation may be easier to implement than a full blown dust extraction system. Then a 100mm system to collect the big stuff and some small stuff might well be enough. By ventilation I mean about 300W of forced ventilation, so not just a bath room fan, and decent size openings that allow for a good flow of air.

Originally Posted by BobL

Don't forget ventilation - for a small DIY operation that only operates machinery for a few hours a week, good ventilation may be easier to implement than a full blown dust extraction system. Then a 100mm system to collect the big stuff and some small stuff might well be enough. By ventilation I mean about 300W of forced ventilation, so not just a bath room fan, and decent size openings that allow for a good flow of air.

Hi Bob,

You mentioned ventilation in one of my threads in the past. I'm still setting up my shop (damn work and Husband/Father duties slowing me down! and money... can't forget money lol), and i was looking into options.

So in lieu of a Dusty, if i was to use a shop vac in conjunction with something like this on one of my garage windows https://www.fansonline.com.au/vortic...50-window.html, would you say that should provide adequate dust control for me? The biggest dust creator i'd be using would be a contractor saw and an ROS (which can be used outside if needed).

I need a sparky to put some plugs in my shed, so could get one added for this, and the cost of the fan plus any window work would probably cost less than a dusty, ducting and mods i'd imagine...

thoughts?

Hi Mel,

Welcome to the forum.

In answering your question unfrotunately it highly depends on what you're doing. If you're only using a table saw or mitre saw you'll need one of those big bagged units. These go for a few hundred and cheaper if you buy used obviously. Ducting as Bob says if you're buying a bagged unit best go with 6" ducting, obviously this requires a more permanant setup but its an absolute time saver once you've got it setup.

Mobile dust extractors are generally a bad idea as they can cause leaks which defeat the point of dust extraction if its just spewing out the back. Which is why a system located outside is best.

I wouldn't opt for a Festool vac, they would perform marginally better than your shop vac and isn't worth the upgrade.

With your budget it should be enough for you to purchase most of what you'll need brand new with some change left over.

Originally Posted by Dibbers

So in lieu of a Dusty, if i was to use a shop vac in conjunction with something like this on one of my garage windows https://www.fansonline.com.au/vortic...50-window.html, would you say that should provide adequate dust control for me? The biggest dust creator i'd be using would be a contractor saw and an ROS (which can be used outside if needed).

How big is your shed?

The target ventilation should be 20 room air changes per hour.

Working backwards from that particular fans flow rate of 380 m^3/hr, diving by 20 that makes it a room volume of 19 m^3 or about 2.4 x 2.8 x 2.8m - so not very big.

A shop vac will be overwhelmed by the contractor saw and you will end up with loads of chips every where.
You'd need at least a 2HP DC to keep the chips under control from the contractor saw.

As I said in my post above you will need about 300W of fan power to get decent ventilation in your average DIY shed.

Hi Melissa

Welcome.

Since you already have a tablesaw, my question is whether it is enclosed sufficiently to prevent dust escaping in use. I used to own a contractor tablesaw, which worked well as a saw, but was not the best design for dust collection. I fail to see how a dust collector really aids a tablesaw such as this. An enclosed cabinet saw, on the other hand, stands a much better chance. My point is, the best vacuum collector will not work if there is an issue at the source.

I have a Festool vac, and it is great with a router or sander in containing the chips and the larger dust particles (notwithstanding the hepa filter). It does not keep the fine dust from escaping into the air. Make sure you wear a decent dust mask!

I would love to see Bob write an article about which machines are the worst offenders. This could help us prioritise where and what dust collection is needed. As indicated above, I think that some machines ( the contractor tablesaw) are poorer targets, while others (jointer and thicknesser) need dust collection .. if not just to keep working (the thicknesser especially). What do you think Bob - a separate article that we can have as a sticky?

Regards from Perth

Derek

I have a "hybrid" contractors saw which can be sealed for dust sucking. The old type with the motor out the back are a bigger challenge but doable...

Originally Posted by damian

I have a "hybrid" contractors saw which can be sealed for dust sucking. The old type with the motor out the back are a bigger challenge but doable...

It's actually better not to fully seal up a contractors saw cabinet as air needs to get into the cabinet so that dust can be sucked out

My contractor saw has the motor out the back and the first thing I did was I remove the plastic cowl around the blade under the table.
Then I partially sealed up the back.
I made an inverted pyramidal hopper made of Al to be installed in between the cabinet and the legs.
At the apex of teh pyramid I cut a hole just big enough that I could screw a 150 mm diam PVC coupler and this is attached to PVC ducting.

This is the easy bit - the blade guard extraction point is harder and needs to be completely replaced.
I replaced mine with a new guard made of PC and Perspex that accepts a 100mm DC hose.

I would love to see Bob write an article about which machines are the worst offenders.

Bill Pentz has some machine specific information about half way down this page
Dust Collection Research - Dust Collection Basics

Lathes are not on the list but my testing shows the required flow rates are ~800 CFM for spindle work and >1000 CFM for larger objects like bowls.

It also assumes sharp blades and Northern Hemisphere wood hardness (ie not that hard). Aussie timbers, especially the harder woods, will usually make more fine dust.

I would humbly suggest that the best option for a student on a student budget is to put these machines on wheels and use them outside. If at all possible. E.g. in a car port.


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With any apologies to Mellisa I don't consider $1500 to spend on a DC system a student budget.
$1500 should purchase a decent 3HP system, 150 mm ducting and an effective DC enclosure of some kind wit maybe even enough left over to purchase a budget level shop vac.
Alternatively, adequate forced ventilation and a 2HP DC and 100 mm ducting system.

Welcome to the forum Mel.

Hi Derek,

Thank you so much for your reply! I am also in Perth WA. I've got a huge barn style shed and I'm set up alongside one of the roller doors. I use a Bosch Jobsite Table saw. I have no idea why I bought a portable saw, I think at the time (when I hadn't caught onto reading reviews and other people's guides etc because I was stupid) I bought it for its price and the fact that all my tools are trade (blue not green DIY) Bosch tools and I just stuck with it to keep all my tools the same colour (don't forget I'm a girl!).

With the jobsite table saw it just literally spews sawdust out of the port and if I stick the vac to it (its starting to die) it just seems to build up inside the tube and up towards the saw blade (bad!!). It also sprays so much sawdust out of the top. When I use it, I use a mask so I don't die, but end up covered in sawdust so something is clearly wrong. I don't use the plastic cover guard that came with it because the design is bad and it sits so low that you have to have the blade raised the whole way up to get any wood to pass through without hitting the guard AND AND ANNNND the blade bloody hits the guard internally, THAT was the main reason I took it off now I remember!

I also suffer with fibromyalgia (chronic pain) I'm not a weedy stick but its a pain for me to move heavy things around. So whilst its only 4 metres to drag it outside of the door (clearly a smart option) and let it spray down the side of the shed, it would just be too much effort for me to do that each time. If I mounted it onto a wheeled platform, it could make it easier but I don't like the idea of having a saw on wheels (scary) AND then I would also need to wheel out the outfeed table/things I use for outfeed. Now that I've made a meal out of this, you can see for me it would be ideal to keep it in a permanent spot in the shed. I just need something super powerful to be able to pull out all the dust made.

The Bosch sliding drop mitre saw has a little canvas bag attached to the dust port. When the bag isn't full it actually works pretty good at collecting the dust. However, I often forget to check and empty it. Still when cutting MDF etc it makes a lot of fine dust. So overall it still makes a mess.

From the replies so far it seems like its going to be better for me to get a large DC with the big bags?

Mel

Hi Bob,

Thank you for your reply. I have a huge 3 door barn style shed. Its about 12m X 9m and the area I work in is 3m X 6m.

No need to apologise. Whilst I am a student, I also work as a relief teacher, by 'poor uni student' I simply meant with the cost of my studies being a priority I don't particularly want to spend as much as $1500 if I can avoid it. But if $1500 will sort me out really well for the long term then I'm prepared to do it. (When I have the money, I prefer to buy the best quality of something so it lasts me a long time rather than cheaper tools that will need replacing etc).

So the budget is there, but due to my inexperience clearly I thought $1500 wouldn't be enough to achieve what I wanted, but from everyone's helpful advice it seems it will be plenty for my needs?

Hi Tonzyd,

Thank you for your advice. 95% of the time I use the table and mitre saw. I mostly build things for the garden, chook pens, rustic benches etc so I don't often use my belt sander or orbital sander but when I do, its easy to use them outside.

With my jobsite table saw it just literally spews sawdust out of the port and if I stick the vac to it (its starting to die) it just seems to slowly build up inside the table saw tube and up towards the saw blade (bad!!). It also sprays so much sawdust out of the top. When I use it, I use a mask so I don't die, but end up covered in sawdust. I'm pretty sure with the amount of wood I cut on the table saw it can't be good for my vac...which it probably why its not working well anymore.

I've seen people build little shelters for their dust collectors outside of the shed with an outlet etc but unfortunately I live at home and its my parent's shed. My Mum is a decor fanatic and you can see the shed clearly from the house so me building something outside is completely out of the question. I would be super lucky though if I was allowed to cut a little square out of the shed wall.... probably also out of the question "you're not wrecking our shed Melissa" will be the answer.

The portable dust extractor that you are referring to... is it one of these?
https://www.carbatec.com.au/dust-con...e-ct-oo3vb-3ph

Will these also leak as you've described? If so, should I get one of these but NOT on wheels?
I would be very happy to set up a permanent setup with ducting up on the roof and out of the way. Then, like you said, its done and saves time and effort etc. I'm trying to get my workshop in a nice permanent working order with the big tools in their own permanent position like a proper workshop. Once I know I have the dust situation under total control, I plan to build a big outfeed table around my table saw so it has its own station like a normal non-jobsite saw would. I have no need for it to be portable. I just bought it at the time because I didn't know better and it seemed a good price to my inexperienced brain.

Originally Posted by MelissaC

Hi Bob,

Thank you for your reply. I have a huge 3 door barn style shed. Its about 12m X 9m and the area I work in is 3m X 6m.

Unless you can seal the area you work in away from the rest of the shed then forced ventilation may be as expensive as a Ducted DC and ventilation won't take care of the chips.

Because you work in a 6 x 3 m space you won't need much ducting to cover that area.