Diy dust separator for shop vac

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It's all about the ride.
$6 in used pans, $3 in rivets a few bucks for bolts and some gas to buy them. Sheet metal was the killer at $24 but I have 2/3 of it left over. Local sheet metal shop closed it's doors, otherwise it would have cost me $4
Plywood was free, and I had the plexiglass and adhesive.
...and now I know how to make a cone. :ghostly:
 
Well, after modifying the turbo and adding the Plexiglass find it works pretty good.
The inner part of the turbo housing had a 1/2 inch gap around the perimeter. I found a stainless pot that fit the opening like a glove. I cut the bottom out of the pan to fill the gap. Now the airflow has to spin
Before, air was dropping straight into the cone as soon as it entered. Now it's forced to spin like it's supposed to.
I just trimmed off a section of the lower edge of the pan ad it's held in with rivets and epoxy.
The darker image shows the gap before the mod.
 

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It works really well. I cleaned the cans then to make some dust, I used the edger sander to grind off a quarter inch thickness off some old particle board in a 1' by 3' area.
I added a small upside down bucket suspended 2" off the bottom of the can, hoping the debris might spin under there instead of traveling upwards so much and going up into the vacuum.
Here's what the vacuum and collector looked like after the grinding. The dust in the collector unit was in wave patterns 2 inches deep at the peaks.
Not much at all in the vacuum unit. I could still see the red stripe painted around the vacuum filter pleats.
 

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I cleaned both containers before doing the test.
Here's the hard one..... Floor patch dust.
I didn't figure this one was going to be as impressive.
Red is the vacuum, black is the collector.
The filler I ground off was from a test I did on the end of a concrete block where I had applied 3/8" of some patching compound.
...so it's getting there. I need to figure out a way to slow down or deflect the fine dust. Need a camera inside do I can watch the air spinning to know what's going on. I may have to make a pre-filter inside the collector unit. I've done that on my other versions. One just had a cheap loosely woven terry cloth shop rag wrapped loosely around the inlet. Tap it a couple times and you're good to go.
Well, it works pretty good.
 

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Looks great, Highup! I knew you could pull it off. Even so, it's impressive.
 
Not till I find a cheap kind of fuel. If the election goes south, I'll just have to cancel Spacecone Deluxe and sell all my unused rivets on Craigslist.
 
I cleaned both containers before doing the test.
Here's the hard one..... Floor patch dust.
I didn't figure this one was going to be as impressive.
Red is the vacuum, black is the collector.
The filler I ground off was from a test I did on the end of a concrete block where I had applied 3/8" of some patching compound.
...so it's getting there. I need to figure out a way to slow down or deflect the fine dust. Need a camera inside do I can watch the air spinning to know what's going on. I may have to make a pre-filter inside the collector unit. I've done that on my other versions. One just had a cheap loosely woven terry cloth shop rag wrapped loosely around the inlet. Tap it a couple times and you're good to go.
Well, it works pretty good.

Do you really think its wise to have all these photos and how you built it on the internet?
Some large company could end up making millions :)
 
They already have. I'm stealing from the internet. Mine can't be duplicated unless you have a 1980's Air Research turbocharger on hand.
These things are very common in in industry, especially wood working shops. Many videos on DIY designs.
Mine is a Frank Sinatra version.
 

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