Sawstop PCS Dust Collection Advice

[Josh Baldwin]

Hey everyone so I'm going to be order a Sawstop PCS soon and I'm finding really conflicting answers regarding dust collection. Some people saying the overarm sucks and others love it.

Anyone have any advice regarding the best dust collection options for the SawStop?

I'll be using a 5hp ClearVue Cyclone Dust Collector and running 6" ducts as close as I can to the machine, then splitting them off to 4" at the bottom and whatever you guys can help me come up with for the overarm solution.

I've read some good things about the Shark Guard, but not sure exactly how it compares to SawStop's options.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

[Ben Rivel]

I advise ditching the splitter SawStop uses to feed the suction to the overarm and replacing it with a 4"x2.5" actual wye. That increased the performance of my setup noticeably. Other than that, Ive never complained about the PCS with the overarm. Connected to my V-3000 its been awesome!

[Dave Seng]

I have a PCS with the Floating Overarm Dust Collection system. I really like it. A lot. There are some situations on cuts where the cutoff is so narrow that the hood lets some dust escape, but just yesterday, I looked at it and thought, "that thing is a game changer". As an added plus, the hood serves as a "no fingers allowed here" reminder.

[Scott Bernstein]

I also have the SawStop floating overarm guard - the big one - mounted on my 36" PCS with industrial mobile base. The "smaller" one is the non-floating overarm guard. I also have the same dust collector the OP has (5HP clearvue cyclone with upgraded 16" impeller). I have one 4" hose attached to the back of the cabinet and one to the floating arm. Works great, and you can use it for both through cuts and non-through cuts. I did try the Shark Guard and did not like not being able to use it for rabbets and dados, the 4" hose coming off the top always got in the way, and the guard itself never seemed very stable on the riving knife mount and constant adjustment was needed.

SB

[Alan Lightstone]

I also have the large floating overarm guard. Mine is hooked up to a 4" hose attached to my 5HP Oneida. I do have it wyed from a 6" drop from my DC sharing it with the Sawstop which is a mistake. Dust collection could be better. If I make a separate run sometime (not a cheap endeavor considering the floor layout and Nordfab ducting), I imagine dust collection would get better.

I did built a dust shoe for the overarm guard, which does improve dust collection dramatically. Someone should really produce one for this, or better yet Sawstop should include it or make it an option. I haven't found a good way to secure it yet, but it is a huge help.

I had the smaller overam guard DC setup on my Sawstop contractors saw, and wasn't impressed with its dust collection.

[Jim Becker]

Floating overarm guard/collection can be a great thing because it doesn't get in the way most of the time including for non-through cuts. I agree with the advise to hook up the guard independently from the saw port for the under-blade shroud so you have more control and provide more air flow. Dust collection isn't about "suction"...it's about air flow. The more you have, the better the collection.

[David Publicover]

I use the standard non- floating DC arm on my SawStop ICS. I found I was able to improve it by changing out the T fitting where it connects to the 4” hose to a Y fitting. It’s a tip I read here that improves the airflow. I’m connected to a 2 hp short cyclone DC and find the performance meets my needs. I do have a small shop and short runs to my tools which may help.

[Tom Willoughby]

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Hi Josh,

I also have the ClearVue cyclone and find that the SawStop guard is quite good as long as the blade has wood on both sides of it. Trimming wood with the side of the blade exposed tends to spray dust out the side of the guard. I have a 4” hose dropped to the guard from above and a 6” hose to the base below.

Tom

P.S. Sorry for the sideways photo.

[Andrew More]

I've tried both a floating over arm of my own design, and also the build in small port on the guard.

My testing has shown the guard has a minor advantage over the floating over arm, but requires a shop vac. Before I used a shop vac I also tested it with a 4" hose run from the split on my 6" main line, and then run through some converters. The reason is that the port on the guard is too small to work effectively with a normal dust collector.

I also agree with the people saying that the splitter sold with the saw is a very poor design. It appears to be designed almost solely to minimize the space taken up behind the saw, with dust collection efficiency a far second.

So what I've done is to buy a dedicated shopvac, and put it into the rafters of the shop. This also avoids the need for the special kit they sell to attach the guard to an under table. I can also use the shop vac to clean the saw, or the outfeed/assembly table behind it.

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[Jim Dwight]

I have my PCS hooked to a 2hp HF DC which I think it adequate. The saw port is only 4 inch and hooks by flex hose to a shute around the blade. The chute directs nearly all the dust that comes towards the under the blade cabinet to the chute. Mine has only had to be vacuumed out once when the hose from the chute to the port disconnected because I did not adequately tighten the clamp.

I run a 5 inch snap lock pipe to the saw and have a 5-3 wye for my home made overarm collector. I do not use it a lot, however. It doesn't do much if the blade is not buried in the work. I'm thinking of modifying it to add a drop down piece of plexi to deal with this. The other issue is narrow pieces. If you want to make a narrow rip I pretty much have to get my overarm out of the way. I cannot see and I cannot control the workpiece.

Does anybody's overarm get a lot of the dust when the left side of the blade is "open", not buried in the wood? I seem to make a lot of cuts that way and see little benefit of my overarm when making those cuts.

Because the 5 inch has to go to 4 inch to hook up to the saw, I don't think wye'ing off a 3 inch flex line hurts the extraction from the cabinet.

[George Yetka]

Ive been meaning to upgrade to the floating. I rarely had the guard on the saw so it didnt work that well. I put it on for large plywood sessions. and it works well

[Andrew More]

Does anybody's overarm get a lot of the dust when the left side of the blade is "open", not buried in the wood? I seem to make a lot of cuts that way and see little benefit of my overarm when making those cuts.

Yes, at that point the saw blade is throwing some of the dust at 100 MPH to the side. Typical DC is moving air at a max of 40 MPH, so the DC loses. You need to have some sort of physical obstruction, which is why the guard based DC is better. You could also solve the issue with a "sawstache" (https://www.fastcap.com/product/saw-stache) or anything else that physically prevents the dust from being ejected.

[Alan Kalker]

I started with the smaller overarm but it was pretty useless. The larger overarm has been better. The real game changer was getting a better dust collecting machine.

[Josh Baldwin]

Well ok that's a lot of responses. Thanks so much for all the advice everyone. I'm going to read through all of this and see what I can come up with.

[Rob Sack]

I had the original dust pickup/splitter combination on my ICS and it worked quite well for dust collection. However I was constantly removing it for rabbets and dados. I switched to the large floating arm which is much more convenient, but as originally installed as per Sawstop's instruction, it was less effective for dust pick up. I am using a Murphy Rogers dust collector with a six inch duct splitting into a 4 inch y going into the saw and into the overarm collector. I used as much rigid duct possible to improv flow. It was only after I repositioned the overarm unit so that the 4 inch collector was directly over the blade and blocked off the front of the plastic guard with a brush that I was able to improve the pick up. I called Sawstop and told them what I had done and I got the impression they were not interested.

[Josh Baldwin]

I advise ditching the splitter SawStop uses to feed the suction to the overarm and replacing it with a 4"x2.5" actual wye. That increased the performance of my setup noticeably. Other than that, Ive never complained about the PCS with the overarm. Connected to my V-3000 its been awesome!

Any chance you have any pics of your setup? Thanks

[Josh Baldwin]

Floating overarm guard/collection can be a great thing because it doesn't get in the way most of the time including for non-through cuts. I agree with the advise to hook up the guard independently from the saw port for the under-blade shroud so you have more control and provide more air flow. Dust collection isn't about "suction"...it's about air flow. The more you have, the better the collection.

So my best bet would be to drop the 6" duct from the ceiling and then at some point split it into 2 4" hoses, one running to the overarm and one to the saw port? Do I even need to use the overarm? Should I just connect one of the 4" hoses right to the actual blade guard? Just trying to make sure I'm thinking about this correctly. Thanks for the help.

[Frank Pratt]

I have the standard guard with a 2.5" flex dropped from an overhead duct to the guard. The only time any dust escapes is when cutting less than a kerf width from a board. Then, as others describe, it shoots out at about 100 miles an hour.

[Jim Dwight]

There is a guy on youtube, I mostly look at his site for Festool tips, particularly domino tips. Goes by half something or other, can't remember the name. But he has a "tricked out" sawstop and I am pretty sure he puts a dust chute with a magnetic base on it on the top of the saw to get the dust that shoots out when one side of the blade is exposed. I don't think I have airflow for another hose on my setup but could be an idea for those of you with big systems. I'm close to just taking my overarm off. It seems to be in the way more than it is useful. Sweeping the dust on the floor and then vacuuming it up works. But maybe I'll keep messing with it until I am happy (or happier at least). Dust in the air is also not good.

[Josh Baldwin]

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Hi Josh,

I also have the ClearVue cyclone and find that the SawStop guard is quite good as long as the blade has wood on both sides of it. Trimming wood with the side of the blade exposed tends to spray dust out the side of the guard. I have a 4” hose dropped to the guard from above and a 6” hose to the base below.

Tom

P.S. Sorry for the sideways photo.

Hey Tom thanks for the pic. That's exactly what I was thinking about doing. Skipping the overarm pipe and just have it go right from the ceiling to the blade guard. So the blade guard has no problem holding the little wood converter floating in place? Do you have one blast gate for both hoses or are there 2 separate blast gates?

[Frank Pratt]

There is a guy on youtube, I mostly look at his site for Festool tips, particularly domino tips. Goes by half something or other, can't remember the name. But he has a "tricked out" sawstop and I am pretty sure he puts a dust chute with a magnetic base on it on the top of the saw to get the dust that shoots out when one side of the blade is exposed.

That's something that I've been mulling over & will do some day.

[Jim Becker]

So my best bet would be to drop the 6" duct from the ceiling and then at some point split it into 2 4" hoses, one running to the overarm and one to the saw port? Do I even need to use the overarm? Should I just connect one of the 4" hoses right to the actual blade guard? Just trying to make sure I'm thinking about this correctly. Thanks for the help.

In this specific situation, that would be a good solution, but I'd have gates so that the overarm can be turned off for those times when it's not going to be used for functional reasons. While a lot of folks eschew an overarm guard/collection, it can make a huge difference in dust collection performance as there is a lot of material that comes off the blade on top of the table that will never get caught by the under blade shroud. It becomes even more obvious when cutting things that are really "dusty", such as MDF.

[Ben Rivel]

Any chance you have any pics of your setup? Thanks
Sure do:

https://sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=386046&d=1526657826

Thats a 5" reducer to a 4"x4"x2.5" wye and then a 2.5" to 1.25" reducer. All the black colored parts were bought from Rockler.

[Tom Willoughby]

Hey Tom thanks for the pic. That's exactly what I was thinking about doing. Skipping the overarm pipe and just have it go right from the ceiling to the blade guard. So the blade guard has no problem holding the little wood converter floating in place? Do you have one blast gate for both hoses or are there 2 separate blast gates?

Hi Josh,

The home made transition from the 4” pipe to the blade guard is a friction fit and it tight enough that it stays in place.

I have 2 separate blast gates: one for the overhead guard and one for the saw cabinet.

Tom

[Alan Lightstone]

I have a 90 degree wye on the limb to my overhead dust collector, which clearly is a no-no. I'd take a picture, but it would cause much head shaking.

You guys made me feel shame so I ordered the correct Nordfab 4"x4"x4" wye to use for my overhead arm. That run is shared with my router table, so I need the wye. I looked and it's a 6" main run split to a 4" flexible hose for the ICS, and the second split goes to the overhead arm with its own blast gate. So I also turn off that blast gate when the arm is not being used.

[Jim Dwight]

The youtuber I couldn't remember last night is "half inch shy". This should be a link to his "pimped out Sawstop" with many of the changes related to dust collection: ://www.youtubhttpse.com/watch?v=gf6b7ttPke4.

[Josh Baldwin]

The youtuber I couldn't remember last night is "half inch shy". This should be a link to his "pimped out Sawstop" with many of the changes related to dust collection: ://www.youtubhttpse.com/watch?v=gf6b7ttPke4.

Thanks for the info. Yea that guy put some serious work into that.

[Josh Baldwin]

Sure do:

https://sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=386046&d=1526657826

Thats a 5" reducer to a 4"x4"x2.5" wye and then a 2.5" to 1.25" reducer. All the black colored parts were bought from Rockler.

Thanks for the pic, so you just have the normal smaller overarm collector? How well do you think it works with this setup?

[Ben Rivel]

Thanks for the pic, so you just have the normal smaller overarm collector? How well do you think it works with this setup?
I do, and I have had no complaints with the system connected to an Oneida V-3000 with 6" metal ducting throughout the system and about 7ft of 5" flex hose up to what you see in the picture. FWIW I have yet to see video of the larger floating arm performing better than my setup. But then the floating overarm is more convienent when you need to do non-through cuts. Thankfully I dont do those too often.

[derek labian]

Sure do:
Thats a 5" reducer to a 4"x4"x2.5" wye and then a 2.5" to 1.25" reducer. All the black colored parts were bought from Rockler.

Great tip! Thank you!

[John C Bush]

I have a SharkGuard on my ICS and when used it works great. As mentioned before edge cuts still have lots of blow by and the riving knife bracket gets in the way at times (just need to raise the blade tho) I have a 4" ceiling drop to an Ecogate automatic gate, then a wye to the base and the guard. When not using the guard I detach it (simple to do) and hang it on a bungy and have a manual gate on the guard to shut off air flow. I initially didn't want the floating arm in the way but now I think I would use it more than the riving knife attached style. I have the earliest version of the SS and added the dust shroud accessory that fits around the blade under the table and it helped a lot with blow by. Looked at the new SS at Rocklers and the shroud was on a floor model so not sure if they are included now or still an accessory. I initially hooked up the guard to the 4" wye with 2"?? flex pipe and switched to 4" and like it much better. I have considered adding a "brush skirt"??? --like I've seen around CNC heads but not sure if that would help, be in the way, or where to source them. Any thoughts??? Have fun with your new saw.

[Josh Baldwin]

I have a SharkGuard on my ICS and when used it works great. As mentioned before edge cuts still have lots of blow by and the riving knife bracket gets in the way at times (just need to raise the blade tho) I have a 4" ceiling drop to an Ecogate automatic gate, then a wye to the base and the guard. When not using the guard I detach it (simple to do) and hang it on a bungy and have a manual gate on the guard to shut off air flow. I initially didn't want the floating arm in the way but now I think I would use it more than the riving knife attached style. I have the earliest version of the SS and added the dust shroud accessory that fits around the blade under the table and it helped a lot with blow by. Looked at the new SS at Rocklers and the shroud was on a floor model so not sure if they are included now or still an accessory. I initially hooked up the guard to the 4" wye with 2"?? flex pipe and switched to 4" and like it much better. I have considered adding a "brush skirt"??? --like I've seen around CNC heads but not sure if that would help, be in the way, or where to source them. Any thoughts??? Have fun with your new saw.

Thanks for the info. The sharkguard system seems to make sense since you can just drop the 6" duct right to the 4" sharkguard. I'm looking on their site though and trying to figure out which model is made for SawStop. Maybe I'm just missing it, but they seem to list every other brand except for SawStop.

[Neil Gaskin]

I use a general overhead guard w dust collection and it works well in tandem with the saws bottom port. The dust collection on the saw alone is pretty good.