Cyclonic dust collector... on a household central vac?

[milanuk]

Anybody tried this idea yet?

Our whole-house vac system currently has a big ole shopvac attached to it, and I have been thinking that a cyclonic separator in-line with it might make life easier in terms of emptying, dealing with bags, etc. but seeing as how a fair bit of what goes down the vacuum hose in our house is hair... dog hair... I was wondering how well the cyclonic separators cope with stuff that is not exactly 'particulate' in size/nature?

[DrChas]

Ummm, My central vac IS a cyclone, albeit a very small one.

[milanuk]

Ah. Well, this house is the first one we had a central vac in. The seller (a professional remodeler) said he thought the Craftsman shopvac had at least as much suction as any of the 'real' central vacs he'd installed for people... at a fraction of the price. Given that we have hardwood floors through most of the house, it's been a moot point. But I thought maybe sticking a small cyclone unit, either a Thien design or a Dust Deputy on a 5-gallon bucket on a stand over the shop vac (it resides in the basement next to the central air unit - in the middle of my 'shop' area...) might work. Just wasn't sure if the long coarse dog hair would drop out of the air stream in the cyclone or not...

[greybear]

Instructables.com has a plan for a cyclone collector

Hi:

I too am considering a dust collector and the Dust Deputy looks pretty good to me too!

I also found a pretty good plan at Instructables.com for one with PDF Plans you can download. Here is the link: http://www.instructables.com/id/Mini...ust-Collector/

I hope this is of interest.

Greybear

[d_meister]

I bought the small ClearVue cyclone before Oneida sued them, and I am constantly amazed at how well it works. I bought the thing so that I wouldn't have to clean the clogged shop vac filter all the time. I use the vac with cyclone connected to all of my tools, and it is just fantastic. It even does great when throttled down to 1 1/2" hose connected to my DeWalt random orbital. I vacuum the shop area floors after every session, and since it's outside, there is often bouganvilla flower petals, grass clippings, sand and everything else that collects in corners from the wind. The filter stays clean. I rarely clean the filter, it's never clogged, and there's never any volume of dust or chips in the vac. The only odd thing is that if I suck up a rag, it will go straight to the shop vac! I think that even if the hair goes to the shop vac, it won't begin to clog the filter.

[milanuk]

Well, I went ahead and hooked up a small Dust Deputy inline with the shop-vac for the central vac system... and all I can say is 'wow!'. Looks to be working perfectly, with several (4-5) inches of cat/dog hair in the bottom of the bucket already following the wife's marathon cleaning session for Thanksgiving

[Shep]

great to hear. Thanks for posting