floating overarm dust pickup for Sawstop- whats the most effective AND unobtrusive?

[Dave Burson]

Have a Sawstop 5HP ICS, and am now upgrading the dust collector as well. Just ordered Oneida 5hp high pressure collector, so it should offer something my current 2 hp did not have- sufficient volume AND static pressure to pickup well from more than one source, and more. So figure it's time to add a overarm dust pickup. Thinking about the Sawstop large hose variant, that sits above the table and does not APPEAR to get in the way too much, and easy to move when it does. Curious, what do you all use, and what do you like, or dont like about it? Since I have a riving knife, I have no desire add a blade guard as well- I just know it'll be off before long. There must be other over arm units that you have without a blade guard, so REALLY appreciate the input all.SawStop-6-8-17-9334-Edit_1600px.jpg

[Frank Pratt]

The standard guard it comes with, connected with a flex to an overhead duct. About the only weakness is when cutting less than a kerf width off a board, it will squirt dust out the side. But that's common with most guards. If it's in the way of a sled, or non-through cut, it only takes about 5 seconds to remove.

[Dave Seng]

I've got the floating overarm dust collector on my Sawstop. Absolutely love it! It does a good to great job on the above the table dust and either lifts or swings out of the way quite easily. And the dust shroud is a good reminder of the No Go area for fingers.

[Dave Burson]

So glad to hear this, great!!!! Dave, can youi elaborate on how you have yours hooked up exactly? Will have tons of airflow, I think the 5hp oneida has 2100 cfm at 16" wc, but was planning to go off a 6" branch with a 4" wye, that goes thru an IVAC auto blast gate, then wye that 4" hose into two 4" hoses for the below and over dust pickup. Want to make sure doing the two hoses off one hose won't constrict it. Is that how you, or did attach two separate hoses both coming off a larger branch? Thanks so much, this helps a ton!

[Dave Seng]

Hi Dave B,

I'm currently running a Grizzly G0862 - a 3 HP short cone cyclone. I'm still running in "I'm not sure were everything is going to end up" mode, so I'm running two of Rockler's stretchy 4" Dust Right hoses coming off the main 8" intake on the collector. - When running the tablesaw I hook up one 4" connection to the overarm and the other 4" hose to the outlet port on the saw. My current thoughts for the permanent connection will be to service both of the saw ports with 4" connections off of a 6" main line. The area of the two 4" lines is still smaller than the area of the six inch diameter, so should be, at least mathematically, Good to Go.

[Alan Lightstone]

I have a 5HP ICS and a 5HP Oneida with the floating overarm dust pickup. So the identical configuration you are talking about. I use a 6" run, with a wye to the overarm pickup. I did put a CNC dust shoe on the overarm unit, which helped dramatically, though I need a better way of attaching it. I'll need to find a picture of it. I put a dust gate on the overarm unit, so that when you can't use it, you don't divert air flow away from the cabinet. It swings out of the way with ease, which is quite nice, and also locks in place both vertically and horizontally.

[Andrew More]

I had a DIY floating arm, I've seen removed it, and gone to the guard mounted version. Simple truth is the guard mounted version has been dust pickup when attached to a shop vac. There is no dust collector I'm aware of that can beat the static pressure of a shop vac, unless it's some 10 HP commericial monster. It's just not the nature of the beast.

Ignoring this, the over arm version had issues with cuts below about 1 1/2", while the guard mounted version it's about 3/4", and that mostly because of the need to run a push block between the fence and the guard. The much wider guard is a potential source of annoyance, so if I do it again, I'll go with a side mounted port on a narrower guard.