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experimenting- DC versus Shop vac

1254 Views 2 Replies 2 Participants Last post by  kp91, 
kp91
For a while I have been looking to replace the shop vac that I use for dust collection on the CNC with a dust collector. I prefer the lower pitch whirr of the DC versus the screaming whine of a shop vac, especially for long periods of time. My 1-1/2 HP DC worked OK, but it is a little overkill for a single 2-1/2 inch hose.

I was looking at the smaller wall mounted 1 hp or 3/4 hp units, and stumbled across a used Shopsmith DC3300 dust collector with a 2-1/2 inch connection. It was listed as $100 (retail price is $500) and it was a good deal of a drive away, but we were going down to Richmond anyway that week for a Doctor appt for the bride, so we took a 20 minute detour to get it.

It's a little bigger than I was hoping for, but not too much bigger in footprint than the big shop vac I was using. It is fairly quiet, and it has a 7 micron top bag instead of the crappy 25 micron on my bigger dust collector.

Best of all, I put it in the power monitor and it draws much less than the shop vac did for power, yet is rated at 3x the airflow. I will hopefully get a chance to see how well it works next week at collecting dust.

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kp91 said:
For a while I have been looking to replace the shop vac that I use for dust collection on the CNC with a dust collector. I prefer the lower pitch whirr of the DC versus the screaming whine of a shop vac, especially for long periods of time. My 1-1/2 HP DC worked OK, but it is a little overkill for a single 2-1/2 inch hose.

I was looking at the smaller wall mounted 1 hp or 3/4 hp units, and stumbled across a used Shopsmith DC3300 dust collector with a 2-1/2 inch connection. It was listed as $100 (retail price is $500) and it was a good deal of a drive away, but we were going down to Richmond anyway that week for a Doctor appt for the bride, so we took a 20 minute detour to get it.

It's a little bigger than I was hoping for, but not too much bigger in footprint than the big shop vac I was using. It is fairly quiet, and it has a 7 micron top bag instead of the crappy 25 micron on my bigger dust collector.

Best of all, I put it in the power monitor and it draws much less than the shop vac did for power, yet is rated at 3x the airflow. I will hopefully get a chance to see how well it works next week at collecting dust.
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Hello Doug
If you use 7micron filter bags, it is better that the dust collector + bag be outside your workshop.
Fine dust from Hard Wood or MDF are toxic. Some people are more allergic and land in hospital but others are killing themselves gradually.

I would strongly recommend that you get a MINI Cyclone for your shopvac or dust collector such as the Clearvue New CV06 Mini. That cyclone that follows the design of Bill Penz can spin even very fine dust into the container below it BEFORE it reach the filter bags.

You can even build a Bill Penz designed cyclone yourself. Attached is a spreadsheet where there is a plan but also allow you to rescale the cyclone according to your needs.
More info:
Dust Collection Research - Home

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kp91
Reuel, I do run a cyclone ahead of it, and run an ambient cleaner as well. I appreciate the recommendation!
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