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Short answer: A shop-vac is better than nothing, but barely adequate for dust collection on almost any stationary power tool. On the other hand, a dust collector would be inappropriate and wouldn't work very well for most handheld tools.
Long answer: read on...
The others mentioned that a Shop-Vac produces low-volume air flow with high static pressure, and ...
21
PVC is commonly used in dust collection systems. Typically for longer runs you should use 6" or larger pipe, regardless of the material. If you're using PVC, the larger, less expensive pipe is commonly available as sewer drain pipe.
As of May 2015, there have been no known fires caused by a static discharge in a PVC pipe from a dust collection system.
...
16
Short answer: always wear a properly-fitted, high-efficiency respirator so you can reduce your chances of developing respiratory problems or certain types of cancer of the respiratory system later in life.
There are many levels of protection when it comes to filtering the air you breathe, from cheap paper masks that provide very little protection, to ...
15
Shop vacs pull a smaller volume of air (cubic feet/minute) than dust collectors, but with a higher pressure differential. That might not mean much to you, but what it amounts to is this: shop vacs are better at sucking dust from a close source (hooked into the exhaust of your handheld sander) and dust collectors are better at collecting from a diffuse source ...
13
If you feel it must be sealed up, some nicely placed HVAC aluminum tape will do the trick. A careful application at the edge of the table and bring it to the sides with a little turn-down to seal it up.
I do agree with Rob that 4" round will give plenty draw.
11
I wouldn't worry about it unless you hook everything up and find that you aren't getting good enough suction. In fact, you don't want to completely seal up the saw, or else there won't be enough air intake to feed the dust collection port. Airflow in must equal the airflow out. If you starve the dust collector by sealing up the table saw too much, you'll ...
11
There's two things to consider here: how much the machine throws dust all over the place, and how good dust collection is at the source. The circular saw and RAS are both going to throw dust with a fairly high velocity, and neither have good dust collection mechanisms. You could build one for the circ saw (as Jay Bates did for his circ saw) or a dust shroud ...
10
What specific benefits can I expect?
Your health. I have a large dust collector which I run most of the time I'm using large power tools. While it does a pretty good job of keeping things 'clean' an has a 1 micron canister filter to keep from throwing the small stuff back into the air, it still doesn't catch everything.
And it is those small under 5 ...
10
This could work, but you would want them setup to run in parallel, and not in series I would think. For example at the end of your ductwork, you have a Y that splits right into the two vacuums. My guess is the stronger vacuum will end up with the majority of your dust.
However if you set this up with a cyclone, you can still centralize all of the dust ...
9
As with Rob, the short answer is to always wear a dust mask to reduce the risk of respiratory problems.
The long answer is, it depends. Visible dust is less of a hazard than very fine particles. Dust particles smaller than 10 microns can bypass the body's defenses and can reach deep within the lungs. Particles larger than 10 microns tend to be trapped by ...
9
Dust collectors have higher air flow but lower static pressure than a shop vac. In other words, dust collectors are better at sucking in all the dust chips and fine dust. They will have a harder time with heavier objects (rocks, metal, etc...). With that being said, you shouldn't collect those heavier objects with your dust collector; you could damage the ...
8
Most miter saws don't have very good dust collection. You can buy or build a hood to catch the dust.
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Some hoods can be connected to your dust collector, while others funnel the dust down into a bucket.
8
My hope is that in general hand tools will not produce fine enough dust to be concerned with.
While it is now fairly widely known that the finer dusts are the most hazardous (as produced primarily by certain power tools) this can tend to obscure the fact that all wood dust is a potential health hazard.
This position is considered overly cautious by the ...
7
Unless there is a space concern within the shop area, I'd keep the dust collection bin inside the shop, but run the PVC piping up through this crawl space. In other words, run the PVC directly up into the ceiling and then through the crawl space over to a central point where you'd have a down pipe going to your collection vacuum.
There are two potential ...
7
I tend to agree that compound miters have horrible dust collection design. Mostly I've given up, even though I have hose connected to my dust collector.
My dust collector doesn't have enough static pressure and the little port tends to get clogged. I'm sure that this is one tool the Shop-Vac actually works much better on.
However, I do have one ...
7
Yes this is not a problem however you won't get the anti-static properties. Depending on the tool you might need an adapter to match the tools dust port size.
6
These are moderately noisy beasts. The best that can be said for them is that they're less noisy than a shop vacuum, and much less noisy than any of the large tools you're likely to connect to them. More expensive units, with thicker metal components, may be a bit quieter.
You can try to reduce resonance in the frame, but anything you try to do to the ...
5
With the tools you are talking about, yes it should work fairly well. As keshlam pointed out, you would probably be just fine using a shop vac for these and handle everything just fine.
The joiner would be the one to give you the most chips and any dust collector should be able to handle that. Two of the big things that you would consider between a shop ...
5
Note that 90 degree bends greatly restrict airflow and should be avoided as much as possible. Long sweeps, less severe bends, and diagonal runs of dust collection pipe will cause a smaller drop in static pressure.
Edited and condensed from my answer on using a shop-vac vs. dust collector...
CFM vs. Static Pressure, defined
Air volume is measured in cubic ...
5
For my system I used 4" diameter sheet metal flues for all of the runs with corrugated flexible tubing from the machine to the metal flues.
It's light weight and easy to hang.
Readily accommodates blast gates.
No questions about static build up (readily grounded if the elbows and t's are also metal).
I used (now get this) duct tape to seal all of the ...
5
You definitely do not want to decrease your hose size as you get closer to the dust collector/vacuum. Just about every shop I have worked in has had confusion over dust collection piping, usually because they try to think of it like an HVAC system, or something that is pushing air. This is wrong, because you are pulling air, so if you think about it, when ...
5
There are many ways to adapt contractor-style table saws to dust collection systems. They all tend to follow a common blueprint, but naturally they range from simple to complex, depending on how much effort you want to put in and how much dust you are willing to let leak out.
Image credit: WOOD Magazine
The solution above, Tip #9 from this collection of ...
5
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 ...
4
In addition to Paulster2's points, you'll be making your dust collector work harder. If your crawlspace is small and well sealed, it will quickly become pressurized, since you're basically pumping air into it from your shop. At the same time, you're putting the shop at a slightly lower pressure. Pumping air from lower pressure to higher pressure will ...
4
One thing you might consider is getting a cyclone attachment for your current vacuum system. Lee Valley makes one that I haven't personally used, but it's similar to one that my dad made and uses in his shop. Mostly I'm pasting the picture below for illustration purposes - all cyclone attachments work using the same principle. Matthias Wandel builds a ...
4
If you're working with a shop vac, whose blower is designed to pull a pressure difference rather than move large volumes of air (the biggest difference between shop vac and dust collector), I think I'd stick with the 2" hose it was designed for. That's how the commercial solutions work, after all. This does mean a different separator for the shop vac than ...
4
There are many different kinds and searching for Dust collection hose at amazon gives a whole list of stuff. However I personally have these two in my shop.
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and
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The first is fairly rigid hose and comes in specific pre-cut lengths. I think 8' or 10'. It takes a lot to collapse it and is decent for running along the walls and ceiling....
4
I had the same thought when I was setting up my system (since I have two units). I did quite a bit of research and came to the conclusion that using two units in parallel is not a good idea. The two units will be working against each other and it could end up damaging one or both of the systems.
It would be better to setup the second unit on a separate "...
3
That roar is really part of the nature of the beast. Some folks tuck their DCs into sound-insulated closets for that very reason, some set up the DC outdoors or in another room.
3
I'm not sure it's possible to catch all the dust you make on any project, however the is no reason not to try.
For quite a while I used a shop-vac to clean things up and many tools have connections to help in this endeavor, though you need to keep moving the shop-vac around to all your tools. On top of that they tend to be very loud, (much louder even than ...
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