Project Information
So a few weeks ago I was cleaning one of my sheds outside and I ran into my collection of old vacuum cleaners. I tend to horde things that I think I can use for parts or fix. Well I decided it was time to either put these old vacs to use or get rid of them, I needed the space. As I was looking them over I noticed that a couple of them had cyclone systems built into the tanks. It then dawned on me that I could probably use the cyclone tanks on the house vacs with my shop vacs.
Step 1 - Lot of thinking - I spent a lot of time thinking of how I wanted to do this. I have 4 vacuums that I use in my shop. I have a ShopSmith dust collector, two regular sized shop-vacs and a mini shop vac. Each vacuum serves a purpose for me so I had to decide what vac to use with this. I basically had two ideas, the first was to go the simple way and detach the cyclone bucket from the dirt devil and attach a couple small hoses. The cyclone would trap the waste in the bucket before it reached my shop vac. The other idea was to modify the dirt devil cyclone bucket by taking it apart and attaching it to a larger bucket or trash bin. Doing it this way I could adapt it to take a larger hose so I could use it with my larger vacs. Being that I have a couple old vac cyclone buckets I decided to do the easy way first.
Step 2 - Attaching the vacuum - I have to say the most used vac in my shop and home is my mini shop-vac. This mini vac is great for small pick ups and hard to reach places. Its great for the shop but even better for using in my house and in the cars. Its main use in my shop is to clean the sawdust from hard to reach places. The one big set back to this vac is that the filter clogs up fast and needs to be cleaned often. With that in mind I decided to use the cyclone on this vac. All I really had to do was cut a couple fittings so the shop vac hose would fit the dirt devil bucket. I had to glue one of the fittings in and seal it with caulk, the other fitting I was able to attach with a small hose clamp. I wanted to easily be able to detach the cyclone for when I wanted to use without.
Step 3 - adding mobility - I
Step 1 - Lot of thinking - I spent a lot of time thinking of how I wanted to do this. I have 4 vacuums that I use in my shop. I have a ShopSmith dust collector, two regular sized shop-vacs and a mini shop vac. Each vacuum serves a purpose for me so I had to decide what vac to use with this. I basically had two ideas, the first was to go the simple way and detach the cyclone bucket from the dirt devil and attach a couple small hoses. The cyclone would trap the waste in the bucket before it reached my shop vac. The other idea was to modify the dirt devil cyclone bucket by taking it apart and attaching it to a larger bucket or trash bin. Doing it this way I could adapt it to take a larger hose so I could use it with my larger vacs. Being that I have a couple old vac cyclone buckets I decided to do the easy way first.
Step 2 - Attaching the vacuum - I have to say the most used vac in my shop and home is my mini shop-vac. This mini vac is great for small pick ups and hard to reach places. Its great for the shop but even better for using in my house and in the cars. Its main use in my shop is to clean the sawdust from hard to reach places. The one big set back to this vac is that the filter clogs up fast and needs to be cleaned often. With that in mind I decided to use the cyclone on this vac. All I really had to do was cut a couple fittings so the shop vac hose would fit the dirt devil bucket. I had to glue one of the fittings in and seal it with caulk, the other fitting I was able to attach with a small hose clamp. I wanted to easily be able to detach the cyclone for when I wanted to use without.
Step 3 - adding mobility - I
