Small Dust Colector that works good.

[jason lambert]

I have a 2 car garage one side is a shop and I would like good dust collection for my table saw, router table, router, scroll saw, circular saw, sanders etc... Right now I am using 3 vacuums but getting tired of moving them around, checking bags and tripping over them. I do have some room outside the shop in the outdoors I could build something, about a 3X4 space and punch a hole in the concrete, I like this idea because of noise control but would have to run a fair amount of tubing since it is on the opposite corner from where I need it. Anyhow I like the cyclones but I can't really afford to take a large corner away from my shop and looks more involved than I really want. Was looking at the Jet but I don’t see many people here using it. I do this as a hobby, I do not need tons of saw dust storage space it would take me a 6 months to fill a trash can. Any suggestions on a decent solution?

[Lance Norris]

I like my small Delta. I had to add a 1 micron bag, and use blast gates on all my machines, but other than my cabinet saw, it sucks all the dust from my machines.

[Wade Lippman]

Consider the Oneida Portable. Pricey, but it is small and works well.

[Dave Falkenstein]

I used a Penn State 110 volt DC for a while, and it worked well. I had the chance to buy a slightly used Jet DC-1100C/DC and it works really well. I sold the Penn State to a friend, and he likes it. The drawback with these smaller DC's is having to move the hose from tool to tool, which is not that big a deal for a home shop. I use the Jet DC for the table saw, router table, band saw and planer. I also have a Festool vacuum that I use for smaller tools, including hand-held router, sander, circular saw and biscuit joiner.

[jason lambert]

That looks great just a little more than I think I want to spend on this. If I have to though I will. Also If I do put it outside there looks like there is no way to return the warm or cool air to the gurage. But I think for that proce since it is steal I better leave it indoors.

[harry strasil]

I don't create a lot of dust either, I used an old defunct shop vac modified as a small cyclone precleaner and use another shop vac as the vacum source, with the 2.5 inch clear tubing kit from woodcraft (comes with 30 foot of tubing and 5 gates plus fittings) and their remote activation switch and it works great for me. not a lot of money and easy to assemble and used a shop vac I already had, its now in a corner out of the way and the precleaner is about 95%+ efficient.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=66538

[jason lambert]

I think I want a little more volume than a shop vac, something I can run 4 or 5" hose off of. Maybe a dust dupity, woud a shop vac be enought? If so what brand a ridge for a cheap vac? But I know now I need to run 2 festool vacs on my router table one for under and one above for good collection on large bits.

[Scot Ferraro]

I bought a Felder AF22 mobile collector and it works extremely well -- it fits in a pretty small space as well (about the same as the Oneida portable). They are on sale right now at Felder and might be an option for you to consider as you conduct your research.

Scot

[Michael N Taylor]

I just bought the Steel City 1 1/2 hp model and it is working great. I piped it with pvc and have blast gates at every machine. Hope this helps

[Jim Bills]

Have you seen this little dust collector? Its portability sounds pretty interesting.

http://www.steelcitytoolworks.com/products_tools.cfm?section=2&category=5&tool=65115

[Stephen Clem]

I like the idea of an ambient air cleaner, I think that's the correct name. I saw a good idea a guy posted on here a while back. He took a high powered box fan and mounted it vertically in a wooden box. All four sides and maybe the bottom were fit with regular household filters. There may even be a way to get some lower micron filters. Has anyone tried something like this? I was thinking about using ambient air cleaners in my garage shop instead of a dust collector, for now anyway.

[Pete Clifford]

An ambient air cleaner doesn't replace a DC, it supplements it. My suggestion is to get the DC first, to eliminate the majority of the dust produced by your WW machines. Then, once your budget allows, add an ambient air cleaner to capture the small particles that the DC misses. I have a Delta 760 1.5 hp DC and am happy with it - it seem so to be about the largest hp DC that runs on regular household 115V instead of needing 220 V. It may be overkill for a small shop, but there are lots of 1 hp DC's on the market.

[Brian Dormer]

I got the small Craftsman (on sale) - and chucked the factory bag, replacing it with a .3 micron from Grizzly. Besides Craftsman, Delta, Grizzly, Penn State all have pretty much the same design. Just get good (1 micron or less .3 micron is even better) bags, keep the hose as short as you can (10 feet works in my shop) and don't expect it to work on more than one tool at a time. You'll probably want to go somewhere (Woodcraft) and get some quick release fittings and reducers so you can have all you machines ready to go. It does take a minute or so to move the DC hose around and get set up - but it's worth it. I noticed a huge difference in the (lack of) dust in the shop once I started using even this modest DC. bd

[Bill Keppel]

I got the small Craftsman (on sale) - and chucked the factory bag, replacing it with a .3 micron from Grizzly. Besides Craftsman, Delta, Grizzly, Penn State all have pretty much the same design. Just get good (1 micron or less .3 micron is even better) bags, keep the hose as short as you can (10 feet works in my shop) and don't expect it to work on more than one tool at a time. You'll probably want to go somewhere (Woodcraft) and get some quick release fittings and reducers so you can have all you machines ready to go. It does take a minute or so to move the DC hose around and get set up - but it's worth it. I noticed a huge difference in the (lack of) dust in the shop once I started using even this modest DC. bd

Which craftsman model do you have?

[Victor Stearns]

I choose to make a cyclone type of unit. The plans were in WOOD magazine. At the time I had recycled a large amount of heavy gage sheet metal for the construction. The intake is 6" and uses a blower from Penn State. I beleive the unit is in the 600 cfm range. This unit does great job for all my machines including a 15 planer.