Volume, as in Db.

[charliex]

Somewhere in here I seen mentioned the word "Loud" in relation to the separator.  Do these separators add more noise to the shop? 
Which brings another question to mind.  Has anyone found a "quite" SV?  Both my Shop vac SV (small 5 gal) and my Ridgid SV (large 16 gal) are annoyingly loud even when I'm wearing ear muffs.
Thanks
Chas

[servant74]

I was reading on quieting a generic shop vac.  One set of folks made a muffler using PVC pipe and some open cell foam.  The best I have seen is a insulated closet, basically sending the dust collector to another room.  If you don't need to recycle conditioned air, sending the exhaust air out of your shop is not a bad thing.

Actually just the blower needs to be 'outside', putting a muffler on the exhaust of the blower can help.  I saw another article that did this before sending the air with fine particles to filters, it was basically large holes in the ducting sides, and wrapping that with backed fiberglass (or enclose it in a larger duct).  Think of a 6" duct, with many 6" holes cut in it, wrapped by lots of fiberglass, and that put inside a 12" wrap/duct.

This second one I think I saw on the forums at the ClearVue site.  The first one may have been in ShopNotes, but my memory could be off.

Does that help?

[phil (admin)]

No, the separator doesn't substantially increase noise.

You may have been reading comments about a specific unit w/ the Harbor Freight dust collector (the red one, with universal motor).  That DC is a screamer, separator or not.

[dbhost]

The separator itself does not introduce any additional noise, with the exception of debris swirling around the can, it can be an interesting sound with a metal can...