For those who have a "floor sweep" hooked into their DC setup -

[brian fithian]

I am in the middle of installing a 6” system in my shop. I want to put 2 floor sweeps in. 1 on each end of the shop. Would it be better to go all the way down to the sweep with 6” or reduce it down to 4” ?

[Jim Becker]

Two of my three floor sweeps are 5" drops. One is a 4" drop. There's a definite performance difference between the larger drops and the small one...

And just to cover all bases, do not do a floor sweep unless you have some form of pre-separation on your DC system; be it a cyclone system or something else with a cyclone or other type of pre-separation in front of the blower.

[brian fithian]

Jim, just so i dont interpret wrong. The performance drop is on the 4” sweep

[roger wiegand]

I have the Oneida floor sweeps on 5" drops in my shop and almost never use them. They are against the walls and almost always have a machine or some other thing in front of them that blocks accessibility. It's easier to just grab a dust pan than sweeping stuff all the way across the room and then clearing the way to the drop. I wish it had been possible to run the ducting under the floor and to have put a couple of trapdoors out in the middle of the floor space.

[Jim Becker]

Jim, just so i dont interpret wrong. The performance drop is on the 4” sweep

Yes. Think about it...dust collection is about moving air. Volumes of air. That moving air is what moves the chips and dust and whatnot. It's not about "suction" so much like with a shop vac, although clearly there is negative pressure and "suction" involved. The 4" pipe can only hold so much air at one time. A 6" pipe can old nearly four times as much air. More air means more material movement...assuming your DC system has an appropriately sized impeller, etc., to move the air.

[Matthew Bennett DC]

I wish we could buy a commercial version of iRobot for the workshop so none of us wont have to worry about keeping the floor clean. Naturally, its AI would have to be intelligent enough NOT to bang into things or suck up tools by accident.

That I would gladly pay a lot of money to have.

[Jim Becker]

Mathew, the "rougher duty" version of the Roomba might work for incidental shop cleaning. But I can think of too many places in my shop that it might get stuck...and I assure you, it will ALWAYS be in a difficult to reach position just like the one that we've used to clean our master bedroom liked to do. (like back, center of a king-sized bed. LOL )

[John K Jordan]

On those extremely rare occasions I vacuum after sweeping the shop I use this, a commercial backpack vacuum cleaner (LONG cord, easy to carry around while I step over the obstructions on the floor)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00D7IE7R4

As for keeping it clean regularly, I wonder if a neighborhood teen might vacuum a lot for what it would cost to buy an intelligent cleaning robot. When I hire fragile girls for farm work that's one of the tasks I save for bitterly cold weather like we are having now.

JKJ

[Matthew Bennett DC]

... When I hire fragile girls for farm work that's one of the tasks I save for bitterly cold weather like we are having now.

I have known a lot of girls and I wouldn't call any of them "fragile" unless I want to find myself in the hospital.

[John K Jordan]

I have known a lot of girls and I wouldn't call any of them "fragile" unless I want to find myself in the hospital.

Same here. However, over the years two of them have been small and, eh, of a "delicate" disposition. Excellent workers when the weather was good but couldn't take the cold but I let them work mostly because they needed it badly. On the other hand there is an exceptionally tough girl coming this morning to work with a boy who is here every week. Both of them can sling bales of hay and 50lb sacks of feed as well as I can and the cold doesn't bother them.

[J.R. Rutter]

I had a floor sweep similar to what David shows, but took it out. I replaced it with a vacuum attachment like this one :

http://www.rockler.com/rockler-dust-...ge-floor-sweep

I am very fastidious about my shop cleanliness and this is the better way to go. Mine is attached to 16 ft of flex hose so I can vacuum my whole shop from a drop in the main trunk line. I've heard that I loose suction with that much flex hose, but I can say this works for me quite well.

I have something similar, but can't remember where I got it years ago. It is an aluminum cast head about 12" wide with wheels and a narrow 1" or so slot angled down to about 1" off the floor. The top side has a long handle and 4" DC hose connection. I use it with 2x20' sections of hose and plug it into a couple of 4" drops to be able to vacuum the whole shop. It works great and doesn't stir up any dust. The hose it a bit of a PITA to store, but there are a couple of out of the way corners where it gets heaped when not in use. We used to hang it from the wall. Highly recommended if you can find one.