Opinions requested: Centralized shop-vac as well as dust collector???

[Jim Neeley]

I'm planning my new, larger shop. My current shop is a 2-car garage with a 1100CFM DC on wheels and a couple of portable shop vacs. My next shop will have hard-piped "central DC" with 6" ducting around the shop. My plan is to run copper air line around the shop and I'm considering adding "centralized shop-vac" to the setup. Has anyone here done this?

DC and shop vacs are both very loud. I'd been planning on framing in an insulated "DC room" to muffle the DC noise and figure installing the shop-vac in the same room, perhaps with (while I'm at it) would help quiet that too.

Has anyone here done this? If so, how did it work? What would you do the same and what would you do differently if you were starting over?

As long as this is still in planning the slate is open for options. I've accumulated several shop-vacs over the years. Has anyone "paralleled up" two of them to get twice the volume? If so, have you up-sized the tubing to a larger (?3"?) size? If you use a dust deputy, would you do so again?

I live in Alaska so placing the DC or vac outside or exhausting the air outside isn't feasible.

I welcome you thoughts and experiences.

Jim

Jim

[David Kumm]

Jim, For what it's worth I think you will find you are overengineered on the shop vac side and underengineered on the DC side. I would put the money into a bigger cyclone if your shop is larger than a two car garage. 6" main with a bunch of drops and bends will perform but the difference in a blower sized with enough cfm to support a 7" main makes a huge difference. Others may disagree but a larger shop means larger equipment and there is no cheap way to fix a system that isn't quite enough. I just spent the evening changing out a 6" to a 7" line at the end of a run- my DC is a 5hp torit- because my planer and edge sander were marginal. The capacity I had allowed the change. I'm not telling you to get a 5hp unit, but I think you will need more than you have. I also run mine with a three phase motor from a vfd to adjust the air velocity. Sounds more complicated than it is. Sorry for the detour. Dave

[Jim Neeley]

No detour, Dave.. and you're right. I've been looking at a clearvue for that (another whole controversial topic), selling the Jet/cannister which I bought for interim use. I got a steal on the Jet so I know I'll come out OK on it.

Thanks for the 7" mains feedback. I've been wrassling with main sizing.

[Jim O'Dell]

Unless you go with the ClearVue Max, stay with 6" tubing with the CV1800. That is it's sweet spot. The Max wasn't available when I bought my 1800, but the Max would have been overkill for my 20X24 shop. If you can keep your longest individual run at 30' or shorter, the 1800 will still do a very nice job for you. If runs to your furthest tool is over 30' of duct, or you will have more than 1 or 2 tools running at the same time, then the Max would probably be a better choice. The Max uses an 8" main, then split off to 6". I have 6" to the TS cabinet base, and 4" to the overhead pickup running at the same time and no problems. Jim.

[David Kumm]

Jim is correct about the main size relating to clearvue. You don't want to exceed the opening on the cyclone. I don't know the fan ratings but they are all important. If you go with a 5hp motor and willing to use the amps, I would automatically opt for the blower to fully utilize the motor's capability which will generally mean 8" mains moving to 7". My torit is set up that way- bought used for $400, probably my best deal on used-. I converted it with a separate fan and motor from Oneida and put them in the attic. Torit and Dustkopp use a 20" diameter cyclone with the 5hp systems, clearvue is 18", Oneida is 24" I believe. There is a correlation between diameter size and effectiveness with fine dust. Narrower is better for fine, wider for chips but others can explain that better. The most important thing is to match fan cfm with proper sized mains- inlet and outlet- as well as proper filter area. Generally a 15-16" impeller needs a 7 or 8" main. If you are doing clearvue, I would do max for the extra $100 just to have the capacity . I am on my fourth expansion in 15 years. Don't be afraid to talk motors either. My used torit, a commercial unit had the same Baldor that Oneida uses with their direct drive stand alone impeller. I am used to old cast iron motors and the Baldor, while not cast iron, is a much heavier unit than the 5hp leeson on my air compressor. Dave

[Aaron Rowland]

Some where in the past I posted a source for the Jet 1100 blower and others fan curve direct from Jet. You probably can find it with a search. The 1100 impeller is way to small for a cyclone unless you use it in a push though mode and even then it's iffy.

I tried a central vac with a DIY cyclone and gave up. I could not get enough CFM/SP to get the job done with whats available in vacs. However I really like vacs for certain applications but hate dragging it across the shop. I was into Lowes today and they had big Shops vacs for $50 I think on sale. You could buy 2-3 of them for that price and spread them around the shop. Those beast are noisy!!!

I go the bottom feeder route and buy used vacs that still run at garage sales for $15.00 or less. I like the canisters type. Strip them down and put the motor in a MDF box to shut them up and complete with a Oneida Dust Deputy Cyclone. The DD is not popular here but thats one of the neatest things I have in the shop. Amazon had them for about $40.00 I think. The Thein cannot compete in DIY price or performance imho. The real killer at my sanding bench is a Dyson module. It has 14 each miniature cyclones. Gets 100% of sanding dust. They all so small they will only handle sanding dust however. The DD handles saw dust with no clogs.

[Jeff Nicol]

Jim, If you put in a floor sweep in your DC system to can push things to that point and with the ones I used to make open it with your foot push the dust in and away it goes. But for smaller hose I have a couple of 4" to 2" drops that I can hook a hose to and use them for vacuuming, as long as you leave another gate open as to not starve the DC you will have plenty of suction and won't need a VAC. I built my own cyclone and put a fan from Penn State on it, my main is 6" about 23' long with the DC in the upper floor of my garage/shop (24x24) with a home built muffler on the DC it is pretty quiet. I have 4" runs off the main to all my machines without any trouble. I have plugged up my 16" Jet planer when hogging off about 3/32 of white pine on 10"+ wide boards and forget to close all the other blast gates. But everything else works perfect.

Good luck with the new shop,

Jeff

[Alan Schaffter]

Solid 3 hp motor and blower w/ 14" impeller, 3D (long cone) Pentz design cyclone configured in a push-through, 6" ASTM 2729 PVC ducting. 21'+ X 38' shop. 6" run all the way to most machines. No CFM measurements.

Also have a shopvac in a cabinet (noise reduction) hooked to a mini-cyclone and 2" PVC electrical conduit (longer radius bends) ducting connected to the miter saw blade guard (6" DC duct under saw), benchtop mortiser, and via ceiling piping to the assembly table for ROS, routers, and biscuit jointer - tools that need high SP.











Paralleling shopvacs will achieve nothing if you use a single 2" - 2.5" duct. Shopvac high RPM blower works by providing high SP suction, not CFM. It works by overcoming high SP resistance of small diam. duct/hose/hand power tool ports, applications where a DC is totally useless. Enlarging the shopvac pipe/hose yields the same result as using small diam. pipe/hose with a DC that has a standard material handling blower- reduces its effectiveness by limited SP suction (small hose on DC reduces CFM).

[Rich Engelhardt]

I've accumulated several shop-vacs over the years. Has anyone "paralleled up" two of them to get twice the volume? If so, have you up-sized the tubing to a larger (?3"?) size? If you use a dust deputy, would you do so again?

Yes - I tried that...

(All told, I have 5 shop vacs. 3 of them are the Ridgid ones Home Depot sells on Black Friday for $20/$30. <-filters alone run $15.00 ea & the last one (vac) I got only cost $19.00, )

All it did was trip the breaker....

[Jim Neeley]

LOL.. if you put them on one breaker, no doubt! My 2 main vacs are 10a and 11a...

I wired a portable 100A 20 circuit subpanel for my 2 car garage shop in this rental. The permanent one will be 40 circuit.

Panels and circuit breakers are relatively inexpensive to overbuild (or over-plan) for. Paying fyll price, an empty 20 circuit panel is about $70, and empty 40 circut panel about $40 more.

Breakers too are cheap.. about $10 apiece...

An over-the-top ludicrously full of breakers panel would be about $500... and that'd be with 10 240V circuits + 20 120V outlets, each on its own breaker.
Way, way more than any shop under about 60x80b would need, unless it was a multi-employee cabinet shop.

And these are paying full price at the BORG.. catch them on sale and its more like half that.

[tom A nelson]

I also have a 2" pipe vacuum system. I have a clearvu mini cyclone over a 15 gal drum. It has worked fairly well until I vacuum up pieces too long to go thru the 90 bends. I have had a couple of clogs from that. I glue about half the fittings and screw/tape the others so I can take it apart in case of clogs. It has almost eliminated having to clean/replace the vacuum filters. I would definitely do it again, but try to find a way for more gradual 90s.

[Alan Schaffter]

I also have a 2" pipe vacuum system. I would definitely do it again, but try to find a way for more gradual 90s.

Did you see what I used above for some of the bends that wrap my round HVAC duct? Look in the gray electrical conduit section of Lowes or Home Depot. They have long radius (street) bends (one end is male the other female) that have much larger radius than plumbing PVC fittings. Some are made by Carlon.