Shop Vac or DC System?

[Brent Romero]

I am wrapping up my flip top tool stand for my planer and will most likely build a rolling stand for my miter saw. I am trying to decide if I should incorporate a bug hunkin Rigid shop vac into the cabinet for the miter saw or if I should tie it into my central DC system.

Any thoughts/comments?

Thanks

[glenn bradley]

Unless you are going to have a large capture hood design, a vac will capture high velocity spoil off of the miter saw better than a large volume DC type airflow in my experience. As to whether to build it in or just drag a hose over from your modified, dust deputy pre-filter, long hosed unit is a choice you will have to make yourself ;-)

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[Brent Romero]

Trying to keep it as "compact" as possible....hence my thought of putting it in the cabinet.

Thanks for the advice.

[Jim Dwight]

I use my shop vac on my miter saw and it works OK. I just ordered a Kapek dust chute to try on my Hitachi to see if I can make it work a bit better. I have the shop vacuum pulling through a dust deputy and discharging through a quasi Hepa filter. I really like that setup. Very little cleaning of the filter required and nearly no dust in the vacuum. But it isn't terribly compact.

I agree with Glenn. If you want all the dust, you will need to put an enclosure around the saw and use your DC on that. If you are just planning to hook to the 1-2 inch port on the saw, the shop vacuum will do better. DCs pull very poorly against resistance. They quit entirely at about 12 inches of water resistance. A decent shop vacuum will pull 50 inches. A good one will get to nearly 100 inches. But a big shop vacuum pulls 200 cfm where DCs can easily pull over 1000 cfm. Very different.

My plan is to continue with the shop vacuum but improve it's effectiveness trying to get something like the Kapek effectiveness. I'm hoping the Kapek chute plus possibly some whiskers will at least make a serious improvement.

[James Gunning]

The truth is, you really need both systems depending on the tool generating the dust and chips. The planer will work much better with a DC rather than a vacuum. The miter saw will probably work better with the vac if it has the usual small 2" or so fitting and no large capture hood. No reason to not use both if the situation requires it. I have the Rigid desk top sander with both the spindle and belt sanders. It has a built in 2" + port. I hook up my shop vac-Dust Deputy combo when sanding. However, a lot of dust escapes above the table, so I also use a custom fitting hooked to a flex hose from the DC to capture that dust.

[Ole Anderson]

I believe it depends on the design of the dust chute on your MS. If it is set up for a 2" hose, probably a shop vac will work, mine isn't so I need the full suckability (can I say that?) of my 2 hp DC.