Thien verse Dust Deputy

[Victor Stearns]

Thanks for looking.
First this is my own personal experience and opinion, so take it as you see fit.

I've had a Thien separator lid for awhile that is connected to my Shop Vac. It has served me well but something has always made me wonder if the Dust Deputy would be a better solution. I looked for a review of the DD and found many folks and sites that simply felt the DD was the best thing since sandpaper! So with a sale at the local store I purchased one.

For the test I first emptied the contents of the dust bin from my current separator onto the floor. I also emptied the shop vacuum and cleaned the filter before beginning the test.

After vacuuming up the sawdust with the Thien separator the was no course sawdust in the vacuum and a small amount of fine material. Note that I use the same separator attached to my sanders so there is a fair amount of really fine dust in the mix as well.

I again cleaned out the Shop Vac and filter for the test with the DD. Again dumping sawdust onto the floor I used the Dust Deputy. I was excited to see the dust swirl around the small cyclone during the experiment. However when I opened the Shop Vac there was a lot of the sawdust in the shop vacuum, both course and fines as well. I can honesty say that this was very disappointing to see as I expected to find very little sawdust in the vacuum.

I know you will all ask for pictures, or it didn't really happen, but the simple fact is that I forgot!

So I will be returning the DD and sticking to my old faithful Thien separator.

Victor

[Jim Dwight]

I can only say that my experience is the opposite of yours. My experience is admittedly a bit apples and oranges since my Thien was on my 1hp DC and my DD is on my shop vacuum. But I found the Thien did nearly nothing about fine dust. The kind that can physically harm you. It made it to the filter. But my shop vacuum has never needed emptied and the filter only rarely cleaned since I added the DD. I get a lot of fine drywall dust in the bin under the DD so I know it gets a lot of it.

I'm happy you like your Thien but I am pretty sure it is getting the large stuff and passing the fine. The DD should get 100% of the coarse material and most of the fine. The only things that have gotten past my DD were long pieces of sprayed in insulation. Do coarse dust and the only fine dust was in the filter.

[John Lankers]

Mmmh, interesting.
I have no experience with the Thien baffle, but I noticed on my own DD if the seal between the DD and the bucket is not 100%!!! airtight you will get a lot of false suction and all the particles will eventually be sucked into the shop vac or dust collector.
On the other hand, a lot of people seem to be happy with their Thien baffle. Don't fix it if it ain't broke.

[Andy Giddings]

I guess my experience was in between both of yours. I initially used a home made Thien baffle in the lower bag area of a single stage Shop Fox 1.5HP dust collector. It reduced the amount of fine dust getting up to the top filter (Wynn Environmental) significantly to the point where I rarely had to clean it. I then moved to a two stage using the same DC but with a Super Dust Deputy instead of the Thien. The result was about the same but the pressure drop from the Deputy was larger than the baffle. I've stuck with the Deputy as it suits my setup better, but if I was looking for a cheap solution that I could build myself and was effective, I wouldn't hesitate to use a baffle again. At least in the testing done by Fine Woodworking, it showed that both methods are effective, but you will need to maintain the filter more often with a baffle compared to a cyclone

[Bruce Wrenn]

While you are using both on a shop vac, I have DD on vac,and the original "Top Hat" Design that I use with my DC, which also includes a cyclone. You can check out results of baffle by googling "Another Vote for Phil Thien's Baffle."

[Curt Harms]

Mmmh, interesting.
I have no experience with the Thien baffle, but I noticed on my own DD if the seal between the DD and the bucket is not 100%!!! airtight you will get a lot of false suction and all the particles will eventually be sucked into the shop vac or dust collector.
On the other hand, a lot of people seem to be happy with their Thien baffle. Don't fix it if it ain't broke.

I suspect the 100% airtight seal is key with cyclones. Dust will make its way to the filter(s) if the seal is imperfect. I have a Thien baffle in the metal funnel of a single stage DC and though not perfect it helps a lot.

[Charles Lent]

My one year of experience with the Dust Deputy has been very positive. I'm vacuuming mostly very fine sawdust from sanding and scroll sawing and nothing seems to be getting past my Dust Deputy. The vacuum filter has never had anything in it and I've collected almost 15 gallons of fine sanding and scroll saw dust so far. You must have something wrong in your setup, like a leak in your Dust Deputy collection container, lid, or the seal under the Dust Deputy.

Charley

[Martin Wasner]

I bought one for cleaning out the down draft table. Some stuff gets by, but I'm usually amazed at how little actually does. Typically there's about four gallons of extremely fine dust that I suck out of there.

[glenn bradley]

Nothing against the Thein solution, I think it's great. Victor's experience makes me think something is wrong. I actually ditched the barrel on my shop vac as with the DD I only get about a teaspoon of spoil in the filter compartment every dozen or so emptyings so of the 5 gallon bucket(?).

[Wade Lippman]

I have a Dyson canister on a DD. I can empty the DD can a couple times without anything significant accumulating in the Dyson.
I tried a Thien; while it worked, it wasn't even close to the DD.

I think you have a leak somewhere.

[Alan Schwabacher]

It sounds to me as if the connection of bin to DD is leaking.

[Mike Chalmers]

I built a Thien, it worked much better than the cyclone lid I bought from Lee Valley. I now have three Dust Deputies on separate shop vacs for my RAS, my over table saw dust collector, and my sanders. I also have a Super Dust Deputy on my 2HP Dust Collector. The Dust Deputies increased my dust collection performance over the Thien almost as much as the Thien increased performance over the cyclone lid. Based on tihs and the various other posts on this issue (not just in this thread), I would venture to suggest that your Dust Deputy set up may not have been 100%.
I encourage you to review your DD set up before going back to the Thien.

[Peter Kuhlman]

Guess I will pile on!
I have my DustDeputy - the metal version - in front of my Festool vac and for 2 years now it has caught virtually everything! I have yet to need to change the bag on the vac since installing the DD. I have pulled the bag from the vac several times looking for buildup but there is just a tiny amount of fine dust in it. This is hobby usage with routers, sanders, Domino, miter saw, track saw. Was using quite a bit of MDF and it captured that stuff really well.
Pete

[paul cottingham]

I built a Thien (is the name taboo?) style top hat. Not particularly well, either, as befits my skills, and it works very well at capturing all the chips, chunks, dust and a large part of the fines. I started using it around 2 years ago, and my DC bag is probably less than 1/4 full. I actually gave it to a buddy and we are just going to vent it out into his yard, and build a new one for me, and vent it into mine. The amount of dust released isn't enough to get worked up about. The top hat works very well indeed, and I suspect much better than the original.

[Rich Engelhardt]

I built a Top Hat and used a metal garbage can - -big mistake.....
First time I fired it up the metal can made a hideous death throws sound and the sides caved in.

It still worked ok, so, I just lived with it.

Last year I had some kind of discount from Rockler and decided to Spring for one of their cyclones.
Works like a champ w/a shop vac.

Since I was working on site @ a rehab, it came in handy there.
Before I started the rehab, one of the neighbors there was selling some shop stuff.
He had an unused Sears 2 HP dust collector he wanted $150 for.
I told him thanks, but no thanks. For the next few days, every time I saw him he dropped the price more and more.
I bought it when he hit $75.
I hooked it up to the Dust Right and I'm super happy.

I prefer the small can to the 30 gallon metal can. Much easier to empty when it gets full.

I built a Thien (is the name taboo?)

I hope not...While I feel Phil acted pretty childish, there's no taking away the contributions he made to the WW'ing community. He put in a ton of time and effort on the Top Hat and deserves the credit.