My dust collection setup

A simple setup that works for me.

My dust collection is very simple, but I have found it to work very well for my small shop. As you can see from the drawing below, the dust collectors are not in the enclosed shop space. The dust collector is placed in the garage, but on the other side of a tarp partition. I have placed the lathe and the Grizzly band saw close to the dust collector, and I use manual gates to control where I want dust collection from.

My shop layout

My shop layout

I have three different units I use for dust collection:

  1. Dust collector setup

    Dust collector setup

    For the 9" Delta band saw I have a small dedicated shop vac that is hooked up to a i-socket 110m Tool and Vacuum Switch (both Rockler and Woodcraft carries this switch). The switch senses when the saw starts up and then starts up the shop vac and stops the vac about 30 sec after the saw has stopped.
  2. For general shop cleanup and for hookup to sanding machine, table saw or circular saw, I use a large size shop vac with 2½"x20' hose. I got the long hose from Sears. I tried a 12 ' 2" diameter orange crush proof extension hose (also called Mr Nozzle), but found that my shop vac did not suck very well using this hose - it was too restrictive. So I tried the Sears hose, and the shop vac worked much better - lower rev on the motor, and better dust pickup. The hose is hooked up to a 19-½" Veritas Cyclone lid on a 19½" fibre drum from McMaster Carr. To start and stop the shop vac I use a foot switch inside the shop. Only the fine dust ends up in the shop vac (as long as I don't let the fiber drum overfill - best to empty about 3/4 full) and very little power is lost during a fill-up of a drum.
  3. For the lathe and the 14" band-saw, I use a Central Machinery (Harbor Freight) 1 HP dust collector. It is mounted to a box with a furnace filter, the dust filter bag is inside here. The collector is then hooked up to a Veritas Cyclone Lid on a fiber drum (22 7/8" id, from McMaster Carr Supply Company) and then with a wye to the lathe and the band saw - each having a gate that can be shut off independently of each other. The dust collector is set up with a wall switch inside the shop. After I upgraded with cyclone lid and drum for the dust collector, it runs much easier - and the intake side of the impeller doesn't get clogged anymore - this used to be a big problem - shavings from the lathe got constantly stuck by the impeller shield.
Furnace filter box

The dust bag is inside an enclosed box with a furnace filter

When I first got the dust collector, I started out just using the dust bag inside the shop. Three things became very clear. First - a lot of fine dust escapes the dust bag and settles all over the shop. Second - the dust collector is noisy. Third - the collector took up too much shop real estate. So I built a plywood box - making it taking up less space as the dust was going into a hanging bag. This also cut down some of the noise. I mounted a furnace filter on one side so the filter could catch the fine dust that escaped the bag. I use the shop vac to clean this filter now and then. Very little dust escapes the filter box. (I have since found that Grizzly sells a 3 micron dust filter bag that should fit the Central Machinery collector, but I yet have to upgrade). Since most of the dust and chips are separated by the cyclone lid, only a small amount of dust goes into the bag, increasing the efficiency of the collector (less resistance from the bag).