I am not looking to upset my wife by trying the house vacuum cleaner, so I am looking at buying something separate for my small shed workshop.
Looking at dust extraction options, the cheapest dust extractor I can find is a 1200W one around £350 whereas I can buy, say, a 1400W wet & dry vacuum cleaner with the same capacity or about £70.
Is using a wet & dry vacuum cleaner suitable for use as a dust extractor?
A shop-vac (generic use, not the name brand) will work just fine for light-duty dust collection. Particularly when the dust stream is run through a cyclone collector.
The cyclone collector will separate the majority of the debris stream from the air stream making the vacuum's job easier and reducing the rate at which the filter clogs and needs to be cleaned/replaced.
A quick web search for "build cyclone dust collector" with turn up lots of written and video instructions on how to build one. Many can be built out of a 5-gallon bucket and a couple of hose fittings for around $5 (adjust based on your local currency). It appears from my current search that most of the 5-gallon bucket instructions are in videos, as I'm not finding written instructions at the moment. However, 30-minutes of watching videos will give you the right ideas and will save you $100s over buying a manufactured one.
