Thread: Less noisy vacuum

The vacuum will fill up in 30 seconds on a table saw, I do not see any reason why you can not use a dust extractor for power tools, I do and many professional woodworkers do. If you think a vacuum is too much noise a dust extactor will be twice as loud.

You can run with a vacuum cleaner - see some of the posts about cyclones to see what you can do to increase the capacity of the dust collection bin. Putting the vacuum in an MDF box with noise dampening insulation inside can help cut down on the scream.

Whether its a DC or a vacuum cleaner, provided the neighbors are not too close, it's better for noise and dust reasons to put both outside a shed.

Al,

I don't know whether you have seen the Triton bucket. This attaches to a household vacuum cleaner and has 2 in- ports. I have one connected to a 12in Makita and the other to the router table fence.
The noisiest thing is the old vacuum cleaner but you can control that by chosing the V C yourself. Some are quiet.
Do a search to find the Triton dust bucket. it works.

Graham

Hi Al

I asked something similar in this thread: https://www.woodworkforums.com/f11/sh...wanted-120614/

I posted this reeview recently: https://www.woodworkforums.com/f200/v...3/#post1188581

Regards from Perth

Derek

Thanks for the advice. I have read Derek's thread and there doesn't seem to be a consensus about vacs. Looks like different people use and are happy with a wide variety of products.

There is also a huge range of prices. From under $100 to over $1000 for a small vac. I expect that there is a wide variety in build quality and reliability but it might be a mistake to assume that cost is a good indicator of quality. Length of warranty might be a better measure.

Maybe I'll forget about looking for a quiet vac and just stick it in an MDF box as suggested. I can duct the exhaust out of the workshop so I shouldn't need a fancy HEPA filter.

Al

FWIW the Hoover Garage Vac is available in the SuperCheap Auto Father's day sale for $199 at the moment.

The aim of the effective dust collection system is to keep the shop cleaner but fundamentally to reduce the harmful dust that finds its way into our lungs and those who might use the shed when you aren't working. If the best system you can instal or build is noisy the answer isnt to find a quieter less effective until but rather wear hearing protection. The power tool or machine creating the dust will create enough noise to damage hearing so the dust collection system noise is just an add on.
Using good quality PPE is more important than the quality of the tools and machines we use.

Bids.

There are very very few vacuum cleaners and dust collectors that will remove the dangerous dust from workshop air.

Cyclones and other filter arrangements are better than nothing but ultimately a HEPA filter is needed to remove the most dangerous particles that these devices cannot trap. However, even if a product says it uses a HEPA filter that unfortunately means nothing. Have a look at this [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5NLlCWNF6U]YouTube - Miele Vacuum Cleaners Work. Miele Vacuums are Truly HEPA.[/ame]
The second half is just a sales pitch and his treatment of dust is very much simplified but his basic premise is correct. The reality is that most home and shop vacuum cleaners and DC's are little more than chip collectors and actually end up concentrating the dangerous fine dust inside sheds. [WSLABRA = warning sounding like a broken record] put the DC or Vacuum cleaner outside. if you have no space outside, or you think the neighbors will object, then locate them in an airtight box inside your shed that only vents to outside the shed.

putting your vacume cleaner inside a simple box is not a good idea..... been there and tried it.

many of the older simpler domsetic vac's used to draw the cooling air from the output of the suction stream, which meant the cooling air was derived from the suction path and exhausted with the suction discharge...BUT....this meant you had what ever dust passed thru the bag went thru the motor..not good.

Almost all modern indistrial vacs and some domestic ones employ what is known as a bypass motor.....where the suction and cooling air are seperated

So if you put you vac in a box it will get quite hot.....I tried this..even with the vac in an open topped tube, the vac got quite hot.

if you want to enclose a vac, you need to provide a generous airflow to feed the cooling system, this would mean a tortorous path acoustic trap on both input and output and some form of forced ventilation like a couple of decent sized muffin fans.

now we have several vacs arround here....my workshop vac is by far the loudest......the mrs has just baught a new miele it is very quiet and sucks like all get out...so there is a considerable variation.....some of the expensive shop vacs are reasonably quiet.

One more thing to consider about vacume cleaners is how much current they draw....this new miele draws something like 2200 watts..over 8 amps..... if you are hooking that up to say a big belt sander at say 800 odd or more watts......ya need to start thinking abut splitting them onto seperate circuits.

now a dust extractor will certainly run much quieter.... but remember a vacume cleaner is high preasure low volume suction and a dust extractor is high volume low preasure suction.

depending on what tools you are sucking, depends on how much of a problem that is.

some of the sanders have some form of waste fan in them that sort of works, stuffing your vac hose from one of these sanders into a dist extractor will carry the waste away, but you will not get the substantial improvement in extraction efficiency that comes with high preasure vacume on these tools.

sanders are by far the worst offenders in producting fine and injourous dust and in large volumes, and often it can be stuff that is worse for you than wood dust......

on the matter of the table saw....depending on what you have....what comes out the bottom is predominatly large particles and even the fine stuff tends to drop and stay low.....but a heap of realy fine stuff is sprayed all over the place from the top of the blade.
putting a cloth skirt arround the bottom of a contractor style saw and hooking up your vac into the blade guard will improve things considerably.

on the matter of using some sort of seperator with your vac.....Oh hell yeh....and it does not need to be a cyclone, even building a simple still air box or coarse filter box will drop out a heap of stuff....over the years I have run a number of different options.

Remember the more efficient your cyclones seperation efficiency the greater its suction losses ( assuming good design).

Are you sure you cant afford both....a domestic even second hand vac and a home made dust seperator and a small 4" dust extractor even second hand will set you back lots less than a big funky industrial vac.

there has bee a lot said anout various dust extractors and fine dust, quite a lot of it has come from cold climates where the workshops are closed in a heated much of the year.

In australia, even in the frozen south, we can open up our workshops most of the year, sone form of fan to circulate air and provide man cooling is imperative for most of us...a little thaught and considered placement of these fans can improve air quality considerably.

After all there are all sorts of other things we put in the air that should require decent ventilation (solvent fumes, fumes from glues, fumes from certain timbers, fumes that eminate from certain forum members that me be in the workshop)....... not just dust.


cheers

Almost by definition, vacuums, of all kinds, are very loud.
Ear plugs are my best friend.
If I can ever afford it, I'll have a dedicated shop building with my dust collection system outside and sound insulated from the building.
In the meantime, ear plugs.

Unfortunately cheap vacuum cleaners are noisy. I experimented with a silencer for a couple of real screamers and it did sound a bit quieter, but not enough for my liking. That was with an Ozito and a Shop Vac that both sound like jet engines at take off.

However, depending upon the design of the vac, a silencer from a vacuum cleaner specialist ( at around $25) might make a difference to the right machine. For example, on certain ducted machines they do make an appreciable difference. The silencer fits into the 2" exhaust port of the vacuum cleaner.

One of those silencers will only work on a machine that has an outlet port....a great many do not..and it will only effect the noise borne in the airstream.

A large portion of the noise is mechanical and not borne in the air streem.

Very commonly inbuilt vacs are installed inside the garrage or laundry, where the noise is seperated from the rest of the house....but often the discharge is exhausted out thru the wall......this can be a big issue with the neibours....so they fit a silencer.

cheers

Originally Posted by soundman

One of those silencers will only work on a machine that has an outlet port....a great many do not..and it will only effect the noise borne in the airstream.

A large portion of the noise is mechanical and not borne in the air streem.

Very commonly inbuilt vacs are installed inside the garrage or laundry, where the noise is seperated from the rest of the house....but often the discharge is exhausted out thru the wall......this can be a big issue with the neibours....so they fit a silencer.

cheers

I was referring to a demo I had with the vac and exhaust in the same area. The particular vac system must have had most of its noise through the blower because it made a big difference as I was standing right next to it. I agree it wouldn't necessarily work that way with el cheapo vacs whose motors are often in the lid of the machine.

I must admit I have never seen a ducted vacuum installation which exhausts to the outside. I'm surprised the local by-laws would allow it.