Dust extractor reccomendations

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neb

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#249233 1-May-2019 22:18

In order to alleviate household issues I've been looking at how I can reduce the amount of dust that gets into the rest of the house, despite my best efforts to keep it out. The obvious solution is to capture it at the source, but most of what's available is either standard canister vacs, sold as "wet and dry vaccuum cleaners", or the equivalent of canister vacs sold as dust extractors, e.g. this or this. What I'm after is something that attaches to standard, typically hand tools (jigsaw, drop saw, sander, drill, etc), is variable power (since I only need to remove small amounts of dust, not suck the X off a Y at 100dB, so I want to dial down the power and noise to make it bearable), and can run for extended periods of time without the motor burning up (a number of canister vacs aren't really rated for extended operation).

Any recommendations?

Bung

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#2229910 3-May-2019 08:38

I use recycled vacuum cleaners on my sanders with dust cyclones to reduce the amount that actually reaches the vacuum. With vitually empty bags the vacuums seem happy running for longish periods. I did get caught out at Easter collecting the dust from diamond cutting concrete. There was enough very fine dust reaching the vacuum to clog it up and it did shut down. Luckily it did start again after cooling down. I should do something to shift the filter from the outlet of the vacuum to the input and make it much bigger. The other thing woodworkers do is have fans sucking through filters to catch airborne dust.

mdf

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#2230044 3-May-2019 11:23

Bung: I use recycled vacuum cleaners on my sanders with dust cyclones to reduce the amount that actually reaches the vacuum. With vitually empty bags the vacuums seem happy running for longish periods. I did get caught out at Easter collecting the dust from diamond cutting concrete. There was enough very fine dust reaching the vacuum to clog it up and it did shut down. Luckily it did start again after cooling down. I should do something to shift the filter from the outlet of the vacuum to the input and make it much bigger. The other thing woodworkers do is have fans sucking through filters to catch airborne dust.

I'm fiddling around with this approach too. Any chance you could post a drawing or sketch of how you've set this up?

neb

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#2230071 3-May-2019 12:01

mdf: I'm fiddling around with this approach too. Any chance you could post a drawing or sketch of how you've set this up?

There's a whole pile of Youtube vids on doing this, generally involving something like a rubbish bin and a canister vac for the fancier ones, or just a bucket and some PVC tubing.

Given that you can get some of the ones I linked to for roughly the same as, if not less than, the cost of a canister vac, I was thinking of maybe using one of those with a triac speed controller to keep the noise level down.

1101

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#2230074 3-May-2019 12:07

https://www.godfreys.co.nz/turbo-dust-accelerator

these work really well for trapping dust before the vac .

Theres no filter to worry about either.

neb

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#2230076 3-May-2019 12:08

Oh, there's also this thread which turned up using a different keyword search ('cyclone' instead of 'dust collector'). Looks like the premade units are still available.

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#2230084 3-May-2019 12:17

1101: https://www.godfreys.co.nz/turbo-dust-accelerator

these work really well for trapping dust before the vac .

Theres no filter to worry about either.

Interesting, so it turns your vac into a partial bagless. Only thing is you're buying from Godfreys, the HRV of vac sales. Better would be to get the same thing directly, where it's $20 and doesn't involve giving money to Godfreys.

Hmm, hope that doesn't get dinged for being a link drop, it's not, just a link to the same product at a fraction of the price. They're also all over eBay.

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neb

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#2230088 3-May-2019 12:22

1101: https://www.godfreys.co.nz/turbo-dust-accelerator

these work really well for trapping dust before the vac .

Theres no filter to worry about either.

That's actually not bad, here's a vid that's not Godfrey's advertising showing it's pretty efficient at intercepting dust ("I vont to suck yoo bloo....dust!"). And it'll go on a generic vac, so I can get my lower-power/noise operation. Thanks for the pointer!

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#2230095 3-May-2019 12:34

I have done this same thing for my CNC mill. In the end I went with a cyclonic extractor into a bucket with a shopvac on the end.

Both shopvacs and dust extractors have their issues.

Shopvac - Heat(less of an issue with a cyclonic system in-between as it means the motor can get more air as the filter is not as covered with dust, Still makes for a good heater in winter though), static(can be resolved with a earthing wire running through the hose), Noise(bit harder to deal with. some other people have put the in sound dampening boxes however I don't know how well this works in the long run due to heat).

Dust extractor - Most have useless filtering for fine dust you can get ones with HEPA filters but these are expensive.

Geoff E

mdf

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#2230114 3-May-2019 12:56

neb:
mdf: I'm fiddling around with this approach too. Any chance you could post a drawing or sketch of how you've set this up?
There's a whole pile of Youtube vids on doing this, generally involving something like a rubbish bin and a canister vac for the fancier ones, or just a bucket and some PVC tubing. Given that you can get some of the ones I linked to for roughly the same as, if not less than, the cost of a canister vac, I was thinking of maybe using one of those with a triac speed controller to keep the noise level down.

I meant shifting the filter before the vacuum to keep dust out of the impeller, rather than after.

I've found my cyclone (and from what I can tell, most others) operate at low pressure, high volume (LPHV). This is great for collecting chips, but not so good at collecting dust. Most industrial dust collectors have an additional bag to capture the finer stuff. When I built mine, I copied this approach and put the filter after the vacuum, not before. I adapted an old vacuum and unfortunately dust going through the impeller gets in to the motor. I'm thinking about how best to shift the filter without reducing suction. Sounds like @bung is doing something similar.

High pressure, low volume (HPLV) systems are best for dust (with the proviso that these can get clogged up if collecting chips). I haven't seen any of these I'd describe as quiet and affordable (which seem mutually inconsistent). The bigger, non-mobile ones that have better motors (I'd love an induction motor one at some stage) and are quieter, but you can't move them around to different tools. And if your tools are anything like mine, each will have a different diameter opening for dust extraction. Another option might be a down draft table for hand tools. You could stash your dust collector somewhere with a bit of sound proofing in this case. The Dust Sniper build sort of follows this approach, though takes things to extremes.

neb

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#2230120 3-May-2019 13:04

I'm still thinking about things, I was assuming I'd end up with a largeish non-movable unit but having been introduced to the vac add-on separator that seems good too, I can use it when I'm working around the house without having to vacuum dust and wood chips from everywhere afterwards. The convenience of just plugging in a $20 unit to an existing vac is also a bonus, I'll probably give that a try as a first step.

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#2230127 3-May-2019 13:21

I picked up 2 of those inline units for $2 ea. So far they've been all I need after an orbital sander with 60 - 80 grit. Big bits clog the input and very fine dust still doesn't drop out before getting to the vac. It's well worth reading the comments on YouTube, sometimes they add more than the video.