Shop Vac: Reducing Dust Clogging?

[PeteCress]

I've got an el-cheapo shop vac that works pretty well except for when I'm sanding/cutting and the dust clogs the filter way too fast - whereupon I wind up taking it apart and beating on the circular filter for about 20 minutes to un-clog it.

Has anybody got something that mitigates this?

I'm thinking some sort of disposable sock to go over the filter - but cutting up vacuum cleaner bags seems kind of pricey given the speed of clogging.

[upchurchmr]

Get or make a cyclone to put in line with your shop vac. 80-90% of the dirt will fall out before the filter. They use to have garbage can lid adaptors - don't know how well it works. I have seen a box where the dirt has to go around several corner which might also work. There was a guy on line who offered free plans and the ability to size the cyclone for your vacum power.

[E.Johnson]

They make vacuum bags for Shop Vacs. Might be worth a try? I haven't used them myself, yet.

[dld]

here are the plans for Thien Cyclone Separator Lid Discussion
http://www.cgallery.com/smf/index.ph...7d&topic=137.0

[htom]

Yup, a cyclone. Here's another how-to http://woodgears.ca/reader/walters/cyclone.html , you can google "five gallon cyclone" and find kits, complete units, more d-i-y.

[Jay Greer]

While I am waiting to install a central vac system in my shop, I picked up a portable cyclone I use for my machines. The main problem with it is that the canister is so small that it loads up in a real hurry. To give the system more capacity I added an extra canister between the machines and the cyclone. It collects the heavy chips first allowing the cyclone cannister to not load up so fast. It also prevents the filter from clogging.
Jay

[wdbeyer]

a piece of panty hose/stocking over the filter.

[jimkeen]

They make vacuum bags for Shop Vacs. Might be worth a try? I haven't used them myself, yet.

This is the answer you are looking for. Way way way better than the paper filter that needs a severe beating every 10 minutes. You can run a bag for months, even under the hardest use.

[upchurchmr]

That is essentially what my commercial one does, it also loads up quick. It just gets more irritating until I finally dump it, and beat the filter or replace the bag. Still the same result.

a piece of panty hose/stocking over the filter.

[Bob Cleek]

The one thing I do know about dust collection is that you really have to get a heavy duty system if you want it to be at all effective.

This guy pretty much covers the entire spectrum of cyclone dust collection, which is really the only way to go. http://billpentz.com/woodworking/cyc...ycloneplan.cfm

A Shop-vac (which I have) is pretty much limited to cleaning up after the mess is made, but it cannot "be all things to all men." Shop-vacs tend to clog on the heavy stuff, like planer shavings, and fine dust smother's them if you use the filters. If you don't use the filters, the fine stuff just blows out the exhaust!

I'd love to find a good cyclone system for my shop, but it seems that the small shop sized units are limited to systems which attempt to catch everything, including fine dust, without exhausting anything outside. For example:



Grizzly sells this nifty item for $2,500 or so. I wish somebody would just sell the motor, suction fan, and cyclone cylinder. All I need to do is hang it on the side of my shop and let the heavy stuff fall into a 55 gal. drum and the rest blow out into the atmosphere. I live in the country and it isn't like the neighbors are going to be upset about the dust. All those "mili-micron" filter bags are of no use to me, nor to most other people who want to move the dust out of the shop. It isn't like we are doing woodworking in our living rooms, for Pete's sake, and it isn't like sawdust is "toxic waste!"

The guy who has the site above has plans for building your own, but at this point that's more trouble than it's worth as far as I'm concerned. Anybody know where you can get the "guts" of a cyclone system without all the attachments that add to the expense?

Until then, I'll just keep rolling my stationary tools to the shop door, turn on a big fan behind them, and leit it all blow outside, and then clean the tools with my Shop-vac.

[upchurchmr]

Bob,

If you read the Bill Penz discussion you will see that to him dust is Toxic Waste - he has a severe respiratory problem and the fine dust is enough to cause him big problems.
But he does show what is required to get the super fine dust. If you look a little you can see where you just don't try to get the absolute best system he has designed and cut it back a bit.
I still want to build one of his cyclones and use the motor and pump I already have - Delta 1HP with bags.

And every time I cut cedar without using the vacuum system I get a bit of a problem with my lungs - no other wood, just cedar.

[PeteCress]

...And every time I cut cedar without using the vacuum system I get a bit of a problem with my lungs - no other wood, just cedar.

I cannot cite, but somewhere in these fora I read that cedar is toxic. Not just irritating... flat-out toxic.

[Jim Ledger]

Anybody know where you can get the "guts" of a cyclone system without all the attachments that add to the expense?

Here, let me Google that for you...

http://www.oneida-air.com/category.asp?Id={A9E01915-8CFE-44EA-95C7-A16B921A4326




Oneidas three horse cyclone with a pleated filter, much better than the cloth bags as it filters much smaller particles. This unit works well in a small shop, but planing, especially light wood like cedar, requires frequent emptying of the drum. The drum is small enough, however, that it can be emptied into plastic garbage bags...with some practice.

[CundysHarbor]

Pete
When cedar is cut, a gas is released which is an allergen for some. I have to build wearing an organic vapor/particulate respirator because of the white and red cedar. It's tough in hot weather! A particle filter alone does not help since the gas passes through.
Dave

[Frank Wentzel]

Take a look at Oneida's Dust Deputy cyclone unit. I have one and it is great! At $39 for the DIY unit you can't beat the price. They have a link on their site to a "Shoot-Out" between several separators on the "Wood Whisperer" website. The Oneida unit is the clear winner - and it is the cheapest of the lot! I can't say enough about how well the unit works. They say it gives a 99% separation but I think that is a conservative estimate.

http://www.oneida-air.com

No, I have no connection with the company. I"m just avery well satisfied customer.

/// Frank ///

[Bob Cleek]

I've heard of the Oneda's. I checked them out and if I had the bucks burning a hole in my pocket, that's the way I'd go. I've spent some time researching stationary dust collection systems and have concluded that most marketed for non-commercial use lack the capacity you really need, or so it seems. Sucking up the dust off an orbital sander, or even a table saw, is one thing, but handling the shavings from a thickness planer or jointer is something else again. A 20 gallon drum will fill rather quickly when you are planing any amount of stock and a blockage in the ducting can be a major PIA if you don't have the suction to keep everything moving at a good clip.

I have, for my purposes, concluded that if I am going to get into the four figures for a dust collection system (which is pretty much unavoidable once you get into cyclones of any efficiency level), I'd want one with four inch ducting and a sufficient number of gates to handle my stationary tools and to make sucking up hand planings and so on easy and efficient.

I know that some wood dust is indeed "toxic." Breathing a lot of dust isn't a good thing, "toxic" or not. Those who have no option but to work in an enclosed space will, I suppose, have to get into HEPA filters and fine particle separation. Many of us, however, have the luxury of living in the country where it doesn't much matter if fine sawdust is blown out the side of the shop. It settles and decomposes on the ground. Nobody's standing in front of the outlet and inhaling it. The larger chips and shavings, separated in the cyclone drum, end up in a 55 gallon drum which can be emptied at one's leisure. Quite civilized, actually, and no need to be fiddling with bags full of fine dust.

[trango]

While looking for different options for keeping my workshop healthy, I found this

http://www.woodcraft.com/product/206...able-plan.aspx

I have not bought the plans yet so I cannot say anything about their quality..

/F

[Bob Cleek]

While looking for different options for keeping my workshop healthy, I found this

http://www.woodcraft.com/product/206...able-plan.aspx

I have not bought the plans yet so I cannot say anything about their quality..

/F

Yep, you can get pretty much the same plans for free off the Penz website noted above. The problem isn't so much the cyclone drum itself. Where the rubber meets the road is the impeller and its housing. The impeller has to be very well balanced and cast of steel, not aluminum, so that it can take the battering it gets when it sucks things into it, including screws and nails and whatever you suck up with it. Wood chips are the easy part. When hard stuff hits an impeller vane at high speed, unless the vane is designed to withstand it, things can get ugly fast. (Sparking and consequent dust explosion and fire, catastrophic disintegration of the impeller and housing... stuff like that.)



I would consider Bill Peltz's site must reading for anybody considering a shop dust collection system. What he has to say about impellers in his "how to build it" section is enlightening and should cause anybody to take a close look at commercial options on the market before spending a lot of money for one.

http://billpentz.com/woodworking/cyc...er.cfm#Caution

[Jim Ledger]

In a cyclone, the impeller is above the intake. Not even chips get up into the impeller. If the barrel is not emptied, eventually chips will fill the cyclone up to the intake. Should this happens the unit will no longer vacuum, but I've never seen that happen. You can hear chips in the cyclone when it's too full, and the clear hose between the cyclone and barrel gives a visual indication of a too-full condition.

A cyclone isn't a shop-vac, and would probably not have the suction to pick up screws from the floor and send them up an eight foot vertical pipe.

[Mrleft8]

As Mr. Ledger can tell you, I solve this problem by simply not using a shop vac.... No vacuuming = No clogged filter = No problem!

[Robert W. Long]

I just ordered 2 dust deputys after borrowing one to try out on my sears 6.5hp shop vac. I cleaned the inside of the shop vac and blew out the filter and then hooked it up to a dust deputy and vacumed up a 5 gallon bucket of fine sanding dust. Result was ZERO discernable dust in the shop vac or on the shop vac filter. $39 is a fair price to never have a clogged shop vac fitler again!

[Bill Huson]

I cannot cite, but somewhere in these fora I read that cedar is toxic. Not just irritating... flat-out toxic.

This is true. Western Red Cedar especially will tear your respiratory system up. ADD: Don't Ask Me How I Know This.

[Terry Haines]

Shop Vac’s Quiet Plus series has a separate air circuit for motor cooling, so there no chance of burning the motor when full, or a spark causing an explosion. It only cost a little more - I got it on sale. It is fairly quiet but the exhaust is still noisy so I put the pickup hose on it which muffles it a bit.

Being cheap I hung a 20" box fan on the ceiling; it’s upside down so I can reach the switch, and plugged into the lighting circuit. A 20" x 20" furnace filter on the inlet removes dust from the shop air; the pleated filters work best. It's surpising how quickly the filter changes color when I'm sanding so it works.

[Frank Wentzel]

Bob Cleek is right Oneida's industrial dust collectors are inordinately expensive for non-industrial uses . However check out the Dust Deputy. You put the DIY unit on your own container and connect it to any shop vac. The DIY Dust Deputy is $39 and in my experience it is at least 99.9% effective.

/// Frank ///

[PeterSibley]

here are the plans for Thien Cyclone Separator Lid Discussion
http://www.cgallery.com/smf/index.ph...7d&topic=137.0

I just built one of those, it works pretty well but if I overload it , say vacuuming up a pile of sawdust from the floor , it will blow dust out the outlet . Because it's warm here (even in winter) I've just piped the outlet side outside and now it's really clean. Total cost , using my self multiply junk pile... $40.

[Terry Haines]

Peter: I noticed in the Thien video he was using a 1.25" hose & extension tube, despite having 2.5" plumbing on the lid. He was taking it slowly compared to the rate of pickup (without a separator) of my similar size Shop Vac which has 2.5" plumbing. Using a smaller hose on the Thien unit reduces CFM and may handicap the separator, unless the separator uses up much of the available suction head and requires the smaller hose. What size plumbing are you using for floor pickup?

The smaller Walters separator has 1.25" plumbing and the page shows a pic of a very small Shop Vac. It makes sense to size the separator to the available CFM.

[Songololo]

Some sort of separator or cyclone will definitely reduce the frequency with which the small shop vac container and filter needs cleaning. The first cyclone type system that I used was a home made version (using a dustbin, it's lid and some plumbing fittings) of something similar to what Lee Valley and others stock, e.g.:



This works well at removing the coarser (TS, router, plane chips) and some of the finer (sanding) material. Recently I replaced this with a Mini CV06 which produced far better results than the home made lid.



In both cases a paper filter bag was/is used in the vac. This makes for easy vac cleanup and removes the fine dust.

[PeteCress]

. However check out the Dust Deputy. You put the DIY unit on your own container and connect it to any shop vac. The DIY Dust Deputy is $39 and in my experience it is at least 99.9% effective.

I did and bought one.

Does everything I need done.

Thanks.

[MN Dave]

I cannot cite, but somewhere in these fora I read that cedar is toxic. Not just irritating... flat-out toxic.

http://www.wood-database.com/wood-ar...-and-toxicity/

[seriousam]

Get or make a cyclone to put in line with your shop vac. 80-90% of the dirt will fall out before the filter. They use to have garbage can lid adaptors - don't know how well it works. I have seen a box where the dirt has to go around several corner which might also work. There was a guy on line who offered free plans and the ability to size the cyclone for your vacum power.

Sounds like a half decent idea... I don't see why it wouldn't at least make it a little more efficient..

[jimkeen]

I've got an el-cheapo shop vac that works pretty well except for when I'm sanding/cutting and the dust clogs the filter way too fast - whereupon I wind up taking it apart and beating on the circular filter for about 20 minutes to un-clog it.

Has anybody got something that mitigates this?

I'm thinking some sort of disposable sock to go over the filter - but cutting up vacuum cleaner bags seems kind of pricey given the speed of clogging.

El Cheapo vacs from the big box stores? First thing is to ditch the paper filter and buy some disposable bags to fit your machine. It will be a whole new world. I would not use my rigid vac without them.

[Terry Haines]

El Cheapo vacs from the big box stores? First thing is to ditch the paper filter and buy some disposable bags to fit your machine. It will be a whole new world. I would not use my rigid vac without them.

It makes a big difference; the bag has far more area than the little circular filter and captures dust more effectively. Its fine grain does not allow the dust to cling and clog it up, so the dust can fall down.

I think I mentioned it before but some vacs have a separate cooling air supply for the motor instead of using the filtered air from the container: with these types a blockage does not result in an overheated motor.

[Dan McCosh]

I can ditto the bag liner. I use it particularly for sanding paint, which clogs faster than sawdust. The filter ends up as a backup, and doesn't clog. Shop vac supplies the bags.