I recently got a Ridgid shop vac for general shop cleanup but am finding that the filter clogs essentially immediately, dropping the airflow by a factor of 5-10. Cleaning it is a pain that typically results in me inhaling more dust than I would if I just went back to my broom.

I've been looking at "dust deputy" like solutions, but it seems they all make for a very awkward package for dragging around the shop, both tall and cumbersome with two side-by-side containers. I've found a couple cyclone-equipped vacs made for floor finishers that are better, but cost ~$2k and are still huge, more like rolling dust collectors than shop vacs.

It would seem that it should be possible to design a cyclone that would pretty much fit into and be integrated into the form factor of a big shopvac (it would probably have to be taller)-- the cyclone should eliminate the requirement for a 12-15 gallon tub just to house the filter, as one hopes most of the debris would be captured by the cyclone.

There are mobile dust collectors, but again they seem unnecessarily huge to drag around for vacuuming the floor and the odd corners that are hard to sweep. Plus they don't give the kind of high velocity, low volume flow that makes shop vacs better suited to the kind of cleanup I want to be able to do. The volume of material to be vacuumed up is relatively small so it doesn't need a big container, all the serious chip and dust pickup is handled by the dust collector.

So, anyone know of such a beast that anyone is producing?