I am a high school wood shop teacher and I'm contemplating ways to manage dust from all the orbital sanders in our shop. Our health & safety guy is suggesting a downdraft table, but for 8 kids sanding at once, that will require a large table at a cost of around 10k. I'm thinking for that amount of money I could outfit the shop with 6-8 vacs and sanders for about half that. Have you guys seen how current production shops handle this sort of thing? When I was working in production shops, there was no such thing as dust collection for much of anything. IF we had it, it was for table saws only and overhead belt sanders, only.
Production Downdraft Table vs Multiple Sanders & Vacs
- Thread starter climb.on
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HarveyWildes
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I'm not connected to a school, but I really like the Festool sanders combined with the vacs. Anecdotally I can say that there is a big difference between a DeWalt random orbital with an (older) Fein vacuum and a Festool random orbital with a Festool vac - Festool wins that one. From a specs perspective, the Fein vacuum had a HEPA filter, but the Festool vacuum is HEPA all around (e.g. filters, seals, amount of dust that gets back into the air).
For the downdraft table, it's not just a matter of the size, it's also getting the air to suck down evenly (more or less) into all areas in the table. You don't want one corner of the table to suck big time and another corner to hardly suck at all. So table design and match to the attached dust collector is important, and has to be designed in.
For the downdraft table, it's not just a matter of the size, it's also getting the air to suck down evenly (more or less) into all areas in the table. You don't want one corner of the table to suck big time and another corner to hardly suck at all. So table design and match to the attached dust collector is important, and has to be designed in.
Well, I will say that I've had good luck with standard ROS, i.e. basic 5" bosch, and a decent hepa vac. I mean you're not hogging down material like crazy with those sanders, its pretty easy for a vac to keep up in my opinion.
Of course, a mirka or festool sander will have better dust collection.
My first thought would be to tie into the woodshop's dust collector ductwork, assuming that is already in place. You could have a dedicated sanding table with some hoses/leads dropping from above. Rather than buy 10 vaccums.
Of course, a mirka or festool sander will have better dust collection.
My first thought would be to tie into the woodshop's dust collector ductwork, assuming that is already in place. You could have a dedicated sanding table with some hoses/leads dropping from above. Rather than buy 10 vaccums.
IMO a downdraft table is better suited for hand sanding vs powered - I found with the speed of the sander a lot dust would just spin out the side. I don't suspect you'd see great results with a bunch of orbitals running without a serious vacuum, similar to those used in CNC hold-down applications. One thing to consider is several smaller tables and with a school budget I would think building them seems more realistic vs buying as they are not cheap.
Other than being able to maybe zone off sections or those sliding grommets, I'm not sure why they are so expensive as many still require a DC motor. With that in mind, an 8 person table would be a hog on your current DC system, seems like a small dedicated motor would be a better approach.
The price of shop vacs is hard to beat and I don't see why you couldn't run 2 (maybe 3) orbitals off one vac. When I have a bunch of powersanding (grinder) or router sled work to do, I throw up the Fastcap 3rd Hand Barrier - something to consider in concept is confining the sanding area from the larger shop with walls etc and possibly adding a hanging air filter in the room. Surely this would keep the noise down overall and confine the airborne particulates.
Learn from my mistake. My first downdraft table was a square box with internal square ribs - I rebuilt it with an angled baffle essentially reducing the volume of the box in turn increasing the draft. A simple oversight then, much more efficient now.View attachment 1
Other than being able to maybe zone off sections or those sliding grommets, I'm not sure why they are so expensive as many still require a DC motor. With that in mind, an 8 person table would be a hog on your current DC system, seems like a small dedicated motor would be a better approach.
The price of shop vacs is hard to beat and I don't see why you couldn't run 2 (maybe 3) orbitals off one vac. When I have a bunch of powersanding (grinder) or router sled work to do, I throw up the Fastcap 3rd Hand Barrier - something to consider in concept is confining the sanding area from the larger shop with walls etc and possibly adding a hanging air filter in the room. Surely this would keep the noise down overall and confine the airborne particulates.
Learn from my mistake. My first downdraft table was a square box with internal square ribs - I rebuilt it with an angled baffle essentially reducing the volume of the box in turn increasing the draft. A simple oversight then, much more efficient now.View attachment 1
Attachments
Given the budget restraints, I would agree that smaller (individual?) sanding tables and ROS sanders connected to a HEPA vacuum may be the most cost-effective option. While I would agree that a Festool ROS/dust extractor may be a good choice, the cost for 8 units is going to be pretty high. FWIW I've had very good results with a P-C sander, replacing the almost useless canister with a hook up to a ShopVac with HEPA filter. I heat/cool my shop with a mini-split so am always looking for ways to collect sawdust at the source and minimize the amount that's airborne - I see very little signs of sawdust escaping the sander. As was mentioned, this is a finishing operation, so not a lot of material should be being removed.
