Thread: Basics needed for portable/storable setup

Hi, for many years my dust collection system was a broom, spade and wheelbarrow. Though my work area was outside under a carport .
After a bit of online searching I found a guy who used two buckets and some plumbing fittings to fashion a cheap DIY cyclone.
So I trotted of to the big green shed with a fist full of dollars and the dimensions of my vac hose.
I found the elbows, reducers and connectors no problem.
The only buckets I could find seamed a bit on the light side but what the heck.
I cut and drilled, fixed and fettled until it 'looked' about right.
Turned on the brand new shop vac and...............

Sucked the top bucked down into the lower one


It took me three weeks to seperate them.

I'll post photos of Mk2 in the next post.

Originally Posted by Waikikamukau

So, I figure there's a difference between dust extraction and dust collection, right?
Dust extraction is capturing dust particles floating in the air into some sort of filter, while dust collection collects the larger dust particles that otherwise end up on the floor?

There's no difference in terms of particle size, the terms are used interchangeably. If one wants to get pedantic, Collection is about "collecting dust" while Extraction is about removing it from an area eg ventilation can be thought of as extraction but not collection.

The best protection is provided by Ducted systems with the DCs or Vacs located (or enclosed inside an air tight enclosure an vented) outside, nothing much else will compete with this, and yes it includes duct vacuum cleaners for use on power tools

I've tested many DC and vacs and unless they are near new they ALL leak. Those that leak the most are old and have been towed around inside a workshop. Hence enclosing or locating then outside

A couple of other things
Cyclones work fine on vacs but not so well on low power DCs.
Vacs simply don't have enough flow for table and mitre saws, and even most general hand held power tools spew a lot of fine dust outside the capture radius of vacs.

If you're not prepared to use ducting and not go any bigger than a shop vac then the only other effective addition for ealing with fine dust is forced ventilation. Any forced ventilation is better than none but generally a target of between 10- and 20 room air changes per hour is needed. Ideally the ventilation should be unidirectional fans on one side of a workshop and vents on the other side to create a cross flow and that advantage of prevailing winds.

I have a fully ducted 6" system inside my shed but still have two large capacity ventilation fans with up to >20 room air changes per hour.