Thread: ShopVac and dust deputy combination.

Originally Posted by snowyskiesau

I have a ShopVac 1300W vacuum cleaner and I've recently acquired a dust deputy for it. The budget doesn't allow for anything more.
Since it's too hot to work in the shed (38 degrees in Tasmania, who'd have guessed it?), I thought I'd spend a bit of time putting together a design for a portable dust extractor.

I've built a wooden box of about 40litres capacity to which the dust deputy will be connected as well as a small trolley to mount it all on.
The question I have is to do with the connection between the vac and the DD. I've a length of 50mm water pipe as well as a length of 50mm flexible hose. Which would be best to connect the two? I'm sure I've read somewhere here that a rigid connection with multiple 90 degree bends, is inefficient.

IT depends on the "roughness" and length of flex used. Short smooth walled flex will be similar to a bunch of 90º bends. Square corrugated long lengths of flex will be worse.

While I don't expect the end result to be as efficient as a dedicated system, it's main purpose is to save a few dollars on replacing vac bags which last almost no time when vacuuming MDF dust.

I find this proposed solution for dealing with MDF dust rather odd. Yes you will save $ on bags but the reduce the flow of collection will leave move fine MDF suspended in the air. I guess to some extent this does not matter as the dust deputy will not capture and of the finest dust anyway and it will go straight through the filters of a shop vac back out into your shed. When MDF is involved there is pretty much no other solution and using a high volume system that extracts all dust/air to outside the shed.

OK, I'll try it out with the 50mm PVC pipe I have and see how it goes.

As far as MDF dust goes - At the moment, most of it ends up in the vac bag. Having most of it end up in the DD box will be an improvement even if the amount of dust that makes it into the workshop stays the same. While I'd like to have a proper dust extractor, I don't do enough woodwork to justify it nor can I afford it.

The next lot of cutting I have to do, hopefully after the dust deputy is in place, is pine and plywood, I've really had enough of MDF!

I'm also hoping the modified vac will work well with the CNC router.

I have a 1600w ShopVac and a Dust Deputy mounted on a trolly one above the other connected with a piece of 63m/m flexi hose. I have had it connected to a Triton 2000 and a scms with a hood and while it does improve the dust collection to some extent there is no doubt that it leaves a lot to be desired. When used as vc to clean the floor and window ledges in the shed it is fantastic - way better than any vc I have come across before. Anyway to cut a long story short, I got that sick of the dust piling up that I ordered a ClearVue cyclone last week.

Safari

With all this hot weather and staying in the house because its cooler......doesn't stop ones fertile mind from designing this and that.
I started off with a 2 Hp dusty with the the 2 gags (one to catch, one to "filter") it made a big difference but it fell victim to the Forum full of alternatives and now the motor and fan sit on top of a Bill Pentz styled cyclone. Now it works better. But I need to connect it to all my machines apart from the first 2. I also need to make a muffler for the outlet end. To absorb noise but also to shift excess flakes of material that fill the 44 catching drum before I have finished the planing job.
The fertile mind has come up with a system to cover hand held power tools (sanders, biscuit cutter etc). My mind can see a pivoting gantry, over head, with a pipe coming down to the power tool, The gantry gives free movement and portability to the tool connected to it.
The suction end could be a 1 Hp dusty hooked up to the hinge end of the gantry as it is stationary.
Will it work? In my head it works a treat. But in my is not the "real world". I am thinking 90mm pipe then 35mm? soft corrugated to the tool. My practical mind is saying "Trial It! Trial it!".
Yesterday I did some turning of some fiddle back Yellow Box for Chisel handles. The parent block was 400mm dia X 450mm long. It was destined for a mates fire but he could not get a splitter to bust it.
I was able to get 11 pieces out of it and turned them down to rough over size because I think its still a little green. Any way the resulting "swarf" that covered my sweaty arms turned them blue. A combination between salty sweat (I don't perspire, I sweat!) and the oils in the timber. My wife made me have a shower before bed! She said I was dirty. I tried to tell her it was clean dirt.

Festool make a pipe & gantry system for their vacuums, so it should work. Vertical steel pipe support clips to the vacuum with a springy wire arm on top with 360 rotation and the hose is clipped to the support & arm, then hangs down to the tool.

Festool hoses are relatively expensive & you probably don't need the integral Festool power cord, but there are a few similar products out there - Mr Nozzle is one brand, sold by Lee Valley & Rockler, I think I've seen it locally & Mr Nozzle had the smooth inside hose before Festool released theirs. I'd be surprised if there wasn't an Asian copy too.

Originally Posted by chambezio

The suction end could be a 1 Hp dusty hooked up to the hinge end of the gantry as it is stationary.
Will it work? In my head it works a treat. But in my is not the "real world". I am thinking 90mm pipe then 35mm? soft corrugated to the tool. My practical mind is saying "Trial It! Trial it!".

A 1HP DC would have so little suck, the flow through a 35 mm hose will be so miserable as to not worth having. Vacuum cleaners (VC) are much more efficient in terms of flow through hand held power tools but they have their own problems in that many make more fine dust than they collect The only time I would consider using a vacuum cleaner (even a very expensive one) would be in an (mobile?) enclosure vented to the outside via an externally located DC.
A 2HP DCs would be better and a 3HP DC better still. I have measured air flows through hand held power tools using a 50 mm hose attached to a 3HP DC and it gets comparable flows to a VC.

As for a gantry etc, I've found there is no need for it. I attach long ockky straps to the hose and the other end to wires hanging from the ceiling and this works a treat for tools like belt and ROS sanders.

Bob's post brings to mind a potential solution for my shop vac.

As BobL says, these things produce a lot of dust. I run the fan with mine, but that is a second best solution.

The pic shows the garage vac I am currently using in my shop. The air outlet is marked.

Vac Shroud.jpg

I am thinking of building a shroud like the red drawing. The plan is to pick up the air from the vac outlet, as well as the dust it carries, and to vent this to my 150 mm ductwork.

Any feedback or ideas?

Originally Posted by John Samuel

Any feedback or ideas?

Further to my post about leaky DCs, the same applies to VCs. VC's use much higher pressures than DCs so potentially have a greater propensity for leaks. Fortunately most VCs bag seals are on the negative side so this is less of a problem but any seals that are on the positive side will almost certainly be leaking after a few months use. I recommend all seals be wiped clean and rubber seals be conditioned with something like Armourall so that they seal correctly. Some VCs have more than one air exit and some have cooling air exits for the motor which are incredibly dirty. This is why I recommend put the entire VC in an enclosure and venting this with a DC to oustide the shed.