Shop Vac (Dust Deputy) Connected to Foot Pedal

[Iguanadon]

Hello Braintrust,

 

A question....  I tried searching but couldn't find anything in prior comments, so I apologize if this has been asked.  Point me to the thread if that's the case.

 

As I'm awaiting my new saw to arrive any minute I went ahead and set up my Dust Deputy and was planning on plugging the shop-vac into my foot pedal along with my saw so that it only comes on when I'm cutting rather than running non-stop for a couple of hours straight.

 

Is this practical?  Will it burn up the shop-vac or anything?

 

Thanks for any thoughts or advice.

 

Iggy

[Robert H. Bigart]

I have been doing it since I hooked my saw up.

 

Bob

[trackman]

That is how I do also. I think Steve Good said that is how he does it too. Been hooked up this way for about 2 years.

[Iguanadon]

Thanks guys.  Just wrapped up 3 hours of cutting and so far, so good.  It was nice not having a floor full of sawdust when I was done.

Edited November 12, 2016 by Iguanadon

[amazingkevin]

Thanks guys.  Just wrapped up 3 hours of cutting and so far, so good.  It was nice not having a floor full of sawdust when I was done.

They are easy to make i just never got around to constructing one.But thats how i would do it.

[CharleyL]

That's how I first used my Dust Deputy, with a 5 gal plastic bucket under it and hooked to my shop vac and operated when I used my scroll saw foot pedal. It worked extremely well, but it was noisy. I then routed an exhaust hose from the shop vac out the shop window and sealed around the hose and window opening with some rigid styro foam insulation. That put much of the noise outside and scroll sawing in my shop was much more bearable, although my neighbors may not have appreciated it. An old house vacuum has a much lower noise level than a shop vac, so you might consider buying the wife a new vacuum so you can have the old one for your scrolling, or pick one up at a consignment shop, etc. You don't need much vacuum or air flow to collect sawdust from scrolling.

 

Just telling you the rest of my vacuum story below, in case some of my ideas might help you.

 

I decided to put my Dust Deputy on the inlet to a second hand "whole house vacuum" unit that I had recently acquired, and mount the whole thing up in my shop attic. This made it so quiet in my shop that I needed a light on the shop ceiling to tell me when the vacuum was on. Within the first minute of use, the central vacuum imploded the 5 gal bucket under the Dust Deputy, when I accidentally plugged the vacuum hose just briefly. (My shop vac never did that). I needed a stronger bucket, but couldn't find one. Then I got the bright idea to stack three buckets together and put the Dust Deputy on the top one. Doing this tripled the thickness of the bucket walls, and since the top third of each bucket had ribs on the outside for strength, I now had ribs all the way down the top bucket, and I never imploded a bucket again. 

 

Later on my son brought me a 20 gallon metal grease barrel (clean inside because the grease comes in a plastic bag inside it). I moved the Dust Deputy to a lid made for this barrel out of two layers of 3/4 cabinet birch ply and used the O ring seals from two of the plastic bucket lids on it (same diameter). If just collecting scrolling sawdust, I could probably go 3 or 4 years before it needs emptying, but I clean the shop floor and my cars and trucks with it too, so I'm planning to dump this barrel every year. When I installed the vacuum in the attic, I ran the piping and put inlet ports in my shop, shop attic, and one outside near the passage door, to vacuum my cars and trucks. I also vented this vacuum out through the soffit of my shop, so even the micro fine dust that might be getting past the Dust Deputy and vacuum filter never gets back into my shop. The Dust Deputy works so well that I have never found anything inside the vacuum.or the vacuum's filter. It all ends up in the barrel under the Dust Deputy. My shop is small, so I don't have a big shop dust collector. It would be over kill for most of what I do anyway. I do my planning outside, and shovel out my Unisaw about twice a year when the sawdust builds up inside it.

 

Charley

Edited November 13, 2016 by CharleyL