Shop vac hose diameter: What's most effective for dust? Favorites?

[Henry W]

Shop vac hose diameter: What's most effective for dust?

Ridgid vacs have three sizes - 2.?", 1.75", and 1.25" generally correlating with their vac sizes (i.e. larger vacs have larger diameter hoses).
Seems like Festool vacs have a fairly small diameter hose judging on the basis of the small diameter port on my singular Festool sander.

I am solely interested in dust collection (mostly from ROS sanders), and a bit of shop cleanup, and not necessarily in terms use as a wet-vac (i.e water pick up).

I am expecting to buy a sub $100 vac (i.e. not a Fein or a HEPA vac, although of course I'd like both quieter and better dust filtration), is there any reason to choose a model with a smaller diameter hose over the larger diameter ones?

So far the used market (CL and FB) has not proven to be a fruitful hunting grounds; it's not that there aren't any out there, but the cost difference from new ones makes buying used not particularly attractive, given that the average tool in this price range has a limited lifetime.

Any favs out there you would recommend?

Thanks

 

[MarkE]

I have a couple of Ridgid 16 gallon vacs in the shop with 2-1/2" hose. they work well with bench top power tools, belt sander, bandsaw, etc. Both have Ridgids LSA, so repairs and parts have a lifetime warranty. Ridgid has a muffler available for these shop vacs that quiet the noise down a little.

For my ROS I have a Shop Vac brand Hangups, 4.5 gallon with 1-1/4" hose. It works good with the sanders, but when it dies, I will replace it with a Ridgid, just for the LSA.

 

[JimD]

Henry,

I have two Rigid shop vacs both equipped with the quasi HEPA filter. It costs less than $20 and uses "HEPA quality fabric". They cannot call it a HEPA vacuum because that requires it to pass a test but the filter is finer than the stock filter, which isn't bad (unlike a lot of stock DCs). I use the long 20' Rigid 2.5 inch hose for my table saw and for cleanup and a Bosch 5 meter hose for sanders and my track saw. On my primary shop vac, I have an Oneida dust deputy. It's main function is to reduce, dramatically, the amount of filter cleaning. If you do not do this, you basically need to clean the filter every time you empty the shop vac. With it you can skip filter cleaning almost all the time if you do not overfill the container below the cyclone. Because of the cyclone, my main shop vac is a 10 amp 3 gallon model. Almost nothing makes it to the shop vac so it's capacity is not important. The most powerful shop vacs pull 12A. My other one is 8.? amps and is used when I am away from the shop. The main one has wheels but is a bit of a pain to move around.

My table saw really needs a DC as does my planner and jointer and I bought one but do not have it set up yet. So my modified shop vac is my only dust collection in the shop. It also has an accessory that turns the shop vac on when a tool connected to it is switched on. It's a good setup for a shop vac and did not cost what a Festool or even a Fein costs.

If I was you and apparently starting out, I would get a Rigid of 8-12amps and a Bosch 5 meter hose. You can use the stock hose of the rigid and the Bosch and decide what else you want. If you can afford to get the dust deputy, that would be my next move which will nearly require a cart of some kind.

I have at least one of the small Rigid hoses but I do not find it useful, the size doesn't seem to work for anything. 2.5 inches, their big one, is much more standard. The Bosch hose fits the Rigid shop vac fine and the other end fits my DeWalt track saw and Bosch DEVS1250 sander without modification and fits my DeWalt 5 inch sander with a small adapter. It is also a sturdy well made hose and isn't terribly expensive.

Jim

 

[Henry W]

Thanks Mark and Jim.
While I may give the impression that I am just starting out, this is a replacement vac for one that I wore out in 8-10(?) years after buying it new (Shop Vac brand); that one is smelling like burnt rubber and sounding like a wailing animal - getting worse with each use. I know it is about to die shortly.

The current unit has a 1.75" hose and I have eventually adapted that size to the uses I need (BS and sanders primarily - TS is yet to be tamed). Quite frankly I am uncertain how the 2.5" hose would work on my ROS sanders (Ridgid 6" and Festool 5") - seems like too much hose (although I do use a separator, see below) and so would only need the 2.5 inch hose to adapt to that). If I were to attempt TS dust collection (from below) with a shop vac then I believe the large diameter hose would be the better choice.

I don't have a Dust Deputy, but do have an intermediate container that simply has in and out holes in the lid of a cylinder - remarkably effective separator for a very non-engineered piece (no deflector, Thein baffle, or cyclone - just two holes in the top of a cylinder).

Thanks for the tip on the Bosch 5m hose - know where I might be able to procure that? (I have not done any searches) That sounds really useful (if I go with that diameter hose).

 

[mpholway]

I got a "Dustopper" for my rigid vac and love it. All of the debris is collected in the 5 gallon bucket rather than the vacuum canister giving the filter a long life and making emptying it a breeze. I am in the process of building a dutopper rack per the attached video.

 

[JimD]

Here is a amazon link for the Bosch 5M hose I use:

https://www.amazon.com/Bosch-16-4-F...sch+35mm+hose&qid=1553789634&s=gateway&sr=8-1

They make an anti-static one too but it's much more and I don't have any issue with the cheaper one from a static standpoint (I mention it because Festool seems to like anti-static hoses for their stuff). You can get it other places but the adapters that will probably be suggested by Amazon might be useful too. The big end should plug right into a Rigid shop vac - at least it did in my case. This is a functional equivalent to the Festool 35mm hose (I believe they have a smaller one too).

 

[ehpoole]

Quite simply, when shopping for a shop vac and/or hose the most effective choice when capturing dust will be the largest diameter and shortest length of hose that is practical to use for the task or tool at hand.

Narrower hoses add significant restriction to the airflow and rob more airflow per unit length than larger diameter hoses. However, smaller diameter hoses are much more flexible and lighter in weight and thus fight you a lot less than the larger hoses during nonstationary use. This is why you will typically see the smaller diameter hoses incorporated into smaller tools where a good deal of movement is often encountered — like routers, jigsaws, circular saws, sanders, etc. — and larger diameter hoses often incorporated for stationary devices — such as router tables, sanding stations and smaller stationary tools — and for tools that need as much airflow as practical for moderately effective dust capture — like miter saws.

The more airflow a tool needs for effective capture the more likely it is to come with a 2-1/2” port and the more effective the tool is at corralling and funneling dust into a smaller port the more likely it is to use a smaller 27mm, 1-1/4”, or 36mm port to facilitate movement so that dust collection does not get in the way of using those tools. However, since airflow drops off much faster with these smaller hose diameters you want to keep the hose as short as practical when using these smaller hoses (in truth, you always want to use the shortest practical length, but the smaller the hose diameter the more important that advice).

So when I shop for a shop vac I opt for a unit that incorporates a 2-1/2” port and then simply connect whichever diameter hose is most practical for the tool I intend to use. That is, by far, the most practical shopping advice in my opinion and offers maximum flexibility. Instead, I focus more on the portability of the shop vac if I am going to dedicate it to dust collection (as opposed to dual use with water where I prefer large units with caster wheels) so I tend to opt for lighter and smaller units that I can outfit with a HEPA cartridge filter since the volume of sawdust captured is not so large that a smaller vacuum would be an issue. I also find that I very much like shop vacs that afford the use of a waste bag filter as a first stage of capture as that helps to keep the fine sanding dust from clogging the smaller HEPA filter and helps to avoid starving the vacuum of airflow over time from the HEPA filter clogging with dust, plus the bag contains most of the dust when you empty the shop vac to discard the waste bag so less mess as well (but my main reasoning is avoiding clogging of the smaller cartridge filter). I also prefer models that make some effort to quiet the exhaust as the screaming of the impeller can be very ear piercing in a shop and there are many models out there today that are quieter than the older shop vacs despite otherwise equal specifications. Also, the more powerful the motor the greater the amperage and the more airflow it will produce, so you typically want the higher amperage choices unless there is a need to sacrifice amperage, and thus airflow, so that you may run your higher amperage power tool off the same 20A circuit as the shop vac.

You should be able to find many perfectly viable choices under a $100 as the Shop Vac brand unit I bought a few years back at Lowe’s was well under $100, to which I then added the HEPA filter and waste bags. The combination, with the disposable waste bag, even did very well with drywall dust several years ago (the nemesis of any shop vac!).

 

[mdbuntyn]

I bought the Dust Right small port hose kit from Rockler to use with my 12 gallon Rigid vac, and Makita track saw. That would probably work with your sanders
https://www.rockler.com/dust-right-universal-small-port-hose-kit

 

[Jeff]

That hose is 16' long and 2.25" diameter if you want to drag that around. Otherwise it looks pretty good.

The same hose at Lowe's is $80 (same model # and specs supposedly).

Thanks for the tip on the Bosch 5m hose - know where I might be able to procure that? (I have not done any searches) That sounds really useful (if I go with that diameter hose).