Thread: Purchasing a cheap dust extractor

There are pages and pages and pages of info here on the topic.

In short, there is no such thing as a good yet cheap extractor. Absolutely no such thing.


Here's my take on it:

Untill you spend a good few $k on dust extraction, be aware that you'll be doing 'cosmetic' dust extraction only.


Assuming hand held power tools, the price range is like this:

$100ish gets you a vacuum cleaner, possibly with an on board power sensing switch to auto start the vacuum. The $90 Aldi vac is liked by quite a few forum members. This will get rid of the dust that settles out of the air and makes a mess on things. Note that it is cosmetic only - stops things looking dusty, doesn't do much for getting superfine dust out of the air you breathe. (it takes only 5 grams of dust to put a two car garage over the US EPA dust limits)

Another $100ish adds a dust deputy and a plastic bucket to stop the vacuum filter clogging up all the time, and possibly gives you a slight reduction in fine dust being chopped up into superfine dust by the vacuum. It's still not going to really stop all the superfine dust that hangs in the air for days, so it's still a 'cosmetic' extractor, just one that's easier to empty.

Next step is $1000 is for something like a Festool CT36 with a 3 micron filter - that seems to be one of the few (non-ludicrously expensive) vacuums that get a bit of a thumbs up...but even that still releases sub 3 micron particles into the air.

After that, if you want to really get rid of health affecting dust, you're looking at a three-phase dusty with a good impeller and a Bill Pentz style cyclone, and if you come out spending under $5k you've done well.

Those two products you refer to will help collect wood chips and some dust but do very little for fine dust which represents the major health problems.

Instead of venting a shed after all the dust has been released from a WW process it is far better to capture and remove as much as possible of that dust before it escapes into your shed.

To capture dust from most machinery this is best done with a "high volume low pressure" dust extractor (DE)

From power tools a vacuum cleaner (VC) is the standard way of doing this.

However - almost irrespective of what you use some dust will escape into the shed.

If you have both dust making machines and power tools and you can only afford one of these, I would recommend the DE over the VC because the DE can at least vent your shed in a reasonable time whereas a VC simply cannot.

The first thing you should do is read as much as you can in this dust forum and then you may be in a better position to ask informed questions.

First things we need to know is
- how big is your shed?
- what machines are you running
- what power tools are you running?

I'm running an orbital sander, circular saw and a jigsaw and will soon be getting a bandsaw and a compound miter saw.

Originally Posted by nathanmaate

I'm running an orbital sander, circular saw and a jigsaw and will soon be getting a bandsaw and a compound miter saw.

I assume the OS CS and JS are hand helds?

All of the above (including your intended purchase) are difficult to extract the dust at source from 100% which is why good shed ventilation is required otherwise they will eventually fill your shed with fine dust - I suspect this has happened already?

Extracting the dust at source from machinery requires about 1000 cubic feet per minute (CFM) this is also a reasonable rate with which to vent a shed of fine dust.

How big is your shed?

Originally Posted by BobL

I assume the OS CS and JS are hand helds?

All of the above (including your intended purchase) are difficult to extract the dust at source from 100% which is why good shed ventilation is required otherwise they will eventually fill your shed with fine dust - I suspect this has happened already?

Extracting the dust at source from machinery requires about 1000 cubic feet per minute (CFM) this is also a reasonable rate with which to vent a shed of fine dust.

How big is your shed?

Yes they are all handheld, and the OS and JS both have vac ports. My workshop/shed is actually a small single garage and lots of things in it are covered in a fine dust. There is only one opening: the garage door.

I was looking at the Ozito mentioned above, and the CFM is only ~100
I had a look at the Makita 446L and it doesn't have a CFM, only a l/min measure which is 3600 l/min

Originally Posted by nathanmaate

I had a look at the Makita 446L and it doesn't have a CFM, only a l/min measure which is 3600 l/min

Me thinks that'll be 127 CFM

Manufacturers claims for flow rates on standard dust extractors are typically about twice what they are in practice especially once a dust bag and a bit of ducting to connect the impeller to the bag housing is included.
Because VCs operate at higher pressure, the manufacturers claims for VC flow rates are are not quite as bad, but once any tools or machines are added the flow does drop substantially. More recent tools have fans in them that push dust into a VC. If it was not for these fans the VCs would have little hope in grabbing much dust from these tools.

Most VCs are to some extent fine dust generators so they need to be located outside a shed. This means 50 mm ducting is needed and to maintain enough flow at least a real 2HP motor is required.

If cost is a concern, grab a second hand DC.

Pre loved tools are a great bargain.

Originally Posted by nathanmaate

Hey guys, I just read up on the dangers of airborne dust and would now like to get a vacuum to extract harmful dust from my workshop/garage.

Please advise me about this and also it is not possible to have it running in a different room as the garage is surrounded by concrete which leads into the house.

Any advice is appreciated.

Nathan,

If you are like most of us in time you will have a collection of woodworking machines as well as hand power tools. I will assume as much here.

For hand tools, you will need a decent vac. For woodworking machines you will need a dust collector. No one solution will do it all. Eventually, you are going to need two; a vac and a DC.

Be careful with vacs ... the buggers can produce more fine dust than they remove. I use a 2 HP vac that is parked outside under a hood with the filters removed (careful ... some vac's don't like to have their filters removed) to minimise fine dust in the shop.

By my reckoning the best DC system available is a ClearVue, but they are not cheap. The most cost effective DC is a 2 HP DC optimised as per BobL's post https://www.woodworkforums.com/f200/g...47/index5.html this can be done quite inexpensively, especially if you can get a second hand machine as Evanism suggested.

Keep asking questions and you will find a suitable solution. BobL is our resident dust collection guru.

Cheerio!

John