DC -vs- Shop Vac questions

[Bob Noles]

Living in the Atlanta area, we took a pretty good lick from Hurricane Dennis with some of the heaviest rain I have seen in my 50 years around here. As a result my shop floor took in some water (about 1/2 inch) and I was faced with a mess to deal with. Luckily my floor is painted concrete and all of my tools are on mobile bases and nothing was harmed except my ego and the pain of cleanup. I had to deal with removing the water from the shop. Here I sit with a little 2 gallon shop vac that can suck up 1/2 gallon of water at a time at best (I have no idea why they call it a 2 gallon) to tackle the 2 hour job of draining the shop and drying the floor.

After a 24 hour body recovery, I am inclined to go purchase the biggest meanest Wet/Dry Vac I can find (I know.... over reaction is common) should I ever encounter anything like this again or have other needs for sump pump type operations. This has never happened before and probably never will again (I hope) :eek:

Now the questions. The whole while I was sucking and dumping that little shop vac I kept eyeing my Delta AP400 and thinking how much space it takes up in the corner of my tiny shop and how very useless it was at this particular moment. As I have mentioned before, I am still shop building and tool collecting at the moment and have not had a chance to use that "sucker" yet. If I get myself a beast of a wet/dry vac with the proper filters and bags, can I not use it in place of the AP400 with about the same results, except for maybe more frequent dumps in the flower bed? Will it not pull the chips and dust as good as the AP400? Can it not do as good a job over all of collecting and filtering? I know the goal is to reduce dust in the air as well as keep things tidy. Most of my cutting and sanding and routing is done outdoors, weather permitting, but every now and then I may have to actually run a machine in the shop and I need some sort of DC on board for those times. I know I need a filtration system to get the small particles out of the air and that is coming soon. I work with only one machine at a time and don't mind the connecting and reconnecting of whatever suction I go with.

I am looking for some opinions and/or advice on whether a wet/dry vac of Godzilla magnitude would not serve the same purpose of an AP400. I know there are bigger and better DC systems out there than I have and a shop vac would never touch them. I am only trying to compare a shop/vac to what I currently have so I can decide which one really needs to live in that valuable corner of real estate.

Thanks for any and all input.

[Dick Parr]

Bob a shop vac will work fine for most tools in the shop with the exception of a planner. For years that is all I used until I got my 2hp griz system because I moved up to a 15" planner and had a lot of oak to plane. I also use it now for cleaning up the chips from the lathe and while sanding on the lathe. Since I have one I have it now hooked up to all my tools.

That Craftsman shop vac sure does a great job of getting the last of the water out of the hot tub when it is time to drain and clean it out. :) It will move a lot of water fast and it will do it from carpet also, I know from experience. :rolleyes: But it an old one and sure is load. :eek:

I also have a 5 gal one I use for nothing but metal shavings and walnut shavings which get put into a bag and disposed of.

I clean my shop daily using my shop vac. I will be looking for a new quieter shop vac in the near future. :D

Good luck.

[Corey Hallagan]

My shop is just to darn small to put a big old DC System. In the near future I plan on getting one like Bernie posted earlier this week. That is the best I will have room for. Been using a big shop vac for years but frankly it isn't worth much on a contractors saw :) either is a full blown DC system on those saws. I concentrate my use on the sanders and routers I have that allow DC. Table saw boogers just get vaccumed up from the floor for right now.
Corey

[Jules Dominguez]

I've been doing amateur woodworking on and off for about 40 years. I'm not bragging, I never took a shop course or had any family background in woodworking. I just started buying tools as I needed and could afford them and pretty much learned by doing. There was no Sawmill Creek (no internet, actually) to go to for help in those days. I've recently discovered, since logging on to Sawmill Creek, just how much I don't know about woodworking.

However...... some of the posts I see from amateur woodworkers about the hazards of wood dust seem to me to be almost paranoid. I can well appreciate that any pro who's in a shop atmosphere all day every day has a legitimate concern and needs very good dust collection, for several reasons. But I question the hazard level for amateurs whose actual exposure to heavy dust concentrations is relatively minuscule. I use a shop vac myself, and don't really have a dust problem.
I have a contractor's saw with a homemade plywood box underneath it that catches most of it's sawdust; a radial arm saw with a homemade dust catcher; a bandsaw, router table and drill press drum sander table, all of which I hook the shop vac up to; a palm sander which has it's own dust catcher; a planer which blows the chips into a plastic garbage can with a fabric cover; and the rest I don't worry about.
The level of hazard created by dust and many other pollutants is a factor of dust concentration and hours of exposure. Occasional exposure to relatively low concentrations of wood dust is very unlikely to cause anyone harm. My opinion.

[Charles McKinley]

Hi Bob,

If you mainly want to seal with water, ShopVac has a vacume that has an onboard pump thatyou can attach a hose to and pump the water out as you vacume it up.

As far as using it for dust collection I think it sepends on whatyou are trying to run with it. Dust collectors work on a low pressure High volume of air movement and a vacume wrks on a higher pressure lower air volume.

I'm sure that someone here can give you a better idea of what will and won't work off of a shop vac. How good is the filtration on you dust collector? If it is one of the lower quality bags you may be putting more of the dangerous super fine particles into the air than you are removing.

Just my two cents.

[Frank Hagan]

Jules, the issue becomes critical when an amature woodworker is allergic or otherwise sensitive to wood dust. Read the account on Bill Pentz's site for what happens when someone develops an allergy to dust ... http://www.billpentz.com

One of the things he says is that the standard dust collector bag, with a 30 micron rating, may actually make things worse. They become "dust pumps", pumping out the really fine dust that presents the worst health hazard. I think if I became that sensitive to dust, I would go the Neanderthal route; you create very little dust, if any, using planes, rasps, scrapers, etc. But in his case, his health problems cascaded to the point where he cannot do woodworking any more. None of the DC available to him were enough to protect his health.

I get sinus problems if I breath too much dust, so I use a respirator now, and plenty of ventilation (almost always accessible to me here in California; I don't have to deal with weather extremes that force me to have a closed up shop). I'll get a DC at some point, and will probably opt for a cartridge style that filters down to .5 micron, or a less expensive DC if I can figure out how to mount it outside.

There is an increased incidence of nose cancer among woodworkers in some studies, but you know how those things are; it takes years to prove the issue with peer review and more studies. In my case, since my sinuses act up, I'm trying not to be one of the stats they cite if they, at some point, says "Now we know ..."

[Rob Russell]

Bob,

There is a huge difference between a "shop vac" and a dust collector - they are specifically designed to do 2 different jobs. There is a big difference between systems that are designed to pickup heavy objects vs. move 600-1200 CFM of air through a 5-6" pipe.

Shop vacs are designed to have high static pressure - suck power, if you will - but they don't move huge volumes of air. The static pressure is what lets a shop vac suck of water quickly or pickup 1/2-13 nuts off the shop floor.

Dust collectors are designed to move lots of air, but at lower static pressures. An expensive DC can also generate high static pressures, but we're talking about systems that are likely out of your price range. Air volume is what captures and transports the wood chips and dust.

If you setup a shop vac as a dust collector by a lathe, you'd find it to be pretty ineffective. The amount air volume movement required increases by something like the change in distance cubed as you move from the orifice. In general, I think you'd get frustrated with a shop vac as a DC, especially if you're trying to collect from some real dust and chip producers.

If you try to use a DC as a shop vac for heavy stuff like water (forget how you'd really not want water flowing into the DC motor or filters), I think you'd find that your DC simply didn't pickup the water that well.

Rob

[russ bransford]

Bob,

A ball park rule on vac-DC is if the dust port is bigger than 3"dia, use a DC, use a vac for 3" and less. The size and amount of the chips also come into play. Most of the nuisance dust will be coming from the sanding. Use a vac for sure there. To fight all the dust you will at some point need the vac, DC, and Cleaner.

[Bob Noles]

Wow.... I post a call for help late at night and when I wake up in the morning, I have all kinds of responses.

After purchasing my AP400 I picked up some 1 micron bags to replace the 30 micron standards that came with it. Like I said, I have yet to use the thing and thinking maybe trading it in on a good shop vac. Your opinions and advice are most valuable and I will watch this thread throughout the day. Dust is not as much concern in my particular situation, due to layout of my work habits, as is keeping the mess down and getting more mileage per square foot of shop space. For health reason, I am very aware that a "good" system is important. My case is a little different with being able to work outdoors, use of good dust masks and hopefully will get an air filteration system to handle the shop air quality soon.

Right now I can certainly see advantages of having both shop-vac and DC from the posts you have already been so kind to share. I still hope I can eliminate the DC for shop space reasons, but will wait until addition input come is so I can weigh the pros and cons.

Thanks SMC!

[Rob Russell]

... I still hope I can eliminate the DC for shop space reasons ....



I would keep both but would look for a more powerful shop vac anyway. You can get creative on storage for the shop vac, like tucking it under part of your tablesaw's extension table when not in use.

[Kent Parker]

Bob,

Seeing how you already have a nice dust collector, how about providing a sump in your shop floor to accomodate another "sinking"? You can purchase a 110 volt pump (with float switch if needed) to do all the back breaking work for you:).

At the most you might have to "broom" or sweegee the water to the sump.

Cheers,

KP

[Mike Cutler]

Bob. Rob has it right. While a Shop Vac and a DC both pick up "Unwanted Debris" A larger wet dry vac is what you are looking for.
I used a 12 gallon shopvac for dust collection for awhile, and there is no comparison to the difference between a DC and a Shop vac. The DC is simply the right tool for the job when it comes to collecting sawdust. It was a lot quieter also.
In short, you need both imho.

[Jim Dannels]

I could say I`ve been there and done that.
After I found 5" of water in my basement and like you carried way too many 5 gal bucets up the stairs. My next shop vac purchase was a model with a pump I can hook a garden hose to and pump it out.
Never have used the pump, but it is on a shelf if I ever need it.

The shop vac is at this time my dust collector, but a collector is high on my list of must haves. Especially after the heap, I swept up after my router last night.

[Bob Noles]

Okay guys..... thanks for all the helpful input!


One thing for SURE at this point is I am going to need a really good shop vac. Let's see..... quiet.... collection bag..... dust filteration...... ability to pump and extract water.

Open for suggestions on a good brand/model to shop for. Would like to stay under let's say $150 if possible. After I get it I will find out first hand if it can replace the AP400 or if I need to make room for "one more tool" in my shop.

Thanks for all the help you folks have given me. You will never know how much I appreciate each of you.

[Shawn Honeychurch]

Hi All;

After reading this thread and doing some reading on Bill Pentz's website I have decided to get the Delta AP400, with the 30 Micron bag, then build an airtight enclosure around the bags, and vent that outside, that way all the big stuff will get trapped in the bags, and the small stuff will go right outside. I think that would be the perfect solution. Anyone disagree?

Shawn

[Jack Burgess]

Jules, It is the dust that you cannot SEE - MICRO DUST - several people I know have been put in hospital with breathing dust. Sounds like you have most of yours controlled however

[Joe Scarfo]

I prefer to segragate dust collection from water collection...

If the Delta dust collector works, then keep it...

For a recent flood here... I bought a small pump.. less than $35. It wasn't pumping 100 gals a minute.. more like about 10. But it did the job and now it's stored away for the next time it's needed.. if ever again...

I remember the Atl storm well, I have cousins who live there... What is the likelihood of it happening again? If you're got the fear it will, buy a small pump for the shop... or keep an eye on craigs list and buy one someone is getting rid of...

Good luck with your choices

Joe

[paul cottingham]

Believe it or not I use a rigid shop vac with plumbing and a cyclone with my 12" planer. And it works. Is it optimal? heck no. But it works (and pretty well!) until I can afford the money and space to change it.

Mind you it doesn't work worth a crap for my jointer or tablesaw (big surprise!)

[glenn bradley]

If I get myself a beast of a wet/dry vac with the proper filters and bags, can I not use it in place of the AP400 with about the same results

In a word, no. Apples and oranges my friend, apples and oranges. JMHO.

P.s. +1 on the sump pump next time.