HF Dust collector??

[mac davis]

Ok.. I've put my flame retardant suit on for this one..

I have a garage shop with 2 shop vacs and no real dust control other than an open garage door and a window fan..

Has anyone ever tried the 2 hp (sounds very low power) dust collector from Harbor Freight?

I know it's not going to be a GOOD dust system, but going would going from no system to one of these do me any good?

(their number on it is 45378)

thanks, mac

[Patrick Fitzgerald]

Do a google search for previous posts.

There is also a good website discussing this dust collector:

picked up one of these yesterday for $139 at the retail store ($159, price match the website $149, $10 off coupon). I haven't unpacked it yet so I can't say if it's any good.

[Greg O]

I have one, as do many others. for the $159 on sale price it is a good deal. Many people recommend better bags, but I have been satisfied with the stock ones. Check this link out!

Greg

[mac davis]

Great link! thanks, Greg..

[Bob Peterson]

I have been tempted several times. Up close it looks like a real decent unit.

[Paul in MN]

I've got one, and think it works great. Having said that it is the first one I've owned. I am in the process of hooking up some 4" pipe runs to my equipment. If you do a Google search there is also a modification to these that makes them work apparently a lot better.

Cheers,

Paul

[Morris Dovey]

At

you can see how I've used the HF dust collector (in conjunction with two cyclone separators) to capture dust from a CNC router - which produces a /lot/ of dust!

I've been happy with the entire system.

[Dan]

On Sun 31 Oct 2004 02:19:11p, mac davis wrote in news: [e-mail]:

I bought it last Christmastime for about $140. Sucks pretty good. :-)

Like Greg, I plan to put a better bag on it someday, and set up a chip separator, but it suits my needs just fine right now. I ductaped a hood in the bottom of the tablesaw, set it up with a piece of flexible dryer conduit that sticks out of the saw at a convenient spot, and put a 20' flexible hose on the DC. It works just great. Easy to hook up, lots of suction. You can watch it suck the dust from the top of the saw. When I get the new bag, I might go whole hog and do that two-bag manifold upgrade.

I didn't do as much woodworking this summer as I wanted. Bathroom remodel. But I did fill the bottom bag up. Once.

I should note that the shop vac is still the best choice for the band saw and SCMS. When I drop the hose size to fit those outlets, suction drops so much that the shop vac's is better. I'm gonna cut a four-inch hole in the bandsaw one of these days.

Dan

[Bob]

Wynn Environmental sells a large cartridge conversion kit (like used by Jet and Delta) that should turn the Harbor Freight into a much, much better collector in terms of containing the dust and drastically reducing the maintenance required.

Its $118 at

[mac davis]

WOW!

[mslatter]

I've got one and it's a great piece for the money. I put a Grizzly .3 micron bag on top, and a plastic bag on the bottom. I use a 30 gallon steel trash can and a Grizzly separator lid. I mounted the dust collector unit on a shelf with the separator can underneath the shelf, tucked the whole thing in the corner next to the garage door track, and it works wonderfully. A decent, small footprint, and - so far - reliable DC system for around $200 total.

As for suction, I have no means of measuring it. Though the first time I turned it on... it threw a breaker... ok, so the SECOND time I turned it on, I put my hand in from of the intake to see how the suction was... Whoomp. Sucked my hand right in. I'm lucky I didn't get clipped by impeller blades.

Which does bring up a topic: it throws a 15 amp breaker pretty regulary for me. I had to move it to a 20 amp circuit.

[mac davis]

Well, I have 40 amp circuits in the shop (the old 220v plug, converted to 2 110v circuits), so I don't think I'd have that problem...

I'm pleasantly surprised at the many positive responses to this post, and have added the DC to my HF "wish list"..

Thanks to all that have replied....

[Tim Douglass]

2 HP should be about 16 amps IIRC. Probably pulls 18-20 on startup. If you have more than 50' of wire from the panel to the motor it pretty much guarantees that it will blow a 15A breaker. If the motor can be converted to 240 that is the way I would go.

Tim Douglass

[Peter De Smidt]

That's a good question. I downloaded the manual, and it doesn't say. Could someone who has one check it out? If the motor can be re-wired to

240v, I'll get one.

[David Hall]

Just to add to the posts, my brother just received his a couple of days ago and he is quite pleased so far.

Dave Hall

[Greg O]

I run mine on 110 volt, 20 amp breaker, no trips, ever. Can't have anything else on the same breaker though! Greg

[Alan W]

I bought on on Friday night last week for the internet price of $149.99 at the local store. It is quite heavy, ended up sliding it onto my mechanics creeper to move it around in the box.

Yesterday I ordered the Wynn cartridge conversion after reading Bill Pentz's site, I figured I would spend $40 getting new bags at least, and the filter kit with plastic catch bags and the cartridge was about $103.00. Being in the diesal truck industry, I appreciate how well those big canisters work.

Wynn indicated I could just blow it out with compressed air from the outside in, so I expect the cartridge to last me a LONG time.

I've got conflicting information on the size of the HF dust inlets. Wynn says if I take the Y off I get a single 5" line. I see JET has a

6" and 4" adapter available for their 2hp unit, and I suspect I could attach that to the harbor freight impeller section.

Also considering moving the motor off the bottom of the cart onto a small chest of drawers and giving the motor to bags hose a straight shot. Perhaps reducing it from square to round right at the bags instead of right out of the impellar housing.

Hope to get rid of ALL the dust in my garage shop. Trying to figure out how to move the jointer to be closer to the orientation of the hoses. don't want to have to step over them!

Alan

[Peter De Smidt]

Alan,

Thanks for the nice write-up. Which cartridge fitler did you buy? Please let us know how hard it was to adapt to the dust collector. I'm thinking of doing exactly what you have in mind.

-Peter

[bridger]

110v only

[Bob]

I suspect HF is overrated and does not have the same capacity as the Jet, even though they both claim 2hp. One rough comparison is to look at impeller size. I believe the Jet 2hp uses a 12 inch impeller.

Bob