Tap into dust collector pipe for vac hose?

[Carl Crout]

Can I tap into my 6" dust collector system to attach my 1 1/4" vac hose?
Will there be enough suction? I want to use it with my router and ROS.

[glenn bradley]

I use a small shop-vac. More focused suction, it seems. I also prefer the vac to the DC for my mitersaw. It catches more of the spray.

[Jason Beam]

DC's work differently than Vacs, so it may not work out like you'd expect. A DC moves a whole lot of air at low pressure. A Vac moves a little air really fast at higher pressure.

You could tap, but you will probably not get vac-like suction. It's just not what they're designed to do. It may work for your sander, and it might do okay on the router. But you'd surely get better performance out of a vac dedicated to pulling air really quickly.

[Steve Clardy]

Once I reduced a 4" hose to a 2 1/2" vac hose.
It did not perform well at all.

[Greg Funk]

No it won't work. A shop vac has somewhere between 90 and 150" of vacuum vs 6-9" for a dust collector.

Greg

[Carl Crout]

Thanks

Guess I will keep using this noisy Craftsman vac

[Matt Meiser]

I agree with the above posters. My overarm guard has a dedicated shop-vac due to its ~2" hose. I do use the DC for vacuuming the floor. I have a lenghth of really flexible 4" hose (the kind that is like an accordian with really bad flow characteristics.) that I use a 4" to 2-1/2" adapter to adapt the tubes and nozzle from my shop vac. That actually works well. I almost never sweep anymore as this is faster and cleaner.

[Phil Thien]

I guess the answer depends on what you'll be using it for.

In my Cheerio test, I tested what would pull a Cheerio further through a 2.5" hose, a beefy shop vac or a 1-1/2 HP DC. The DC won, and was able to pull from about 3.5" vs. about 2.25" for the shop vac.

However, that is open air. Once attached to a small tool port, the shop vac may (will) outperform the DC.

[Jeff DeVore]

I have 2 3" hoses that are each about 30' long that I hooked into my dust gorilla system. They are tapped in two opposing corners in my shop so that I can reach anywhere in the shop with them. I use these to vacumn up sawdust all the time in my shop and they work great for what I am using them for. It's nice to not have to move a shop vac around all the time.