First steps to dust collection - a story

[Mike Henderson]

I recently moved and now have a larger shop. Considering I was coming from a shop that was 10' by 11' (all of 110 square feet) I had nowhere to go but up. My old shop was so small I couldn't fit any dust collection so I used a broom. In this shop, I'm going to set up dust collection.

I plan to purchase a 2HP dust collector for the table saw, planer, router table, and bandsaw (and maybe for the lathe, although I don't do a lot of turning) but since I had a couple of shop vacs, I decided to use those initially.

I hooked my my large shop vac to my miter saw, with an i-vac so that it turns on when I turn the miter saw on.
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I bought some extra hose so I can disconnect the vac and use it in other places in the shop (for general cleaning). I also ran an extension cord along the hose on the wall so I don't have to "unthread" the wire from the hose. That orange bump on the left side of the pix, on the hose, is the female socket of the made up extension cord.

I chose the i-vac instead of the i-socket because the i-vac has a switch on it which allows me to turn the vac on independent of the miter saw. I left a bit of extra hose in the connection to the miter saw so that I can vacuum out the swarf that is not picked up by the vac when cutting.
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I used my other, smaller, shop vac to attach to my ROS. It may not be a Festool setup but it's one heck of a lot better than what I had before.
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I attached the hose to the PC390 with a hose clamp.
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And I used an i-socket to turn the vac on when I turn the sander on. It actually does a very good job of picking up the dust.
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While this setup may seem primitive to those of you with the giant dust collectors, it's a "great leap forward" for me, and greatly appreciated.

Now, all I have to do is bite the bullet for the 2HP dust collector for the other tools.

As always, your comments and/or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Mike

[dennis thompson]

Mike
I have the Harbor Freight 2HP dust collector & it works well. It's on sale now for $190 & there always seems to be 20% coupons around so you could probably get it for $152. Try to find a store around you so you can avoid the freight. It is however on backorder online, but given that it's a popoular item it could very well be available locally.
Dennis

[JohnT Fitzgerald]

Congrats Mike! It looks like you've started your journey with a good first step. Miter saws make a loy of sawdust, and sanders especially can create a lot of very fine airborne dust. I would recommend a good HEPA filter on your vac.

I am looking to implement a similar system. I have a dust collector for the big tools but I recently have started using my shop vac on my ROS and it makes a big difference. I have 2 potential plans:
- attach the iVac switch onto my shopvac (or a caddy made for the vac) and attach an extension cord the length of the vac hose. This way I can just plug the hose and cord into whatever too I want to use and it will be good to go.
- plumb a few hose ports and electrical outlets along my bench, connected to the shopvac. This way i could keep the vac in a dedicated spot yet still use it.