Dust Extractor. Advice please

[Alie Barnes]

Hello

Im looking into getting a small dust/wood chip collector/extractor for my little workshop and i need some recomendations on machines.

Budget is not more that £150 really. itll be for wood turning so it has to be able to collect the wood shavings, dust from sanding and the cutting debris from a bandsaw.

Any recomendations willbegreatly appreciated.

Thanks all

 

[matt]

I'm in a similar boat. My thread here may provide some useful info: https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/view ... highlight=

 

[Alie Barnes]

I'm in a similar boat. My thread here may provide some useful info: https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/view ... highlight=

Cheers some good info there, have been looking at Camvacs but the price plus having to pay for standard accesories out prices it for me.

 

[Schummie]

I'm also searching for some dust/wood chip collector/extractor for my
small workshop.
I was looking for the Axminster/Numatic NVD750 Workshop Vacuum Extractor,
this one is more expensive, but I think he is also very complete.
Is there somebody with experience with this dust extractor?

Thanks Schummie.

 

[Alie Barnes]

ive been looking at this item. I dont know much about the make or the model but it seems to do what i want for a reasonable price.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Woodstar-DC04...s_SM?hash=item2c50b8679f&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

 

[TEP]

Hi Alie.

At that budget I suggest you concentrate on dust removal, and forget the chips and shavings. You can always lift them with a brush and shovel. You won't get a machine that will do the two jobs really efficiently.

Assuming you want this machine for woodturning, buy one which has got a very fine dust filter and rig it up at the back of the lathe so as the dust is removed as soon as possible.

Trouble is with these big bag high volume chip extractors they are really for shifting shavings and sawdust from saw benches and planers, but they let a lot of the fine dust through. This fine dust is the stuff you should be concentrating on getting rid of.

The machine can be used to clean up afterwards if you wish, but it will only choke the filters quicker. In an ideal world you would have a chip extractor to each machine, and a dust extractor system as well. If you can't have the two, go for dust first.

 

[Alie Barnes]

Hi Alie.

At that budget I suggest you concentrate on dust removal, and forget the chips and shavings. You can always lift them with a brush and shovel. You won't get a machine that will do the two jobs really efficiently.

Assuming you want this machine for woodturning, buy one which has got a very fine dust filter and rig it up at the back of the lathe so as the dust is removed as soon as possible.

Trouble is with these big bag high volume chip extractors they are really for shifting shavings and sawdust from saw benches and planers, but they let a lot of the fine dust through. This fine dust is the stuff you should be concentrating on getting rid of.

The machine can be used to clean up afterwards if you wish, but it will only choke the filters quicker. In an ideal world you would have a chip extractor to each machine, and a dust extractor system as well. If you can't have the two, go for dust first.

If i wanted to remove say the shavings from the floor could i remove the filter to prolong its life and then throw it back in for the dust when sanding etc? would this have a detrimental effect on the machine? or just bought a spare crap filter for floor cleaning?

cheers

 

[TEP]

I would say it depends on the machine. Some have cleanable filters, so you take them out clean, and put back. Others have a replaceable filter, so it just depends what you put through the machine to how often the filters need doing. Best to check out a few models then decide.

I'm no expert at these, but I don't think you can run a lot of these without a filter. Lots of these machines pass the suction air through the motor area. The air is used to cool the motor as well as removing debris. Consequently all the crap needs to stay in the collection bin, or no motor.

You could always look around for a cheap 'wet & dry' vacuum as a second machine. They tend to come with bigger hoses, you could use that for general cleaning. What I do with my bandsaw is, I have a old 'wet&dry' fitted to the saw with a 3" hose when I'm sawing, I disconnect and use it on the floor when I want. Must admit I do tend to use a brush a lot more though.

 

[andycktm]

You can get this one here without treading on dodgy ground...............

http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/produ ... tractors-2

 

[studders]

Or.....
here with free postage.

 

[CHJ]

....Budget is not more that £150 really. itll be for wood turning so it has to be able to collect the wood shavings, dust from sanding and the cutting debris from a bandsaw.

...l

Alie, don't forget that for personal safety reasons choice of 'Dust Collector' also has a big bearing on your personal health protection and whether you wear a good face mask in the shop.

Removing fine filters etc. may not be a good idea in respect of your lung exposure.

See here for some of my comments on the subject.

Cleaning up the shop or cutting process is never a cheap option with regard to personal safety, even using a Broom to sweep the floor can produce more airborne dust than is good for the lungs, hence why HSE advisors will point to a fine filter vacuum unit for the task.

 

[duncanh]

If i wanted to remove say the shavings from the floor could i remove the filter to prolong its life and then throw it back in for the dust when sanding etc? would this have a detrimental effect on the machine? or just bought a spare crap filter for floor cleaning?
cheers

On the Camvac I'd avoid doing this. The cloth filter is over a smaller, paper filter, which in turn if over a smaller cloth filter. After this the air gets sucked through the motor (I think, that's how it appears). You'd have to remove all the filters to stop them getting clogged, and then shaving would get into the motor.
You could get a spare cloth filter and put that in place when doing shaving but in my experience when used for dust collection the cloth filter gets clogged with dust so removal isn't always pleasant. What I tend to do is remove the cloth filter, shake it outside and then replace it, but removal can release dust into the workshop so you'd need to wear a mask.
The more recent Camvacs should be slightly better as the inlet port comes in at an angle.

Another issue is that when the cloth filter get clogged the efficiency goes down so I often remove the lid and shake the filter with it still in place.


Unhappy about having to keep shaking the filter I recently made a Thien Separator and it's worked fantastically well. All shavings and some of the dust remains in the intermediate bin and only some of the dust makes it though to the actual extractor.


(the silver can in the first picture is a silencer made from the plans in one of the past magazine articles. It works pretty well and reduces the noise quite a bit)

Ideally the whole system including the Camvac would be outside but it's pretty loud and I don't want to annoy the neighbours too much. The next step is to box the whole thing in on the outside.

 

[woodbloke]

Ideally the whole system including the Camvac would be outside but it's pretty loud

If you stick a hose(s) in the exhaust ports of the Camvac:

and then run them to a spot in the 'shop behind a machine or unit of some sort, the noise is cut down by about 50% but don't ever obstruct the ends of the hose :wink: or the machine will overheat in very short order. (This mod is recommended by Camvac btw) - Rob

 

[Krysstel]

Rob - Is there any restriction on the length of the exhaust hoses ?
They look like they're probably 2". Would it be possible to connect them together to one, 4" pipe and route that out of the workshop ?

Mark

 

[wizer]

what is the purpose of those hose inlets? Just exhaust?

PS: Rob, I have though you could reduce the noise a bit further by sitting the whole unit on some foam insulation.

 

[duncanh]

Ideally the whole system including the Camvac would be outside but it's pretty loud

If you stick a hose(s) in the exhaust ports of the Camvac:

and then run them to a spot in the 'shop behind a machine or unit of some sort, the noise is cut down by about 50% but don't ever obstruct the ends of the hose :wink: or the machine will overheat in very short order. (This mod is recommended by Camvac btw) - Rob

If you look at my photos you'll see that my exhaust is vented outside and the external vent pipe has the silencer on it.

What I meant was the actual noise of the machine. Even venting outside there's still a lot of noise from the motor.

It's been my intention for a while now to build a box round the extractor unit and line it with some sound deadening material. Camvac have confirmed that this shouldn't be a problem as long as I run the exhaust vent outside the box.