Shop Vac Experiment

I'm going to try having a stationary vac in the shop with a long hose, Craftsman makes a couple of models along those lines. The only ones they make are 5-gallon models, which means they'd have to be emptied pretty often. Before I go to the trouble of putting the vac head on a piece of plywood over a 40-gallon garbage can, I'd like to know if anybody has tried this. Probably wouldn't have enough pressure, right? If all I can get out of the group is, "gee, it might work," I'll try it. If someone tells me it won't work, I'll take their word for it.

Reply to
edswoods1
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Shop Vac makes a model that fits on a 55 gallon drum. Works as well as any other vac of the same size. Expensive, IIRC about $325 or so. McMaster has them. We use on at work for sucking up water on the floor. It gets plenty of use for that and has held up well.

OTOH, a Shop Vac is not a dust collector, IMO. Different uses. Your idea should work, but keep in mind over the length of the hose there will be some losses of suction.

Reply to
Edwin Pawlowski

I saw an forum message and a "movie" on a Ryobi Saw site. It looked like it worked really well. The guy made a unit from a concrete form.

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need to do this in our shop. We use bags, and a 1 micron filter on a shop vac. It would be nice to even cut down on the bags.

Seems to work fine.

Reply to
Will

The problem isn't pressure (or "suction"). It's volume. Moving dust and chips doesn't take a big static pressure so much as it requires a great volume of airflow.

That's where shop vacs fall short as dust collection systems.

Kevin

Reply to
Kevin Craig
2 suggestions.

  1. Use one of those Cylone lids on a garbage can with your shop vac. They work very well.

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Lee Valley also sell excellent quality, long vacuum hoses. I have the 24' one. It's in a different quality league than those that come with shop vacs.

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Reply to
toolguy

Thanks for the reminder. I knew I had seen this stuff somewhere.

toolguy wrote:

If I buy this I can use the time to make a mess and furniture dust instead of making shop stuff. :-)

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Reply to
Will

There is a few things wrong here. First, a long hose, especially if it is corrugated, will have a lot of turbulance and pressure (suction) loss. Second, a shop vac does not move the volume of like conventional dust collectors. However, your idea might work for some tools. You need to think about purchasing a 2 or 3 HP DC, perhaps one on wheels so you can hook it up to one machine at a time. A 5 HP DC can service a good sized shop with piping & blast gates to several machines.

Reply to
Phisherman

Size of the drum is *irrelevant* to the vacuum 'suckiness'.

The primary consideration is that the drum assy be air-tight. Any leaks translate *directly* into a loss of suction.

Secondary consideration is the 'friction' losses in a long hose. The size of the drum makes *no* difference to those losses.

I've got a Rigid "6.5HP" (*snicker*) with a 12 gal tank. With a

15' extension hose on the end of the stock 8' hose. _No_ noticeable loss of suction power. 40 years ago, Sears sold a vac on a cardboard drum that was same diameter, although less than half as tall as a standard 55gal barrel. *lots* of those were trivially transplanted onto a full barrel. :)
Reply to
Robert Bonomi

I've seen home made cyclone cans for shop vacs.. make one the size you want, limit would be how good your vac sucks.. lol

mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

Reply to
mac davis

=============================== Very Very true..... I run both a 1 Hp and 2 Hp Dust collectors in my shop...The smaller one used only for my planer .

But I also use those clear ..almost. 1 1/2" tubes with Orange little blast gates (sold by the borg as a DC system powered by a shop vac)...

My Shop Vac is enclosed in a box (much quieter) powered by a Radio shack X10 device.. and connected thru about 100 feet of tubing around my shop ... and I have about a dozen little blast gates where I can "plug in" a single normal shop vac hose and reach almost any spot in my shop...Just a lot easier then dragging the vac around...

I use it ONLY as a central vaccum system....not as a DC... Sure I experimented with it...BUT as a dust collector it failed really big time... when "vaccuming the shop floor however it "sucks" a lot better then either of my DC can ...experimeted with them also...

Like Kevin said....air flow and suction are two completely different things... for sweeping the floor suction rules...for removing dust from the air ...air flow rules...

Bob Griffiths

Reply to
Bob G.

I have seen it done successfully. I don't know if it will work in your shop with your vac, but I'd guess the odds are good.

the length of hose will draw down the horsepower more than the capacity of the can.

Reply to
bridger

he never said he was going to use it as a DC.

Reply to
bridger

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