Question about cylcone for shop vac.

[ryan.s]

I've been researching dust collection systems and couldn't decide so for the time being I purchased a bigger shop vac thanks to the deal info posted in the bargain alerts section. Now the question is does a mini cyclone system for the shop vac like this http://www.clearvuecyclones.com/Videos.htm provide any improvements in the ability to suck up dust meaning does it somehow increase the cfm? I think I already know the answer to the question but wanted to get some other points of view in case I'm totally off base. The way I see how it can be beneficial is that you will not need to empty out the vac or clean/replace the filter nearly as much which in turn equates to consistent sucking power? I'd love to hear some other opinions.

Thanks

[Stytooner]

Personally, I think the smaller ones are strictly for the convenience factor. A shop vac will typically pick up all the fines and heavies that you need. The velocity in larger Shop Vac units is simply staggering when compared to a dust collector. The volume of air is what is lower in a SV.
While I think it would cost me the same to produce these little cyclones, (read priced right) I can't help but think that you would do better throwing your money at a DC. Given the floorspace needed for the mini and the shop vac, you would have about the same foot print.
You can actually make a separator for your shop vac using a couple 5 gallon buckets stacked on each other. It would work nearly as well as the mini cyclone. You wouldn't get any heavies in the shop vac and some of the fines would stay in the separator as well. You would eventually have a little dust on the SV filter this way, but look at the money you would save.
The clearvue may be the ultimate in efficiency, but you can manage near the same with a shop made rig. Larry Rogers and some others have made the smaller separators for shop vacs with good results.

[cgallery]

Or, you could build the Frankenvac. I use a 12-gallon shop vac, and wanted a way to get chip separation and tool selection in one package. Check out write-up on my web site:

http://www.cgallery.com/jpthien/index.htm

Thanks!
Phil