I'm upfitting my shop (30'x20' garage of my 4 car garage) and plan to build a miter saw station. I'm designing the cabinets for that now and need to determine the dust collection approach and looking for guidance here.
I thought I'd take my old shop vac and install it in a cabinet under the miter saw. However I did a quick test recently using it for dust collection on the miter saw and was under impressed. But I wonder how much of the poor performance was due to current equipment. The shop vac (2" hose) is probably 10 yrs. old. I don't know how powerful it is but I do know it's loud as heck. My miter saw is a 10" Makita sliding compound that's ~20 yrs. old. My test was simply using a 2" reducer and connecting that directly to the port on the saw. I'm sure some dust was picked up by the vac but there was a lot blown onto the saw/floor/wall.
Alternatively, I have a Delta 1.5HP dust collector that I'm about to upgrade to a centralized DC for my shop. So I have the Delta 1.5HP on hand. I have no doubt the Delta would do a better job but I'd hoped to get it off the shop floor (space). So my ultimate question is can the shop vac effectively serve as a dust collector for a miter saw?
I planned to build a hood around the miter saw. I also suspect newer miter saws may be better for dust control. I saw a review not too long ago touting the DeWalt for this. Would a good/decent shop vac connected to a hood do OK? Or is this a no brainer - that I should use my Delta (also with a hood) and be done with it?
Lastly, I don't currently plan to connect the miter saw to my central DC as I think I'd often not power the large DC up for a single miter saw cut (which I do quite often).