Core77

The Quest for an Affordable Dust-Collecting Cyclone, Part 1: Which to Buy?

By Rain Noe - January 8, 2013

in Hand Tools

I'm sick of sawdust. I use a circular saw and a router by Hitachi with hacked-on plastic ports that I can attach to my Ridgid shop vac, and frankly speaking, the dust collection sucks. The problem is either the vac, the port connection or the design of my (admittedly low-cost) power tools themselves, as they're not designed for the stellar dust collection of the much-pricier Festool offerings.

For starters, let's say it's the vac. Cleaning out a shop vac filter is a holy PITA, as just using an air compressor isn't enough; you really need to blow from inside the filter while scraping between the vanes, which takes freaking forever, to say nothing of the mess created. But if you don't do it on a regular basis the sawdust trapped in the vanes becomes impacted, and your vacuum's efficiency drops way down. You also need to do this outdoors (no easy feat in my crowded Manhattan neighborhood), unless you plan on vacuuming up the mess again with the same vac, defeating the entire purpose of your exercise.

If you don't clean out the filter, you wind up with a weak-ass vacuum, which means the tool it's hooked up to blows more dust all over the place. This might not be a problem for those of you with dedicated shop areas, but since the only workspace I have is in the photography studio I run, I need to eliminate every mote of dust before the next shooter comes in. So I've been searching for an alternative.

All of you that work in small shops that cut wood have heard of cyclones, which drastically reduce the amount of dust that clogs up your shop vac's filter. The idea is that by attaching your vac to this conical intermediary, then feeding a second hose to the actual tool, most of the dust (and particularly the fine particles) gets sucked away by the vortex and into a bucket for easy disposal. Using physics, or aerodynamics I guess, even a modestly-powered vacuum can create a powerful cyclone. Just ask Dyson.

There are a bunch of cyclones on the market, but which to buy? I was able to find just three options within my modest budget: Oneida's Dust Deputy, ClearVue's Mini CV06 and Rockler's Dust Right Vortex, all for around the same price of 80-90 bucks. Oneida's of course a prominent manufacturer of vacuums, ClearVue's larger CVMAX system has an awesome reputation in big shops (though I can't afford a full $1,845 CVMAX system) and Rockler's stuff is pretty hit-and-miss; they're one of those companies that I've found has no problem stocking junk alongside some stellar products, which for some reason pisses me off more than if they'd just sold junk.Luckily for me, I found the Wood Whisperer guy did a review of these three models exactly. It was done several months ago, which is why he refers to out-of-date prices: Since the review went live, Clearvue's Mini CV06 dropped from $149 to $79, Rockler's dropped from $89 to $74.99 and Oneida's increased from $79 to $89. Does that give you any indication of which one worked best?

See 'em in action:

Before I bite the $90 bullet on the Oneida, there is another option I'm looking into, a clever DIY solution devised by an unselfish woodworker. But before I get to that—do you guys have any good cyclonic experience? Please let us know in the comments below. (And I'm not looking to hear from those of you that work in large shops with a CVMAX—have some mercy and don't brag about your Ferrari when I'm shopping for a Volkswagen. Jerks.)

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Charles Audette

8 years ago

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Two things:
Appreciated the Core 3 update, very honourable. And LAUGHED LIKE CRAZY at your closing comment on this post. Well said!

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Richard Manrique

10 years ago

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Thein baffles will NOT separate any fine particles which are the particles which will kill you. Only a cyclone with smooth airflow can reduce air turbulence enough to allow finer particles to settle. You will clog your filters faster with a Thein baffle, and run a higher risk of larger items banging around in your impeller. However, remember that the smaller bottom opening of a cyclone can clog with larger joiner/planner savings or larger pieces coming off the table saw. So, a Thein baffle may make sense in these situations. Maybe also then flowing into a small cyclone to help separate the finer particles and make your filters last longer. Has anyone tried this? You will certainly loose static pressure, but its the airflow that counts when dealing with fine particles.
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Bob Stout

12 years ago

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I use a Dust Deputy with a shop vac with my CNC router. I only have to clean the filter in the shop vac once a year and only a trace of fine powder made it there. I love it and it is a better vortex than my home Phil Thien vortex devices were. The DD is all plastic and I mounted it onto a 5 gallon plastic drum. from Oneida...I love it!
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Sam

12 years ago

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Well I see you were already one step ahead of me! Aside from misspelling Thien's name in my post, my recommendation stands - the build is very cheap, very quick, and can be adapted to any size container you want to use. I don't really see any reason to buy a fancy commercial unit. Save the money for a better dust collector device instead of using a shop-vac - makes a huge difference.
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Rob Jones

12 years ago

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I have a Mini CV06 and I love it. I'm not sure what happened with the Wood Whisperer, but I have not experienced what he did.

If your goal is wood chip collection, then go with the smaller units you've listed above. If it is a choice for a bigger unit, then everything points to Clear Vue. They seem to have the best on the market. That's the direction I'm going.
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Sam

12 years ago

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I'd recommend building a "Thiel Separator", which is a special type of cyclone lid (adaptable to all manner of different containers) that is highly effective at separation, and easy to build for the DIYer:

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

I've got one I built into the lid of a 20 gallon plastic drum from the food shipping industry, connected to a Harbor Freight 1hp dust collector with aftermarket dust bag, and collecting through about 20 feet of 4" semi-rigid hose, and 10 more feet of 4 inch "Dust Right" hose from Rockler, which is SUPER flexy and collapses very small (awesome hose). It usually connects to a bristle head on my CNC router, where it happily collects all the dust from full-pass MDF cuts. I also disconnect it and use it through a few little end adapters for belt sanding, or even just propped up on the table in front of me while I hand sand. The whole apparatus sits underneath the CNC table, and is quite compact.

The Theil separator captures nearly all the dust. I empty the main canister (from nearly full) 3 or 4 times before I have to clean the dust bag on the Harbor Freight dust collector.

The big differences would be the size of the collection vessel (which I like about the separator plans - you can pick any size vessel you want), knowing that larger will be more efficient, and having a solid dust collector fan. I don't recommend using a shop-vac - they are optimized for high pressure, low volume, where the dust collectors are designed for lower pressure, but very high volume. The Harbor Freight 1hp unit works fine, but is the first thing I'll eventually upgrade on mine.
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Ken J

12 years ago

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They make bags for shop vacs. May be less expensive depending on your use.
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