Dust collection feedback?

[Bill]

I'm in the process of trying to decide on a dust collection system for my basement shop. I have searched the archives of this group as well as most of the major and not so major companies that sell DC units and accessories. I'm an amateur woodworker and will be running a table saw, jointer, planer, miter saw, drill press, sanders, biscuit joiner, etc. The area is approx.

40' x 16' and space really isn't an issue. It seems that the Caddilac unit would be a 1 1/2 - 2 hp Oneida, but I can't justify paying over $1000 for the amount I'll use it. I don't necessarily want a stationary unit because I don't need to run a lot of machines simultaneously. One of the drawbacks of the single stage units is that the cloth bags fill quickly and are a pain to empty. Any reactions to the following will be appreciated. I'm thinking of purchasing a Jet single stage 1 1/2 hp unit and buying a cyclone lid from Lee Valley to put on a garbage can and put it "inline" between my machine and the Jet, the goal being to try and trap some of the bigger stuff before it reaches the bags. Does this make sense, and/or does anyone have any other suggestions. Thanks in advance. - Bill Please remove the "nospam" in my address to email.

[Toller]

Just don't expect it to do much for your miter saw, drill press, sanders or joiner; or even your table saw if it is a contractors. I have had a DC for a few months. It is great where you have things enclosed, but pretty useless where it is wide open (miter saw) or stopped down to a small opening (sander or joiner).

I am not using a separator (I don't have your kind of space or a planer) but understand that they eat up a great deal of suction; you might want to think about a 2hp.

[Rich Shepard]

Last week I purchased the Delta 1 hp, single-stage dust collector. It is essentially the same as the equivalent model made by Jet but is only 75% of the latter's price. With a 2.5"->4" adapter it works well on my Bosch 4000 table saw.

Since I don't create wood chips and dust every day the $148 outlay for this unit was appropriate. I may even buy a new shop vacuum to replace the old one that prompted the purchase of the dust collector.

Rich

[James D Kountz]

Gee Toller maybe you need to check your setup there. I use a DC on all those tools and it does a fine job. Its a 2hp Grizzly unit but its not much more powerful than the one the OP stated. Are you using the correct size duct and minimized your bends and stuff? I had mine actually suck a pencil off my drill press one day when I carelessly left it laying there.

Jim

[Toller]

Maybe I ought to. How do you use it on your mitersaw? Through the "dust port" or some other way?

Mine is 1.5hp, but it wouldn't suck a pencil in from more than an inch from the inlet.

[Toller]

Bosch 4000 is a table top that is largely enclosed, isn't? That is a way different situation than a contractors saw.

[EricY]

Toller,

I build a hood around my miter saw with a 4" port. You wouldn't believe how effective it is at sucking all the fine dust out of the air when making cuts. The hood is nothing simple, just some 1/8" plywood that's barely big enough to allow the saw to swing around to make cuts. I can post a pic to abpw if you're interested, but I think some other folks might have pics on theirs sites they could post.

Consider this - my DC is rated at something like 1500 CFM. I figure that due to ducting and what-not I may be getting only 1000 or so CFM at my miter saw (if that). Assuming I'm getting 1000 CFM there, and my dust hood is about 8 CF (2'x2'x2' roughly), that means my DC will suck all the air (and floating dust) out of the hood in about 1/2 second. Very rough math, and it may not all be correct, but I know for sure that it works *really* well.

Oh, and my DC is nothing special - grizzly 1029 2HP with .3 micron bags and a trash can separator.

good luck,

Eric

[Toller]

Yeh, if no one else references one I would like to see yours. Thanks.

I have a 1.5hp single bag, cause my shop is so tiny. It is about as powerful as a normal 1hp. Ive tried attaching a line to the "dust port", but between the poor position and the small opening, not much happens.

[Mark Jerde]

Look at the bottom of Barry's page.

-- Mark

[Gary]

Have you considered building your own cyclone separator? Your shop's about same size as mine and I built one from a ShopNotes project

a 2 hp PennState motor blower for 300 bucks and you've got a heck of a system. I built mine several years ago and have it plumbed to 9 different tools with blast gates at each one. Very efficient system. Only thing I'd do different is use a finer filter bag at the end stage. I've got my filter box right next to my air recirculating cleaner (squirrel cage blower in a box with several furnace filters) so anything that escapes it heads through the filter box. I love mine and like the fact I built my own.

gary a

[Eric Yancey]

My hood looks very similar to Barry's. I can't tell where Barry put his DC port, but mine is at the lower left which is probably less than ideal but I had to do it that way for space reasons. One other thing I did was to run a section of shop-vac hose from the CMS port up into the DC pipe. This seems to work pretty well as a small amount of suction does pull some dust through the CMS dust port. I'll post a pic up on abpw.

Eric

[Rich Shepard]

It's sold as a contractor's saw. The folding, metal stand is separate. The body is plastic so it's quite light and easy to move around. But, it does not have a solid base. That was obvious when I tried hooking up my old Genie shop vac to it: I accidently put the hose in the top (outlet) fitting on the Genie. Sawdust all over the place. :-(

Rich

[Steve Knight]

works fine for me. you need to hook it up right run pipe right and work on how you catch the dust at the tool. but with effort it works pretty well.

[Bob Davis]

I've been working on a shop made guard and dust collection for my table saw for about a month. This has been more of a laboratory experiment than a construction project. Its led to lots and lots of experimentation with hose sizes, collection approaches, etc.

I have a 2hp Jet collector. I expected lots of improvement when I bought it about 2 months ago and was sorely disappointed with what it didn't do when connected to the factory port on my table saw. Now I'm playing around with two 4" connections to the saw - 1 at the factory cabinet and 1 on a home made blade guard. Its obvious that the DC had been operating in a "choked" mode when it was just connected to the cabinet alone. With two hoses connected, the DC moves up the performance curve into a zone of much higher efficiency. You can see it and hear it. The table saw cabinet is almost emptied, whereas before dust would build up deeply with the DC running. The collection from the blade guard is amazing.

Bottom line: Dust collectors just don't do what they are designed to do if you starve them with small hoses and inefficient piping. This is characteristic of any centrifugal pump or blower. I sort of understood this principal but did really get how profound it was until I began playing around.

As an eye opener, take your dustiest operation and hold the open end of a short 4" hose near it with the DC running. I was testing some tall cross cuts with redwood (nasty mess) and was stunned to see every shred of dust get sucked into the hose as it shot off the blade. The trick is to create this situation with hoods and connections and guards in a way that you can still work and see effectively and safely. Running this same test with a 2" hose was a joke. It makes me question the effectiveness of all the commercial and shop made tables saw guards I see with ten feet of shop vacuum hose connected to a 4" adaptor.

During this testing, I got the free end of the 4" hose too close to some 2x4 cutoffs. Whoosh! It sucked one off the the table and made a horrible racket as it passed through the blower a split second later. Fortunately the all metal blower survived without damage.

Bob