Dust collection question?

[Powercat80]

O'k guy's, I have resisted asking this for fear of posing a stupid question, but here goes. Our house has a central vaccum system that we don't use. (We have wood floors and it's just easier to pull out the upright instead of pulling all that hose around.) Anyway, the canister and motor is out in the garage, next to all my power tools. So I'm wondering, could you use this unit as a shop DC. It has a 3-stage filter. Although it warns not to use it to pick up drywall dust and cigeratte ashes. Not sure if that is a fire safety issue or a filtration issue. Could I build a Thien seperator in front of it and just use it for fine particulate? What things should I consider? Suction, CFM, power, etc.? Or is this just a dumb idea? O'h, and be easy on me...

[sweensdv]

It might work hooked up to a sander as long as you won't be trying to pull the sawdust a long distance. For other tools, I doubt if it would move enough air to be really all that effective.

[Uncle Cracker]

Agreed. The CFM's necessary to DC from most machinery won't be there. It will probably work about as well as a typical shopvac, but no better.

[cork58]

No stupid questions, just stupid actions. It's always better to ask when in doubt. No it will not work for much other and the dust you would find on your floors, in my mind anyway.

Just my thoughts

[just started]

I have an old Sears unit I picked up cheap to use for this purpose and while I haven't installed any fixed piping yet I did hook it up to my planer (Delta 12.5") with the 2.5" flex hose from my shop vac and it worked great, nothing at all left in the planer. I ordered one of those 2.5" clear tubing kits that have been mentioned here before and plan on setting it up for my whole shop as soon as I get a chance.

[LCHIEN]

my thoughts on this are that it would probably not work real well.
For one the capacity of collection is not geared toward a lot of material so bags will fill up very quickly when doing woodworking stuff. Probably the hoses are small and might even get jammed. The thing is probably designed for more head pressure (e.g. long hoses and piping) and less CFM. All in all, not an ideal DC.

[shoottx]

My first reaction is build a cyclone separator.

Vacuums have some value as DCs, and have some short coming. But if you are stretching a budget and want to use the available equipment anding a cyclone unit would significantly add to the functionality of the vac.

Here are a couple places to look

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

http://www.clearvuecyclones.com/index.htm

http://billpentz.com/woodworking/cyclone/index.cfm

[Larrysch]

I am not sure how powerful your central vacuum system is - but if its like a large shop vacuum there is no reason why it would not work. You would just have to stay with the smaller tubing. I am like "just started" - and have the 2.5" clear tubing kits - (2 of them) - running the tubing system about 60 feet. I run my band saw - chop saw - scroll saw - router fence - sander - and drill press off this system - with a blast gate at each machine. I have a shop vacuum hooked to this system with a compact separator that fits over a standard five-gallon bucket to convert a wet/dry vac into a 2-stage dust collection system. This system collect about 90% of all the sawdust - and my vacuum bag/canister never fills up. For my planer and jointer and sanding table I use a 4" system. But I still can not see why your central vacuum system would not work.

[JimD]

Our central vacumn has 2 inch tubing and a small canister for the dust. Both would be issues for a DC. I have hooked it to a sander, however, and it had more than sufficient power. Some sort of pre-separator would be required to keep from needing to empty the canister every few minutes. Central vacumns are multi stage to pull air through restriction of long runs of relatively small pipes. DC's are typically single stage and move large volumes of air at low restriction. The tools that I think would be questionable for a central vacumn are planners and large jointers. Both put put large volumes of chips which seems like it would challenge the air movement and size of pipe.

In short, I think it will work for some tools but probably not so well for others. Since you have it, I would hook up temporary connections and give it a try.

Jim

[Powercat80]

Thanks for the replies

Guy's:

I appreciate the responses. Most are kinda what I thought. The central vac has a 2" inlet so I would be limited with chips from the jointer and planer. I do think I will try a couple of tests with some smooth tubing on the small devices and see what comes from it.