Constant shop vac filter clog

If you want something reasonably priced that works with a shop vac, .

If you really want to roll your own,

I just use these expensive paper bags in my Fein to collect the big stuff and their HEPA filter to keep anything escaping (plaster dust, for example) from blowing through and have no problem with clogging. You don't say what sort of filtration your vac has. Maybe that is the basis of the problem.

I use a Dust Deputy:

I bought a 5 gallon bucket from my local Grainger store. They carry a model that is thicker than the Home Depot/Lowes buckets. My Ridgid vac could crush the Depot/Lowes buckets.

Not a spec of saw dust ends up in the vac.

How are you using the paper bag in a shop vac? I'm still using the original paper filter that came with the vac.

I do have a dust collection system for my bigger tools but use the shop vac for smaller hand tools and of course to clean the shop mess.

I use a DustDeputy for my shop vac and a garbage can (lid) separator for a 2HP dust collector. Both work very well.

I'd like to see what happens when the hose end gets stopped up and all the force hits those connections. Having seen how much a wet-dry vac can distort those 5 gallon buckets, I wouldn't expect too much longevity with that set-up.

That's two votes for the Dust Deputy. I'll have to consider if I don't feel like making my own.

Thanks

I would use larger fittings for this project not only to ease the flow but the larger shop vacs have 2" hoses. I assume he made it to fit a smaller vac which he uses.

Don't know what you mean by "how". The bags in question are meant for the vacuum in question -- see the little port in the side of the bag where the hose feeds in. The paper is thin and has a very large surface area, doubled over in the large canister, and the motor is very powerful so it just sucks air through the bag's surface leaving the dross behind inside. Anything super-fine that gets through the bag is trapped by the HEPA filter. Theoretically I don't think that both methods are meant to be used together but I do it anyway. I don't know if your vac has any such option but mine, being German, is probably over-engineered (probably over-priced too but nothing I can do about that).

I found that my DC _did_ get clogged by fine dust when I was doing a lot of heavy sanding and the bag had to be beaten to loosen it. I set up a kludge with a second bag and that alleviated the problem but didn't eliminate it.

Matthias kicks it up a few notches and adds a Thein baffle:

The bag looks like one for an upright vacuum which is why I asked. Shop vacs (at least mine and most) have the conical filter which wraps around the center exhaust. I've never seen a bag for one.

These filters, because of an old inferior vac design will always clog quickly. I had one and bought the expensive replacement filter. The only thing I gained was a faster to clean filter. I had to unclog it just as often.

All better vacs, home, shop, what ever, have the debris go into the bag and then the filter works on the fine dust that passes through the collection bag.

If you stick with a typical shop vac you need to use something like a cyclone prefilter,

Festool and probably Fein have all debris go straight into the bag and the exhaust then passes through a HEPA filter. My 10 year old Festool HEPA filters have never been cleaned and appear to never need to be cleaned.

FWIW my CT 22 Festool Vac gets used on all of my Festool sanders, Track Saw, and Domino. I do not run any of these tools with out that Festool vac. I change bags, on a heavy year of usage, twice a year and then I toss them. Keep in mind this does not collect planer, drum sander, lathe, or table saw dust. The Festool bags are very efficient, the 22 liter bag is packed solidly full before I notice any loss in suction.

Meanie on Tue, 11 Jun 2019 20:34:38 -0400 typed in rec.woodworking the following:

Easy plan is that somewhere upstream of the filter, put a "box" which is much larger than the hose, where in the 'larger' chunks fall out. With baffles you can cause eddies in the air flow which will allow more dust to "fall out". Or buy a small cyclone unit to do the same thing.

It may be a European thing. Festool vacs use bags too.

One of the BORG vacs (Ridgid) I bought has a bag. I was rather surprised by it.

Baffles will increase the air resistance, thus drop the suction appreciably.

Much better but TANSTAAFL.

That's what I did with my regular dust collector. That was way before the internet telling me it wouldn't work without huge horsepower, and all that stuff.

I figured when the high pressure/velocity in the small intake hose hit the 40 gallon drum (essentually a 22" hose) the pressure drop would cause the sawdust to drop out into the drum. Next, I figured the intake hoses should direct the dust in a circular manner, around the outside of the drum, causing the heavier stuff to fall to the sides. This has served me well over the years, and I hook all my large machinery up to it w/o problems, including jointer, planer, TS. Almost no sawdust gets to the collector which is about 25 feet away, though all sorts of turns and twists.

I have since these pictures added a 4" hose for my 15" planer, and 3" hose for my 6" jointer. It never clogs up, but the collector does get fine powder in it and needs cleaned a couple times a year. I don't hook my 48" belt, 10" disk sander to it anymore, but just use the shop vac as that fine powder does get through more than I'd like.

This collector doesn't have a 200 hp diesel engine powering it however, and would be what most would consider under powered, but it sure works and that's what I care about. My collector is high volume, low pressure whereas a shop vac is low volume high pressure.

I've seen lots of Youtube videos of these, including the Thein baffle, and they don't seem to work any better than my system, some a little worse. I've been thinking of making a smaller setup like this for one of my shop vacs, but really, I don't empty them but once it a while since most of the work is done by my big collector. The fine dust (powder) you get from sanding is going to get to your filter without Herculien effort to remove it first. That's why they have filters on them. My shop vacs can handle the dust on the filters rather well, and I can easily fill up the small 5 gallon can with dust covering the filter.

Also, my pictures show el fittings in the drum, but I noticed my shop vacs just have a straight pipe with an endcap, and a hole/notch cut in the side to direct the air around the outside of the drum, that would be easy to implement as well.

My 40+ year old American made, wet or dry ShopVac used bags. I just brushed them off and used them until they got holes in them. No hepa crap, no dust, just lots of ear bleeding noise. I finally gave up on waiting for the damned thing to break, and replaced it with a nice, quiet Ridged. I'm trying to throw away the ShopVac, but have trouble throwing anything away, particularly if it works.