I am setting up a new shop in a 2 car attached garrage. I want to do a good job at collecting dust but can’t really put the money into a large DC system. A good shop vac would be cheaper. My questions are: What exacly is the difference between a 2hp cyclone dust collection system and shop vac with 6.5hp? Is it practicle to use a shop vac as the dust collection for a small shop?
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FWW No. 175, Feb. 2005 has an article about universal motors that may answer some of your questions about shop vac power ratings. One caption reads, "This shop vacuum states in large print that it can produce 6.5 hp at peak power. The small label on the rear states that it only consumes 12 amps. Assuming average motor efficiency, the maximum continuous horsepower is only around 1.35 hp when drawing 12 amps." So shop vac hp ratings are pretty much a numbers game. But, if your budget only allows for the cost of a shop vac, that's fine. I used them for years before upgrading to a real dust collection system. They're more efficient on some tools than others, but in general, get the job done. One drawback is that the filters tend to clog with dust quickly and suction drops accordingly. I'd look around before you commit to a shop vac though. You can find some reasonable pricing on 2 hp dust collectors if you shop a bit. Good luck.
I can't make the comparison that you asked. But I use a 10 gallon 4 HP shopvac for all my dust collection: table saw, jointer, drum sander. I works fine. These machines still spit some dust out through the working parts, especially the table saw when the blade and its shroud are in a lowered position. But it is easy to clean up at the end of the session.
Thank you all for sharing your knowledge. Your suggestions have cleared up a few things. I'll just have to go out and find something that fits my budget.
thanks again
I use a so-called "6.5 HP" shop vac right now. As others have pointed out, the HP rating is just short of an outright lie. Regardless, it works fairly well for my 20" band saw unless I'm doing resawing. It would fill up very quickly if I used it on a planer or jointer though. Also, my "quiet" model shop vac is louder than any of my machines. The shop vac is way better than nothing, but I'm moving to a DC system soon.
Pete
I'm currently installing a cyclone DC but used a large shop-vac for years. It wont work well except for capturing the heavier sawdust. The stuff that floats through the air doesn't get captured very well by the shop-vac. It's marginally usuable but you'll have to plan on removing a fine layer of dust on everything pretty regularly. Still it's better than nothing at all. What finally drove me over the edge was when I upgraded bandsaws. Resawing on a BS just generates way too much dust for a shop-vac to even think of coping with. Jointers and planers you can skip altogether if you want. You can hook them up to the shop-vac, but they generate chips, not dust and it's not all that tough to just sweep them up. I did find the shop-vac did a pretty decent job of keeping up with the router table and with my Performax 16-32 drum sander. The table saw and shop-vac combo isn't very effective, but it will get some of the dust - at least in keeping the cabinet or collection bag from filling up - but you'll lose quite a bit to airborne dust. Just my $0.02.
If you build it he will come.
Going beyond the whole horsepower thing..........vacuums and dust collectors do different things. Haven't totally gotten a handle on it myself, but vacuums use high static pressure to gather stuff up, including objects heavier than dust, while dust collectors are focused on generating fast air flow, higher cubic feet per minute, to move dust and shavings quickly away from the source. So comparing horsepower doesn't really get to the issue.
I used a big, old, Craftsman shop vac for quite awhile. It worked great on the jointer, but was lousy on everything else, well except for the router maybe. Worse than useless on the planer -- the hood just packed up with shavings. Dust collectors are expensive, but they do the job. As mentioned above, a vac doesn't hold much either. What's sitting in my DC right now (cedar and oak shavings) constitutes 3 or 4 loads for the vac, which you can't fill up for sure.
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Another thought on dust collector vs. shop vac and pricing; Grizzly offers a 1 hp portable dust collector that won't cost you much more than a shop vac and will perform better. I have a friend who uses one with his table saw and it works like a champ. The disadvantage is that you'll have to move it from tool to tool as needed, and chip capacity is low, but at $158, it may be a way for you to go.
Check it out at:
http://www.grizzly.com/products/G1163
One other thing -- if you go the shop-vac route, make sure you get a model that will take a HEPA filter. I originally used it with just a paper bag, but that spread the fines through the air. With paper and a HEPA filter, the fines that get caught by the shop vac stay in it.
Pete
BK - I agree with Pete on the HEPA filter. I have two shop Vacs to lessen the constant changing between tools but I also have 3 Hepa filters. I keep one cleaned and dried ready to go as usually, just when you are in the middle of something the filter clogs and you don't want to take time to clean it right then. I grab the clean one and keep going and then clean the dirty one when cleaning up the shop. Dust level with the HEPA is greatly reduced along with the overhead air filter system which is a must if the garage is closed up during the winter. HEPA filters in the furnace also keeps the little woman off your case too....someday my own shop far from the house and neighbors!!
What make of overhead filter do you have and are you happy with it?
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
I basically made my own. Rectangular plywood box with slot at one end to hold filters and a CFM blower from Grangers at the other end to provide the air movement. Filters are furnace type (avg .99$) each, rectangular in shape so I don't have a big box hanging down 12" high x 20" wide and 20-24" long. About $50-60 bucks and works as good as the $150-200 Deltas or Jets I think.
I doubt that 99 cent filter will catch fine particles very well.Pete
Good Point, I wondered why as much dust was coming out as going in, just kidding, HEPA filters all around.
Where do you find the 99 cent hepas?
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
I got lucky and found a partial box at the local True Value hardware on their closeout table and they didn't know what they had. Bought the entire stock. Should last for quite a few years.
Score! Dashes my hopes of ordering some though, they are pretty proud of hepas around these parts.
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
I'd help you out but here in Alaska with shipping costs as high as they are we tend to hang onto the good stuff once we get ahold of it. Sorry.
"What exacly is the difference between a 2hp cyclone dust collection system and shop vac with 6.5hp?"
Well, obviously the shop vac has far more power than the cyclone, and will do a far better job sucking up both chips and dust because of that. These cyclones are just overpriced gimmicks: only 2 HP for hundreds of dollars, compared to a ShopVac for less than $100 with 6.5 HP.
After all, the shop vac makers can't very well lie about their horsepower ratings, now can they? Isn't false advertising a crime in this country?
Prepare to be really impressed: the definition of 1 horsepower is 745.7 Watts. The standard electrical outlet your 6.5 HP ShopVac plugs into can deliver a maximum of 15 Amps at roughly 120 Volts. 15A x 120 V = 1800 Watts. Converting this to HP yields 2.41 HP, maximum. Something seems fishy, right? Well, this calculation omitted one important variable: efficiency. Electric motors have differing efficiencies: the electrical power going in isn't the same as the mechanical power coming out. So, if we divide 6.5 HP by 2.41 HP, we get 2.69, or 269% efficiency!
Most shop tools, such as large table saws, use induction motors which require big 240V circuits with lots of amps to create just 5HP. But the ShopVac can make 6.5HP with a simple 110V outlet, using motors that are greater than 100% efficient. This is really impressive if you ask me, and makes me wonder why everyone else isn't using these motors. Of course, being the curious type that I am, I wonder how they're getting more power out than they're taking in from the electric outlet. I'm sure this is some kind of trade secret, but I'm guessing it has something to do with wormholes. Perhaps the ShopVac motor simply uses the electricity to open a wormhole to a parallel universe, from which it pulls power in a different form to power the motor.
Maybe it receives a subsidy from the Lost Electricity Reclamation Agency.
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
Maybe it receives a subsidy from the Lost Electricity Reclamation Agency.
That's shoes for industry, Charlie.My goal is for my work to outlast me. Expect my joinery to get simpler as time goes by.
Do you still have a copy?
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
I listed to We're All Bozos On This Bus (my favorite) two nights ago. :)My goal is for my work to outlast me. Expect my joinery to get simpler as time goes by.
Are you one of those guys who knows every line?
Follow the yellow rubber line to your seat.
One of my favorite parts was the future fair,
Welcome to the future!
The future is fun!
The future is fair!
You may already have won!
You may already be there!
Are you a devotee also?
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
Edited 8/14/2006 8:24 pm by dgreen
"Are you a devotee also?"Afraid not. I was always WAY to stoned* too memorize, let alone retain any of that stuff. * On only half a key -- had to split it with the sound effects man.
Edited 8/14/2006 8:38 pm ET by Mike_B
You can sit over here in the waitng room or wait over here in the sitting room. And one I still find use for "You can't get there from here".
Does bring back some memories...
I was'nt quite as bad as the Who, they say they don't remember 1969 at all!
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
"I was'nt quite as bad as the Who, they say they don't remember 1969 at all!"If I'd known I was in for all this critical thinking as an adult, I'd have taken a break now and then back in those days. The chickens are home now and they're roosting big time.There was another group around the same time that was quite good -- Ace Trucking Co. -- more live performance than vinyl. Saw them once in Philly and they were great... as I remember -- whatever that's worth.Well, time for a nightcap, and on to the Antelope Freeway to bed.
Not intentionally, but I've listened to Bozos many many times and much of it has stuck. Enough that when I saw dgreen's post, the shoes for industry thing came right out of my brain. :)My goal is for my work to outlast me. Expect my joinery to get simpler as time goes by.
It's amazing what stays with you and what doesn't. I had a roommate in school who was a big fan and I guess I absorbed what little I did from him. He could do entire albums. Don't touch that dwarf!
Do you have The Further Adventures of Nick Danger Third Eye?
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
I can't recall if i have that or not. Collection is in disarray right now, but I dug out Bozos. :)My goal is for my work to outlast me. Expect my joinery to get simpler as time goes by.
You haven't described your power tools, but I'll guess at what you have, making the assumption that you are a hobbyist, as I suggest ways for you to keep your money.
Make chip collection boxes to put under your contractor table saw & jointer. Clean the floor around them with a broom or shop vac as required which is a task you will have to perform even with a dust collector. Empty the boxes as required. A bandsaw, router table, belt/disc sander, & spindle sander can be handled with a decent shop vac if it has a rather large storage volume. Home Depot & Sears once had a cheap 2" ducting setup that will do for that. Let the chips fly out the door of your garage from a thickness planer until you acquire a drum sander. Sweep up the chips or let them rot. When you buy the drum sander, that is the time to get a dust collector. You must have one for that tool. Connect the DC to your planer at that time. A cyclone type is probably the best choice, but I don't know. I do know that cleaning out my collector is the worst duty I have ever done as a WWer. A cyclone should be better than mine. I have a 3-HP collector which really sucks, but the tops of my tools are still a mess & I have to sweep the floor just as much as before I installed the dust collection system. I have used collection boxes, too. They work just fine! Oh, yes! Be sure to get an air compressor. With that you can blast lots of chips out the garage door into the yard where they can rot & fertilize. It can be used to clean off walls with nooks & crannies,too. An upright model takes less floor space & moves around easily. And wear a face mask when really stirring up the dust.
This tome may read like a tongue-in-cheek joke to the professional who has a shop equipped with only the best. But we lowly amateurs can't usually get that stuff into our garages -- or afford it. I'll wager that many more WW hobbyists have had the same disappointing experience trying to keep things clean with a dust collector. LOL!!
Cadiddlehopper
http://billpentz.com/woodworking/cyclone/Index.cfm
In my itsy-bitsy but well equipped shop I use a shop vac with the cyclone trash can lid from Lee Valley, along with a HEPA filter and a bag in the shop vac. The lid fits a 32 gal. trash can, so there is decent capacity, and the cyclonic action keeps everything but dust in the trash can and not the vac. The bag in the vac captures most of the dust, so the annoying task of cleaning the filter happens less often. Not a perfect solution, but short of a full DC system it's the best I have come up with. The only time I really miss the suction of a larger system is on the planer and the biscuit joiner.
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