Home made shop vac with cyclone separator

[DennisCA]

I am in need of some dust collection for my garage shop, I got nothing but a broom at the moment and it's not enough by far.

My long term plan is a proper dust collector that vents outside with built in ducting in my garage, but for now I need to get something and so I am building a shop vac. Funds are tight but I got a surplus vacuum cleaner and I heard good reviews on small cyclones from ali express for not a lot of money. I was gonna build my own cyclone and all but got tipped onto these and they're so cheap its not worth doing it myself. I got it home last week and started building this weekend.

Here's the cyclone I bought:
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/cyclone- ... 56202.html

And here it is put into a wooden frame, this is better than bolting it right to a plastic lid, if the bucket doesn't work out for me I can swap between buckets easily. The plywood disc is put underneath the lid and the frame goes on top of the lid and the whole thing is squeezed together with wingnuts & bolts.

Underneath the frame. I will put some silicone where the cyclone goes into the frame to make it airtight, though it seems to work pretty well as is. Maybe a gasket on the bottom of the frame to seal it against the lid even better too.

Here's the surplus vacuum cleaner and a stand I made for it.

I put it all together last night and tested it, it was a success, cleaned out my garage and filled the whole bucket with sawdust and other debris, then I also used it to clean ash out of the fireplace in the house. The only problem I had was the bucket which was too weak. It crumpled like a beer can the moment I put my hand over the hose. The solution was to take a 2nd bucket (they are 25 liter fermenting buckets) and put it inside the other bucket along with a lot of glue.

Unfortunately my camera battery died last night so I wasn't able to take pictures of the working unit. I still have more work to do however, I will take apart the vacuum and build new housings for the motor and fan that fit better onto the frame I have already built. This will also allow me to build a better housing to put air filters in so I am not dependant on crappy vacuum bags.

 

[woodchip]

How long did the cyclone take to arrive from china?

 

[cedarwood]

I built one using a plastic tub which as you found collapses when under full vacuum like if it gets blocked or you put your hand over the suction tube best solution is to use a small steel drum, I now use a 110 ltr steel drum which is brilliant.

 

[DennisCA]

How long did the cyclone take to arrive from china?

Took a few days after ordering for it to ship, it arrived about a week after I was notified it had shipped.

Edit: Took apart the vacuum cleaner tonight, pretty loud with just the machine. I think I will make it a simple box with the controls on the outside, then a manifold that in turn attaches to another box containing filters. Taking design notes from Mathias Wandel on this part.

 

[DennisCA]

Not had a lot of time to spend on this but I need a shop vacuum (and something to handle the ash in the fireplace) quite badly too so I better get to it. Been building the housing for the vacuum motor.

These pictures are somewhat old by now, made more progress last night, housing is complete and I made a filter box, now I need to connect the two and then hook up the cyclone outlet to the filter box. But I got to make some time for the twins and fiance too, also need to stack firewood while the weather's still good.

 

[DennisCA]

I assembled it enough to test last night and it worked but too much dust was let through, as had happened earlier. Turns out the bucket is not very air tight around the lid. I got around it by taping it but it's not a long term solution I like. I am considering cutting the entire top off and fitting a new wooden lid, we'll see...

Wire retracts when you push the switch to it's left. The switch on top is the power switch. The motor speed adjustment is on the front of the box, you can see it in other pictures a bit.

The filter housing, I use a kärcher wet & dry shop vac filter, but I can put basically anything there as long as it's short enough.

The lid flops open, the grey stuff is some silicone I smeared out to act as a gasket, when the motor runs it sucks the lid shut whenit starts and I need both arms to get it open, it's surprisingly airtight.

Next is to sand it and get rid of the rough edges, then paint it some suitable color, I always liked the green color Matthias Wandel put on his machines. Under the motor and filter box there's room to put... something, I dunno what yet.