I recently purchased the Dust Deputy from Oneida Air and the results are very promising.  My requirements were not for a central dust collection system so that isn’t what I’m testing for.  I need a portable system I can use when sanding drywall and using smaller portable power tools.  I often move to different sites and having a big central collection system is not practicle.

First off, when it arrived there were no issues with it.  The directions were clear and everything was packed well without anything missing.  It’s a fairly simple device with no moving parts so assembly was a snap although they didn’t include silicone adhesive to make a gasket which was a bit annoying but not a big deal.  Also, make sure that you get a connector to solidly attach your shop vac to it.  I bought a 2in rubber boot from the plumbing section of the Home Despot which provided a very solid connection between the shopvac hose and the dust deputy.  With everything connected it was time for some test runs.

I’m not claiming this was the most scientific of tests but here’s what I did:

1.  Cleaned my 15yr old shop vac out.

2.  Replaced the cartridge with a new fine dust version.  No micron value listed, it was the best I could get.

3.  Set up the belt sander with some finer grit paper and collected a scrap peice of drywall.

4.  I mounted the hose of the vacuum next to the belt sander.

5.  I weighed the peice of drywall on an inaccurate kitchen scale.

6.  The dust deputy barrel was empty.

I fired everything up and basically ground down the drywall and various rates.  Once I was satisfied with a large enough sample (about 5-10min of playing around) I shut it down.  I checked the shop vac first and there was little to no white particles in the filter and none in the canister.  The next step was the dust deputy barrel.  It had a nice cratered pile of dust at the bottom and througout the interior of the drum.  I did my best to scoop it out and weigh it and found that the “system” collected about 95% of the dust. 

So, for what it’s worth I gave this device an A+ for portability and ease of use and it makes my shop vac work quite a bit better.  Plus it’s easier to empty and increases the capicty of my wimpy shop vac.

One other test that my son performed was to suck up some dog food kibbles in it and listen to it spin around the cone for a good 20seconds after the vacuum was shut down;)

I’d like to see Oneida come up with a “medium” sized dust solution that would give the benefits of the bigger systems without the capacity.  It doesn’t seem difficult to imagine the size of this being increased a bit along with adding a motor with enough power to use as a single tool dust collector.