[Bluenote38]

So I built this 5gal bucket separator. My objective is to separate out most all of the fine sanding dust before it hits the filter. Mostly this is to save me having to knock out the filter every 15-20 minutes (It clogs fast).

No Thien Baffle just a 90 degree inlet and a strait centered outlet to the vac.

This works pretty good for general chip separation but isn't collecting much fine sander dust, actually it's collecting very little fine dust.

So the question is will a Thien help to capture 80-90% of the fine dust or am I just expecting way too much out of a simple bucket?

 

[Ripper70]

I copied this design and it works pretty well. I'm not sure if it's the intake coming through the side wall of the bucket that makes the difference but it's a cheap and easy enough build that it may be worth a shot to see if you achieve better results.

 

[Bluenote38]

Thanks - I'll give this a try over the weekend or maybe the weekend after

 

[ArtMann]

I recommend the Oneida Dust Deputy with one caveat. The dust separation is near 100% but the price is obscene for such a piece of cheap molded plastic. It was worth it to me after trying several bucket and trash can separators, none of which slowed the clogging of my shop vac filter.

 

[htl]

One of the things that helps these very simple separators is using as deep a bucket as you can find, this way the dust falls down out of the turbulence.
As in ripper70 video the 7 gal. pool buckets with the screw on tops are great.
HD and Lowes both sell a screw top for their buckets for less than $10 that work great.

The Chinese cyclone rip offs work great for like $30 but may take a month to get here.
There's a ton of different ways to go about this and from what I've been seeing they all seem to work pretty well as long as they get a good seal.
Here's a wood one I built, if you really like a challenge.

 

[Andybb]

I just use the bag inside my shopvac along with the separator. It takes about a year to fill up but the filter never clogs.

 

[Ripper70]

I just use the bag inside my shopvac along with the separator. It takes about a year to fill up but the filter never clogs.

- Andybb

I should have mentioned that I do the same. The catch bag gets all the fine dust before it can get to the filter. I get mine for the Ridgid 16 gallon shop vac at HD. A pack of 3 costs about $18 bucks.

 

[JBrow]

Bluenote38,

Since you are trying to capture very fine sanding dust, I suspect that a cyclone collector would work best. One can be purchased for $50 (Oneida Dust Deputy) - $150 dollars (Clear Vue CV06 which includes an inlet ramp to direct air flow into the cyclone).

However, for less money and some time, one can be made. Stumpynubs set out to build his own Shop Vac cyclone, evidently using measurements to maximize separation. It can be found at…

(Part 1) and

(Part 2), although I am not sure how offsetting the cyclone outlet in the shop vac bucket, as Stumpy did, would work. My observation of a cyclone in operation suggests some separation of dust and debris from the air stream occurs within the dust bin of the cyclone. Therefore centering the cyclone opening in the dust bin may be a better approach.

From my research concerning cyclone separators, I recall that the two factors that affect separation efficiency more than any other factors are: 1) the speed that the air stream carrying dust and debris moves (faster is better) and 2) the length of time the dust and debris remains in the separator (the longer the better). Since there is little that can be done to speed up the air flow, increasing the time dust spends in the cyclone is the only factor over which one would have control. The time debris and dust spends in the cyclone can be increased either making the cyclone funnel taller or placing two or more cyclone collectors in series with one another.

These two factors may also affect the separation efficiency of the Thein baffle; that is making the height of the Thein baffle taller may work better that a shorter baffle; but I am not sure.