Diy dust separator for shop vac

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This has been weeks in planning. I had a turbocharger from a large truck sitting around and finally found a use for it.
This is pretty much common in shops and as a pre-filter for shop vacs in home shops. They remove all of the debris from getting into the shop vac and remove most of the dust... how much remains to be seen.
Google dust separators an Dust Deputy to get a better idea what they do.
Took a while to find the rest of the parts to connect it all together.... Pots and pans from a Goodwill store and some sheet metal to make a cone for the dirty air to swirl in.
Here's my start. Got the cone made... took a while to figure out how to do that.
The image showing the unit set on the plywood will be what sets on an old shop vac container.
Dirty air goes into the turbo inlet on the side an exits out the top, with a second hose going to my shop vac with the filter.
More will go on inside the unit, but I have a good start.
 

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It looks cool! I hope it will work!
I'm still impressed with the video of the dust separator that you linked in the other thread.
 
Got the main parts assembled. Need to figure out a way to connect the two hoses.
The top side of the unit swirls the air downwards against the sides of the cone, then when the air goes under the lid, there's a diffuser that throws debris to the sides of the vacuum canister.
All the bits and chunks stay inside this container. Hopefully most of the dust will stay here too.
 

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Here's my cake pan/steamer pan conversion into a diffuser. The hole in the center piece fits snug to a 3" section of ABS pipe. This pipe carries the cleaned air out the top of the turbo unit, then to my shop vac.
 

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I saved the dust that was in my vac and dumped it on a sheet of plywood It had some tiny pad chunks with staples too.
I cleaned both vacuum canisters to do a trial run.
I made up a hose connector for the top, sealed other connections with duct tape and made a go at it.
More dust made it through than I figured, but I cleaned the vacuum canisters for a reason. The canisters are black, dust isn't. The cleaning made the dust patterns or flows inside more visible so after the test, I could find out what else needed to be added..... baffles or whatever.
I discovered 6" diameter spot in the bottom of the separator can almost spotless and the heavier dust closer to the outside of the tank.
It appears the debris is swirling down the cone and onto the cake pan deflector and being thrown to the outside of the canister. Debris is then being spun outwards, then flows downwards in all 360 degrees and then when it hits bottom it all flows inwards to meet in the center of the canister..... where it the gets pushed upwards and the lighter dust goes straight up into the underside of that cake pan and heads into the 3" pipe right and over into my vacuum cleaner.
It needs a deflector, maybe a parabolic shaped one somewhere between the cake pan and the bottom of the separator.
Years ago, I made a sort of pre-filter that wrapped around the paper filter inside my shop vac. It was just some loosely woven cheap terry cloth shop rags hot glue together.
Also, the pad chunks gathered up inside the turbo housing. I think that can be remedied.
It works but needs some fine tuning. I knew it would.
 
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Good luck with it. I'm sure you'll get it working at some point. You're already on the right track.
 
I saved the dust that was in my vac and dumped it on a sheet of plywood It had some tiny pad chunks with staples too.
I cleaned both vacuum canisters to do a trial run.
I made up a hose connector for the top, sealed other connections with duct tape and made a go at it.
More dust made it through than I figured, but I cleaned the vacuum canisters for a reason. The canisters are black, dust isn't. The cleaning made the dust patterns or flows inside more visible so after the test, I could find out what else needed to be added..... baffles or whatever.
I discovered 6" diameter spot in the bottom of the separator can almost spotless and the heavier dust closer to the outside of the tank.
It appears the debris is swirling down the cone and onto the cake pan deflector and being thrown to the outside of the canister. Debris is then being spun outwards, then flows downwards in all 360 degrees and then when it hits bottom it all flows inwards to meet in the center of the canister..... where it the gets pushed upwards and the lighter dust goes straight up into the underside of that cake pan and heads into the 3" pipe right and over into my vacuum cleaner.
It needs a deflector, maybe a parabolic shaped one somewhere between the cake pan and the bottom of the separator.
Years ago, I made a sort of pre-filter that wrapped around the paper filter inside my shop vac. It was just some loosely woven cheap terry cloth shop rags hot glue together.
Also, the pad chunks gathered up inside the turbo housing. I think that can be remedied.
It works but needs some fine tuning. I knew it would.

As I dont make much dust Think I will stick with my broom :)





Think I will stick with my broom
:)
 
Good luck with it. I'm sure you'll get it working at some point. You're already on the right track.
Working on two issues. Keeping the air swirling around the outside edges of vacuum canister.
This is the underside of the cover without the cake pan... It will be put back to force the air to keep swirling once it exits the cone.
I layed out a pattern and formed a jig out of plywood in the same curved shape.
 

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I then cut up strips of Plexiglass and one at a time, heated the strips with my hot air gun, then bent them over the curve of the jig till they cooled. Then cut them to length. Made em long to be easier to handle while forming.
Worked like a charm. They were glued in place overnight and strong as can be.
Next is the turbo mod to make it swirl the air faster.
 

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What's a broom? Is that a brand of shop vac in NZ? 😁

Also works as my 100 lb roller
You ever tried sweeping the floor with a 100 lb roller so the broom is a tool that will do two jobs :)
We used to say the only thing a roller does is dent the left side of your wagon going around a right hand corner then dents the right hand side going around the left hand corners:)
 
This setup is for grinding and sanding dust reduction into my shop vac filter. It's not part of normal vacuuming.
I ground off 20 lbs of concrete using a more primitive setup. Without it, I would have been cleaning the filter every 3 minutes. It removed 90+% of the dust before it went into my shop vac.
Working on a less messy and more efficient collector.
 

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