basics questions

[basser]

Greetings and please excuse my ignorance, but perhaps someone can clairify some points. I have a  Sears shop vac; 4HP 10 gall. with its typical 2' hose,.. is this separator system going to be of benefit?. I see many references to air flow and also to using very large diameter pipes. Not knowing what the air flow rating is and with a small inlet hole should I be considering another shop vac unit to start with? I quess I want to be able to justify the effort to the overall improvement I might gain. Currently I have a cloth bag filter in the shop vac...of cource it clogs with fine dust and needs to be "cleaned" frequently.
  On another note, I am typically moving my "stationary" tools around as needed within my garrage( jointer, sanders, table saw, band saw and router table).... is this separator approach better suited to stationary tools?
thanks in advance
Andy

[dabullseye]

i would say since what you have i would try to keep the pipes as short as possible and just move it from machine to machine. if u have the space and $$$  i would up grade to a dc and run pipes. from what ive read and understand this separator should improve the filter cleaning quite a bit. bottom line is its 4ur health and clean up. i in the process of a revamp for my dc so i yet to try out this separator but im looking forward to making some chips soon soon since rt now my shop looks like Beirut. HTH dave

[shrxfn]

Actually I have been reading all the posts and Phil actually started out with it seems like a Ridgid shopvac and it worked extremely well for him. I too have a Ridgid and what I did was go out and buy the HEPA filter for the shop vac I own it says it filters down to the 3 micron level and is cleanable I believe it is made by Cleanstream and if I remember correctly they do make them for Shop Vacs. There are lots of guys doing this with shop vacs so I say go for it. I to have to move my mahcines around so I was going to make a rack similiar to some here that have the shop vac stacked on top of the seperator and then add casters underneath to make it mobile.  This is just my 2 cents.

[basser]

shrxfn...what size hoses and bottom tank separator  are you using? Yes my Shop vac came with a Heppa filter, which I still have because it clogged so quickly I removed it.

[biloyp]

I have made Phil's cyclone using the metal trashcan hooked up to my shop vac (14-Gallon 5.5 Peak HP Contractor Wet/Dry Shop Vac) I bought at Lowes for $94. Currently I only have a hose coming out of the cyclone that I hook up to my tools. It works GREAT!!!! I suggest making the cyclone and just using a hose to connect up to your tools in the beginning and see how everything works and how you want to install your piping. SInce my shop is 15 x 12 (not too big) my runs won't be too long. I am gonna use 2" PVC with Y's going to wherever my tools end up (redoing my shop right now). I am making a stand for my DC and shop vac now and once that is done I will put in the PVC. I also plan (we all know how plans go) on using and unused leaf shredder/blower with filters to recirculate the air and hopefully suck up all the fine dust.

[shrxfn]

I have not built it yet but I got a sweet deal on a 50 gallon drum (free) so I am going to use that and the 2.5" vacuum fittings from Woodcraft. I also bought a 2.5" extension from Home Depot to go from the separator to my tablesaw. One other thing is that once you build the seperator you should not have half the issues that you are having with the filter plugging on you. I believe this to be true because there are to many people on the forum that have had nothing but success with this project.

[dr_when]

I threw together one of these using a Home Depot 5 gallon plastic pail and plywood and some vacuum fittings from Home Depot. I use this seperator with my shopvac and my CNC Shark router. I am amazed at how almost nothing reaches the shopvac!!! I was so impressed that I am now CNC'ing some plywood versions and using pvc plumbing parts. Now the cost is about $5.00 including a new Home Depot bucket. Assembly time is less than a half hour. Very impressive way to keep the shopvac filter clean. The smaller size makes it portable and practical unless you are generating a ton of dust in which case the larger garbage can version is more logical... which may be my next project.

[rodelco]

dr_when:  I have a 14 gal Ridgid vac that I would like to try with the "5 gal bucket" size separator.  I have been reading some posts that say this can be problematic because of limited room for fitting placement and hose hookups.  Any chance you could post some pictures of what you did?  Thanks!

[rodelco]

I threw together one of these using a Home Depot 5 gallon plastic pail and plywood and some vacuum fittings from Home Depot. I use this seperator with my shopvac

So, I went to my local Home Depot today to get some PVC fittings for my Rigid shop vac hose (2.25 inch diameter) so I could start building a 5 gal version of the separator.  I could not find any fittings that would work with this hose.  The fittings for 2 inch PVC were slightly too large.  I want to be able to connect and disconnect from the separator quickly, so maybe I need to buy the fittings from Rockler / Woodcraft.  I just wondered what fittings you used, and how did you connect your shop vac hose to it?

Thanks!

[basser]

I am almost ready to get started on my seperator...but I need to locate the 2 lid fittings. Am I to understand that the are no off the shelf PVC type connectors in 2.5" size? also I looked on Rocker and didn't find any conectors in this size? where do you all get these?
Help please.

[gkoch]

Basser, I found that if you glue/cement a thin(1/16") strip of PVC(Azak or the like) into the hub of a 2" PVC fitting it brings it down to the right size for the shopvac fittings.