Dust Collection on Portable Planer

[Joe Hollis]

I want to attach my shop vac to my old Dewalt DW733 planer, which of course has a 4" diameter outlet. Would I get better air velocity/capture if I install the 4" to 2-1/2" hose reducer right at the planer duct collection port and run the smaller 2-1/2" vacuum hose from there to the cyclone canister/shop vac, rather than run 4" dia. hose from the planer and put the 2-1/2" to 4" fitting at the cyclone canister/shop vac end?


I'm trying hard to avoid buying a dust collector-I've neither the money nor the space for one....


Thanks for any guidance on this.

Joe

[Matt Day]

I used a shop vac for a while with my dw734, with the 4" to 2.5" adapter at the planer. Worked okay, just a lot of emptying chips from the shop vac. It might struggle with deep cuts at full width, but I IIRC it worked surprisingly well.

[jon minerich]

Joe,

I just finished up "plumbing" my workshop. There are several sites that have all the formulas you need to calculate, airflow, pressure drop, etc. Here is what I learned. A single reducer will cause less static pressure drop than a long run of smaller diameter pipe or hose. So go with the reducer. Also you will find that your dust collection design will be modified by your budget. If you can afford it, run the 4 inch hose right up to your machine and use only the reducer. If your budget won't allow that, then run the shortest length of 2.5 inch you can.

Hope this helps!

Jon

[Ole Anderson]

Joe,

I just finished up "plumbing" my workshop. There are several sites that have all the formulas you need to calculate, airflow, pressure drop, etc. Here is what I learned. A single reducer will cause less static pressure drop than a long run of smaller diameter pipe or hose. So go with the reducer. Also you will find that your dust collection design will be modified by your budget. If you can afford it, run the 4 inch hose right up to your machine and use only the reducer. If your budget won't allow that, then run the shortest length of 2.5 inch you can.

Hope this helps!

Jon
If I under stand you correctly, you suggest sticking with the 4" right up to the shop vac and then reduce? That makes sense only if the vac had the chops to suck 350 cfm under load, and none do to my knowledge, usually they are under 200 cfm. Otherwise all those shavings will settle in the 4" flex. This might be a good application for an inexpensive pre-separator like an Oneida dust deputy.

[Phil Thien]

Put the reducer at the planer, not the separator or vac.

Reason: A shop vac won't move enough air to keep a 4" hose clear, stuff will settle in the hose.

[Prashun Patel]

A planer makes heavier chips. I doubt a shop vac upped to a 4" would have enough suction to pull them. I think you're better off getting a cheap, portable 4" dc and dedicate it. I don't notice big dust problems with my lunchbox; it's more chips, so you may even want to nix the pre-separator, and use the stock filter bag (which may be 5-20 microns).

In fact, if your planer has a blower in it, you might try ducting it straight to a filter bag. I do that, and it works pretty well.

[Bill Huber]

I have a Ridgid planer and the dust port on it is 4" and then there is an adapter that goes into it that takes it down to the shop vac. This is the way it came and I have been using it that way.

I did run it to a mini separator and it did ok, but not that good, the chips would still build up in the planer.

[Jim Becker]

A shop vac isn't going to provide very good results with a "high volume" device like a planer. You'e likely be better served by removing the DC port and installing the non-DC outlet, allowing the chips to fly and cleaning up afterward. Or acquiring a dust collection system...which honestly, is the most important tool in the shop.

[Mike Heidrick]

A planer and no DC makes a HUGE mess - even one pass. Tried that without my DC connected one time. Forewarned LOL.

[Erik Loza]

A shop vac isn't going to provide very good results with a "high volume" device like a planer. You'e likely be better served by removing the DC port and installing the non-DC outlet, allowing the chips to fly and cleaning up afterward. Or acquiring a dust collection system...which honestly, is the most important tool in the shop.

+1 for Jim's comments. ^^^^^

Planer chips are an animal unto themselves and what you can get away with on a table saw or bandsaw may not work at all with the planer. They clog up fittings and hose much more readily than the fine sawdust you get from a bandsaw or table saw.

Back when I did the trade show circuit, we would buy one of those cheapie single-bagger DC units from the local Woodcraft. Pleated filter on top, plastic bag below. Was probably a Delta but it's been many years. It was so cheap that we threw it in the dumpster at the end of each show season but it did an OK job. The trick was to keep it as close to the machine as possible. As others have said, a cyclone like the Oneida Dust Deputy would be ideal but something like the one we had would be a lot better than a shopvac and might be able to get you by for a while. Just my thoughts. Best of luck with it.

Erik Loza
Minimax USA

[Jason White]

Don't do it. You'll hate it. I speak from experience.



I want to attach my shop vac to my old Dewalt DW733 planer, which of course has a 4" diameter outlet. Would I get better air velocity/capture if I install the 4" to 2-1/2" hose reducer right at the planer duct collection port and run the smaller 2-1/2" vacuum hose from there to the cyclone canister/shop vac, rather than run 4" dia. hose from the planer and put the 2-1/2" to 4" fitting at the cyclone canister/shop vac end?


I'm trying hard to avoid buying a dust collector-I've neither the money nor the space for one....


Thanks for any guidance on this.

Joe

[Michael W. Clark]

Like others said, the shop-vac will likely not provide enough flow. I used one for a short time on my 13" Delta lunchbox planer. The chips filled the shop vac quickly, but also continually got all over the planer bed requiring them to be constantly swept away before running another board. The vac did not provide enough flow, so the chips had no where to go but back on the planer bed. I used the planer outside and cleaned up afterward until I got a small DC.

Also, when I planed pine, it would plug the 2-1/2" hose and hood constantly because of the stringy shavings.

[Frank Pratt]

People have different experiences depending on their own equipment. I have a Ridgid WD1851 vac with a 12A motor which is a great vac; quiet, powerful & cheap. It is connected directly to a Dust Deputy & then, via a 4" flex, to the machine in use. With the planer, it does very well. The hose very rarely clogs up & not many chips escape into the wild. But most of the boards I plane are only 6" wide or less. I'm sure a 13" wide board would cause problems.

For some reason, the jointer plugs the hose more than the planer, but it's still better than nothing. With the table saw it doesn't do much good, just means a little less dust in the shop.

I say give it a try, running the 4" hose with the reducer at the vac. It's got to be better than having the planer puke out shavings all over the shop. I'd also recommend a Dust Deputy or other separator to save on frequent filter cleanings.

[Rich Engelhardt]

My low end Ridgid ($20 something on most Home Depot Black Friday sales over the years) hooked up via a 4" to 2.5" reducer on my DeWalt 734 does ok at picking up chips.

I believe the DW734 has some kind of chip blower inside it that helps a shop vac work. I know the DW735 has a blower, but, I can't find online anywhere about the 734.
I'm pretty sure I read about the 734 having one somewhere in the last few months.

+3 or 4 to those saying it fills the vac very fast. It's almost instant full....

[Phil Thien]

I use a shop-vac through one of my separators plumbed to a 2.5" pipe network in my basement, connected to a Dewalt DW734 planer.

It collects in excess of 99.9% of the chips.

There is no way I'd consider using a broom/dustpan instead.

Guess I'm just lucky.

[Myk Rian]

With a 2 1/2" hose, you take a big chance of the hose getting plugged. A planer can make a lot of large chips.

[Mike Chalmers]

With a 2 1/2" hose, you take a big chance of the hose getting plugged. A planer can make a lot of large chips.

Not so. I ran a portable planer (DeWalt) for many years with a big shop vac with 2 1/2" hose through a separator lid from Lee Valley on a 55 gallon drum for years without this ever happening. Only clogs were in the shop vac if I overfilled the drum.

Shp vac with separator on a lunch box planer works quite well. As well as a real DC? No, but quite well and cheaper. Adapter on the machine so run is the smaller hose.

[Brad Adams]

I use my Ridgid shop vac all the time with a 13" planer. Never had a problem in the last fifteen years. Sure you have to empty the shop vac once in a while. Not that big of a deal.

[Joe Hollis]

Update: Thanks to everyone for your replies. I have tried several different configurations, including positioning the 4" to 2-1/2" reducer at the planer discharge port and either connecting the 2-1/2" vacuum hose directly to the shop vacuum, or into the Lee Valley cyclone top on top of a plastic garbage can, and then into my shop vacuum (Ridgid). I kept the hoses very short in all cases. Every test resulted in the 2-1/2" hose being plugged almost immediately, and I was only taking very light cuts off a 6" wide maple board. In order to test using the 4" hose, I'd have to buy a plastic or metal barrel and the larger cyclone top L.V. sells - and I don't know for sure this will work. For now, I'm going to default to dumping the chips onto the floor until I can afford a decent dust collector, then I'll connect both the planer and the 6" Ridgid jointer I just bought.

It appears that dust collectors are something of a necessity...

Joe.

[Lee Reep]

I use Rockler's 2-1/2" to 4" adapter on my DeWalt DW735. I have a flex hose on my Laguna DC, which has Rockler's quick attach handled port that can be moved from tool to tool. I have not plumbed my basement shop yet for the DC, but the hose gets moved from jointer to planer to table saw to bandsaw with ease, and with good results.

Rockler sells a kit that has several of the power tool adapters for both 2-1/2" and 4" tools, so you can quickly move the hose. Here is the link:

http://www.rockler.com/dust-right-multi-port-quick-release-starter-kit

[Curt Harms]

With a 2 1/2" hose, you take a big chance of the hose getting plugged. A planer can make a lot of large chips.

It can, but I suspect with the typical benchtop planer taking shallow cuts would both enable the 2 1/2" hose to keep up and make for a longer lived planer motor. When I first got a benchtop planer (Delta 22-540) it didn't have any sort of chip collection, just a curved cover to direct the chips. I got a section of 2 1/2" extension tube, cut a slot a little longer than the planer cover and closed one end off. Fit the slot over the chip chute and held it in place with a couple metal straps. It wasn't perfect but got 95%, certainly better than nothing. It was amazing how quick a 16 gal. vac would fill up, though.

[Phil Thien]

Update: Thanks to everyone for your replies. I have tried several different configurations, including positioning the 4" to 2-1/2" reducer at the planer discharge port and either connecting the 2-1/2" vacuum hose directly to the shop vacuum, or into the Lee Valley cyclone top on top of a plastic garbage can, and then into my shop vacuum (Ridgid). I kept the hoses very short in all cases. Every test resulted in the 2-1/2" hose being plugged almost immediately, and I was only taking very light cuts off a 6" wide maple board. In order to test using the 4" hose, I'd have to buy a plastic or metal barrel and the larger cyclone top L.V. sells - and I don't know for sure this will work. For now, I'm going to default to dumping the chips onto the floor until I can afford a decent dust collector, then I'll connect both the planer and the 6" Ridgid jointer I just bought.

It appears that dust collectors are something of a necessity...

Joe.

Which Ridgid vac (model) were you using? I think you either have a pretty weak vac, or a leak somewhere.

I've watched my 2-1/2" clear pipe (overhead) as I'm planning wider boards than you and the debris is moving very fast, there is just no time for any amount of buildup.

[Steve Collins]

What I've read about the DW735 was that the blower is so powerful that NO powered dust collector is needed. Is this correct?

[Mike Chalmers]

What I've read about the DW735 was that the blower is so powerful that NO powered dust collector is needed. Is this correct?

If no DC, where does the dust and chips go? On the floor and in the air?

[John Gustafson]

I have a 733, bought it very shortly after they came out, in when late 1990's? I fought with the chip collection / not enough room issue for quite a few years. I went with the shop vac initially and it worked OK. Just had to keep emptying chips. Used the same setup on my Jet 6" jointer. One day as I was window shopping at Woodworkers Supply I spotted a Steel City Dust Collector. I was a small universal motor driving a fan with a 4 inch port that emptied into a bag. The whole thing mounted directly on the dust hood of the planer and it was about $80. Bought one just to see if the thing would work. Supposedly 300 CFM. It actually worked well for the first 30 seconds or so till it plugged up. Problem? There was a"spider" molded into the intake to keep chunks from getting to the fan and the stringy shavings from the planer plugged up. 10 minutes with a box knife cured that. Planers don't generally spit chunks and this was not going on anything else. It actually works quite well. The bag holds about three times what the shop vac does. The only issue is noise. Both it and the planer are high revving universal motors and they howl. Ear protection is an absolute given. The bad news, seems steel city no longer makes them. I wanted to get another for the Jointer. Got a larger shop now, and a 2hp HF collector on the saw and the jointer so my largest chip generators are covered. The planer still has it's own collection system. You might look at the 1hp HF unit. It's not a lot bigger than a shop vac and might solve your problem.

[Steve Collins]

If no DC, where does the dust and chips go? On the floor and in the air?

I think I read that some people just run their hose to a garbage can.

[Garth Almgren]

I think I read that some people just run their hose to a garbage can.
Or a pillow case (http://jayscustomcreations.com/2014/09/my-dw735-planer-setup-and-thoughts/).

[David Ragan]

My ClearVue central vacuum can handle the DW735 taking off a 'moderate amount' of wood. Say 0.015" if I recall correctly. that would be a 6" wide board run through the 'dimensioning' speed (faster). That would be a pretty thick cut for me on that machine.

However, if the airflow is not optimum, the chips begin to fly out the front, just a little, but it is noticeable.

Just be aware, that more woodworkers have chronic lung disease than you would think. all that microscopic dust gets into your lungs and 'can' trigger all kinds of immune responses that go way beyond just the particulate issue.

As has been said, see about this important issue. Bill Pentz is one source of information on it.

[Tom M King]

My judge of a planer DC having enough suction is when a chip that gets slung out the front hovers in the air for a split second, and gets sucked back in, and away.

[Belton Garvin]

I am one of those that directs it straight to the garbage can. I have about a 18" piece of 4" hose that dangles off the dust port into a 35 gal can. You still get dust and shavings in the air but not to bad (I wear a dust mask) if the can gets more than 2/3 full it creates quite a storm of shavings. I had it connected to my dust collector but it filled up after a couple days...and my dust collector is hard to get to to empty. I have a cyclone style trash can that I want to put in before the DC but haven't got there yet.