Home made dust collector

[danimal]

I'm sure that everyone here has the same problems I have regarding fine saw dust clogging up the filters on their shop vac / home vacuum cleaner. I have been researching a ton of different solutions and the best thing that I found was the Dust Deputy and even then there are a host of issues that you have to solve on top of the $50 price tag for just the DIY kit not including bucket or anything else. Then I would need adapters because it has 2.5" port diameters on it and everything I have is 1.25".

Before I get too far into this I want to state that I am still in the begging stages of testing this and it is by no means complete. I was actually hoping for some input ideas as my testing of it progresses. I took the idea listed here: http://www.jpthien.com/cy.htm and scaled it down to fit 1.25" hoses because that is what I have on my shopvac and on the hose to my CNC. Also I will include the exact parts I used instead of general names. I spent about 2.5 hours walking around the hardware store looking, comparing, measuring and testing before I settled on the part for my build.

I plan on trying several types of cyclone fixtures on the base of the lid, but I saw the funnel in the picture as I was leaving and it was .69 so I figured that I would give it a shot before cutting and building a base plate out of wood as the other DIY cyclone does. The design idea is that the material entering the bucket will be forced in a circle towards the bucket edge, then gravity will pull the debris down while the funnel lid will re-direct all fine dust back into the cyclone stream acting as a barrier to exiting into the shop vac. Also the funnel serves the purpose of preventing turbulence from upsetting settled dust in the basin.

My goal here is to be able to run my machine for an entire job without a loss in performance from my shopvac. As it stands right now I take it apart and clean out the filter at every tool change or about hourly for most jobs and the bin is only about 1/3 full at most. It just plugs up the filter and as I get closer to a filter cleaning, more dust starts flying around the room.

Here is the parts list:

1 x Elbow 90 degree 1.25 FPT $1.99
4 x 1.25" Rubber Gasket $.99 Each (found in the sink plumbing section)
1 x Bushing 1.5 to 1.25 40PVC FPT $2.99
2 x Male adapter 1.25" x 1" $1.39 Each ( Street, threaded on the male end)
1 x 5 gal bucket and lid (I had one in the garage)
1 x Large 8" funnel $.69

Total - bucket: $13.40

[danimal]

As you can see the tape holding the funnel is a temp fix, but I did not want to start drilling holes and mounting all thread until I knew it was going to work.

Also to cut the holes I used a 1 5/8" hole saw and it cut so perfect that I probably did not need the gaskets. It actually threaded in there and I could tighten the pieces down to sandwitch the bucket lid.

[danimal]

First I cleaned my little shop vac to the point of being brand new. I even washed and dried the foam filter and sock prior to running. I ran the vacuum for about 20 minutes vacuuming everything that I could find and below are the results. I can see that there is a tiny bit of fine dust in the shop vac, but honestly almost nothing. I vacuumed up about 4 cups of saw dust and fine dust and there is just enough to barely see anything on the filter paper. The suction was strong the whole time.

After how good this turned out, I do not think that I am going to do too much more testing. I thought that there was going to be at least some carry over to where I would be able to measure the difference, but with that volume, vacuumed that quickly, to have as little as I do is good enough for me.

Before Vacuuming:







After Vacuuming:

[WillAdams]

Excellent that it works so well (I added a new section and link from the Dust Shoes page on the wiki --- guess that one will need some breaking up and re-working as well).

[ALuomala]

Nice work! I bought a cyclone lid from Lee Valley (link) and almost immediately wished I hadn't. For one, one needs to have a rigid container to use it with. I bought a Rubbermaid can with the requisite size top, but it collapses a little once the vacuum starts. Which then breaks the seal. Which required me to buy closed-cell foam to create a better seal. Plus bungie cords to hold it down. And the whole deal is taller than I wished.

The day after I initially purchased the lid, I walked into BusyBee tools and found this. Same price as the lid alone from Lee Valley, but it contained everything I needed to get started (except an adapter, I believe). I should have bought that, thrown my other contraption to the side and been happy, but I am too stubborn (and cheap) to have done that. Moral of the story: I should have done more research and/or built my own.

[danimal]

Aluomala, I went through every lid and kit that I could find and really I was not to impressed with any of them for the cost. I did not find the busy bee kit anywhere online through my searches or I might have picked that up. The hardest part about this whole thing was finding random parts that work together that were designed for something else. That took forever. But now that it all works I would not buy any of the kits that I found online.

Here are some pics now that it is all done and mounted the funnel. I took a little scrap piece of acrylic and bent it with my pocket torch.

[NakedWoodturner]

Nice work.

I did something similar except I was lucky enough to get a 20 gal barrel from work for mine. I went through the side with the hose that connects to the vacuum and used a tube of silicone caulking to seal around it. It creates a nice mini cyclone with the smallest shop vac you can buy and no loss of suction from dust in the filter. No telling what it would do with a real vacuum.

No I just have to get it wired up so it comes on and turns off with gcode. I even have the relays for spindle/vac control but haven't put the time in to make it happen. I like to use the machine as much as tinker with it.

[awesomename]

For those using a vacuum line on their shapeoko machines, what diameter of vacuum tubing do you have going into your vacuum clamp mount?

I am debating between 1.25in and 1.5in. I really want some flexibility like in the 4in clear plastic stuff but it seems to be much stiffer for the under 2in stuff.

[WillAdams]

I'm using a standard house-hold 1.25" vacuum for my machine, and the vacuum is just a cheap bagless one, not much more than a dust-buster --- so long as all the connections are good you don't need much vacuum to get the vast majority of the dust/debris.

William

[danimal]

I'm using a standard house-hold 1.25" vacuum for my machine, and the vacuum is just a cheap bagless one, not much more than a dust-buster --- so long as all the connections are good you don't need much vacuum to get the vast majority of the dust/debris.

William

That is what I was using before. I think it was a shark brand vac that I bought used. But as soon as I started with aluminum and larger 3D stuff it was not enough. Then when I started doing more in wood it was useless. I bought a little shop vac and it too was useless because the fine dust would plug it up so fast. Then I used my home bag-less vacuum and it too would be full about half way through the job not to mention that it draws like 10 amps when running. That is almost double what my shop vac draws and that really does add up over time when you run jobs that are many hours long. Also my better half did not find it amusing when she found her vacuum filled with aluminum shavings. Its only her vacuum when I "ruined it".