Cleaner shop air idea

[Michael Merrill]

I've read several posts on DC equipment, air filters and such. I read one post that I tend to agree with about venting outside has to help greatly. I have had some sinus issues (not related to woodworking) and that was a big motivation in the purchase of the Jet AFS-1000. Given that thought I was think that it might be helpfull even with my shop vac based collection that I vent the exhaust outside.


All hoses are 2 1/2 inch on all machines, vac, and vac exhaust
I can run a 2 1/2 hose through and outside wall into a dryer/bathroom type vent on the side of the house that would look like another bathroom vent. This would hook directly to the output of the vac. Using clear hose might help to identify any build up
Noise might be reduced a bit:)
Overall level of dust should be reduced :)
My JET AFS-1000 should easily handle what is left and work better than todayAny thoughts on whether this is a good idea? Anyone done something similar? I realize with this approach I still might need periodic cleaning of the final exhaust over time with some dust build up.

Curious about your comments.

[Lars Thomas]

My uninformed opinion is you are wasting your time (from a health perspective) trying to collect dust with a shop vac.

[Vaughn McMillan]

As I understand it, the shop vac doesn't provide sufficient air flow to capture the really fine (read: dangerous) dust. Instead the fine stuff goes into the air, leaving your lungs and the AFS-1000 competing to gather up the leftovers. It seems the consensus it to gather as much of the harmful stuff as possible before it becomes airborne, and to do that you need more airflow than a shop vac offers.

Just my 1¢ worth (I'm not sure I'm worth much more than that) -

- Vaughn

[Bart Leetch]

This site will educate you on wood dust control.

http://billpentz.com/woodworking/cyclone/Index.cfm

[Michael Merrill]

I do agree with several of the comments that a shop vacuum is a marginal device for "true" dust collection. I guess what I'm thinking is to try and make my situation a bit better with simple means. This comment from the Bill Pentz material is one of my concerns

Unless you replace the stock filter on your vacuum with a top quality fine filter, almost all vacuum filters freely pass up to 50-micron sized particles making them “dust pumps” that keep the most dangerous fine dust circulating.

I can easily add a HEPA quality filter and will to my vacuum, but still anything else is still introduced into the shop.

The only other "low tech" remedy is to use a stong fan to create a strong current of air out my doors. I've done this at times but introduces a couple problems

-In winter it gets darn cold
-The strong air current tends to send plans, sandpaper etc flying
-I tend to get a good amount of dust into my eyes in this scenario

I'll ask another question, what dust collector model are effective that are about the size of a 30g trash can? That's about my working limit on size. I'm not against new equipment if I could fit it into the space.

[Kristian Wild]

For a dust collector that doesn't take up too much space I built a ply box around an old furnace fan. It measures about 2' tall by 2'wide by 3' long. On the intake side I installed two standard sized furnace filters stacked together. The outer one is a loose fiber pre-filter and the inner one is a hepa grade filter.

On the other side I installed a adjustable air deflector so that you can have it blow air towards the ceiling instead of blowing everything off of my bench.

When it was all ready to go I plugged it in and promptly sucked both filters into the fan! That sucker can move air! So I added another filter stack to the side of the box to double the intake potential and it works fine.

Normally it lives on a little cart so that it can be moved close to the dust producers when the doors are closed on the shop. When the weather is nice I take the filters out, and position it in one of the doorways creating an awesome cross-breeze in the shop.

Every three days to a week I pop out the filters and take them outside for a blast with the air gun. I seriously underestimated the usefulness of the open fibre filters when I first saw them but they really extend the time between cleanings of the better filter. All you have to do is bump the outer filter and all of the fine stuff just goes through to the next stage, but if you're carefull it catches alot.

Kris

[Bart Leetch]

[QUOTE=Kristian Wild]"For a dust collector that doesn't take up too much space I built a ply box around an old furnace fan."

I think what you want to call this is an air cleaner or air scrubber. It really isn't a dust collector like used to remove dust & chips from wood working machinery.

Michael already has a Jet AFS-1000 air cleaner.

[Kristian Wild]

Woops, I missunderstood. We kind of treat DC and air cleaning as two separate operations in our shop.

Kris

[Michael Merrill]

Bart, your on the money. I've got the cleaner just curious if there is a smaller efficient collector that I might consider an upgrade from a vacuum.

[glenn bradley]

Hi Michael,

There is still room for my shop-vac (with a CLeanstream filter and a muffler) in my dust collection scheme. I too run a small DC (Delta AP-400) for the table saw OR the planer OR the jointer. This works OK as my planer and jointer are small as is my production. The vac helps with under the router table, at the drill press (for chips) anywhere I need a lot of suck in a highly focused area; understanding this is not fine dust collection. I built an ambient cleaner that stands near by or hangs from the joists as required. I'm sure if I keep with it there will be a point that I forgo a vacation or a new washer and dryer and step up to a cyclone.

[Bart Leetch]

Back a few years ago when I went to Grizzly to look at dust collectors I was looking at the G1028 1 1/2 HP DC & my lovely bride walks over to the G1029 2HP unit & says don't you think this would be a better DC & while your at it get a remote too. Well I bowed to my brides superior intelligence & purchased the G1029 & remote & have been happy ever since. I did later upgrade to the big filter on top & a garbage bag on the bottom tucked into a garbage can.

I still use my large shop vac to clean the shop & for the drill-press & hooked to the router table fence. As long as I have a regular 1 stage DC I will never use it with a floor sweep because of the chance of picking up something that may cause a spark in the unit that could cause a fire.

I always recommend at least a 2 HP unit but you may be constrained by what current you have available in your shop.

Once again by all means read.


http://billpentz.com/woodworking/cyclone/Index.cfm
Today 5:07 PM

[Vaughn McMillan]

Michael, now I understand your reasoning. You might want to consider the Clearview Mini CV06 Cyclone (at the bottom of the page at http://www.clearvuecyclones.com/Order_Page.htm). It seems it would cut down on the fine stuff, especially if you were also using a HEPA filter.

- Vaughn

[Don Baer]

Michael,
I agree with Vaughn, The clear vue mini seems to be the only device I have seen that will work with a shop vac to collect fine dust other then the heppa filters. I work in the environmental field and have a healthy respect for the effects of fine dust (<10 mirons) in size. To my knowledge no testing has been done in small hobiest shop as to the effectivness on various types dust control other then what Bill Pentz published. Good luck on your quest for a cleaner shop.

[Michael Merrill]

Very interesting, the Clearview Mini CV06 Cyclone looks good. If the video is any indication of the performance it appears that with it and a HEPA filter your shop vac performance would be greatly increased. The HEPA filter would last much longer and not get clogged.

But, as some of the data from BillPentz's material suggests the amount of overall flow in a shop vac is too low to pull all the fine dust from tools that are not designed to contain this finer dust. So I guess this would do a good job on the stuff it captures but still might not get the worst dust from these operations.

It should help from reciculating much of the slightly larger dust and allow the air cleaner to focus on the fine stuff??????????????