Dust collection

[robgott1]

Hello! I am working in my garage and have a table saw track saw planer router sander pretty basic. Right now I hook my tools up to a ridgid vacuum with anti static hose and it actually does a pretty fine job

I was wondering if there is a recommendation you guys would have to manage dust chips other than a festool extractor. That’s gonna be my purchase but not sure if I could go along the dust collector route. Thanks

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[ChuckM]

If you have good results with your table saw using a CT, I assume yours is a contractor or job site saw.

A dust collector is needed for a cabinet saw, band saw, thickness planer and jointer that come with a 4" port.

Check the port size of your machines.

One accessory that I find extremely useful is the auto switch. I have one on every stationary machine including the table saw, but not those that are served by the CT15.
https://www.leevalley.com/en-ca/sho...ccessories/63013-ivac-automatic-vacuum-switch

Its price has gone up steadily over the years. There're cheaper ones, but they don't give you a max. rating of 30 Amp, which I need.

 

[live4ever]

There are two parts of the dust collection equation:  the chips and the fines.  The chips make a mess and are annoying, especially from high volume machines like a planer.  The fines hang in the air and kill you.

A shopvac hooked up to your tools can actually do a decent job of containing the mess (if you’re relatively tolerant of having to do some cleanup after), and it will get a lot of the fines at the source.  It will not keep your garage spotless - eventually a fine layer of dust will be on EVERYTHING.  For your lungs, it’s important to wear a respirator in that scenario.
It’s a doable setup if that’s what your space and budget allow.  Improvements to that setup would  a cyclone in front of the vac (to capture the chips and keep them from clogging the vac’s bag/filter, and a ceiling mounted air scrubber.  HEPA filter in the vac is a must.  In total that’s about $200-500 of expenditure. 

If you have larger tools with 4” dust ports, then you need a dust collector.  Note that you’ll still need a shopvac for collection from the smaller tools.  A dust collector takes up space and will require its own dedicated circuit.  There are ways to do it decently if on a budget (Harbor Freight + modifications). 

So unless you’re planning on adding a lot of large stationary tools (cabinet saw, jointer/planer, bandsaw, drum sander), I’d look at a cyclone and better filter for the shopvac, adding an air scrubber, and having a decent respirator.

 

[mino]

... and a ceiling mounted air scrubber.
...

This is so hard to overstate.

In any enclosed space the fine dust will stay up for days, the smaller the particles, the more carcinogenic and the longer they take to settle.

Without an air scrubber or other way to clean/replace the air, almost every minute one works in the shop becomes a minute of exposure. Even when not generating any "new" fine dust that day.

One good thing with a garage setup is it tends to be easy to quickly exchange the air by opening it. But that does not really work all that well in places that experience proper four seasons ..

 

[ChuckM]

I have two shop-made air filtration systems, one made out of a squirrel furnace fan and one a box fan. My neighbor may have a clever alternative he uses his shoulder-strapped snow/leaf blower to blast the heck out of his shop. I always tell him that he gives me a heads-up (so I can close my garage door) before he does that. One time, I watched from my window and thought a Sirocco was paying him a visit.

On that note, invest in a decent air quality monitor. You may be amazed that how clean or dirty the shop air is depending on what you do and what dust extraction is put in place. Most of the time, my air filtration systems are not turned on. (I came across a YouTube videos that tested some of the cheap monitors and the readings from them were found to be wrong and dangerously misleading.)

 

[robgott1]

Okay so I really feel confident in making the purchase of a festool dust extractor. And I using a ceiling hung purifyer

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[Garet Jax]

Okay so I really feel confident in making the purchase of a festool dust extractor. And I using a ceiling hung purifyer

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Hey what ceiling hung purifier are you getting?

 

[Mini Me]

A ceiling hung filter is a band aid solution and is only good for the dust that was not collected at the machine. That dust is now floating around in the air which means you are breathing it in and it is not coming out of your lungs. Any cyclone in a dust collection system reduces the efficiency of that system because that is the way that cyclones work. I did this stuff for a living and in the end your choice will affect your health and there is no way around that. Some choose a respirator but for me that would be intolerable so I make sure the fine dust that escapes is minimised by using a proper ducted system because vacuum cleaners are good at picking up the debris but not the fine dust. In the end it is your choice, a broom will pick up the large debris but not the fine dust. I had a wife call me one day and order a cyclone because she was sick and tired of her husband coughing a spluttering at night and keeping her awake and she harassed him until he installed it!

 

[ChuckM]

My squirrel cage fan and box fan-turned air purifiers are mounted at my head level, not 8 or 9' above ground as many people do.

The exit ends face me so fresh, filtered air is what I breathe when they're turned on (as guided by the air quality monitor). The most important dust prevention is dust collection at source, and that's why I use a dust collector (for below-the -table dust collection) and a shop vac at the same time for my SawStop PCS.

The Kapex is among the best miter saws you can get in terms of dust collection. My air quality monitor gives a thumbs-up rating whenever I use the Kapex with my HEPA shop vac/dust deputy.

The most dust-producing operation in my shop is sanding, specifically with the benchtop sander. That's the time I may wear a N95 mask in a prolonged sanding session.

 

[Steve1]

live4ever pretty much wrote everything in Reply #2.

I was in a similar situation to you.
Started with a piece-of-junk ShopVac brand vacuum that was useless.  It was a happy day when it started to die and I had an excuse to replace it with a CT-36.  Used it for everything including my table saw.

That worked reasonably well until I got the jointer and planer.  I could fill up a Festool bag in a couple of minutes, and if you look at the cost of those bags, that is not a sustainable situation.    So I put a Dust Deputy cyclone on it, which makes bags last almost forever.

Somewhere along my journey I started getting more concerned about what I was breathing and got a mask and a 3/4 HP air cleaner. 
The air cleaner filters get dirty, so they must help, but I wouldn't rely on it to make the air safe to breathe, and the shop still got dusty.

Eventually got the Laguna P-Flux dust collector and that is working much better to keep my shop clean (not perfect, but much better) and give me confidence in the air I am breathing.  But when cutting or sanding for more than a few seconds, I will still put on my mask and sometimes turn on the air cleaner.  I have the air cleaner on casters and can move it close to the machine I am using at that time.