Mini cyclone blower/vacuum options

S

Slick

New member
I have a full size clearvue in the woodshop and use a mini on a shop vac around the shop if I need to grind in a car or for drywalling etc...love the mini but hate the size and awkwardness of the shopvac/mini assembly....stupid stiff shop vac hoses aren't helping any either :) So I'm looking for vacuum options to change this thing around...I hate that I'm lugging around this big shop vac assembly with the tank...for basically nothing, all I need is the blower for power, that tank does me no good....but the "shop vac" type blowers are all molded into the case now days and taking them off isn't so easy....has anyone seen a vacuum made to go on a drum that isn't really expensive? One of those would work great as the outlet is right on the blower assembly and I could just put a tiny drum or even small box under it and take up way less space, the clearvue/5 gallon bucket would be the biggest part of the contraption.....problem is the drum vacuums are like 300 bucks at least....anyone see anything else out there? Heck even something like a small dust collector motor would work but my old bagged 1hp grizzly is to heavy for such a thing but something like that would work also....any have any ideas?
 
Hey Slick,

Have you considered getting lighter hose for your setup and making a setup similar to what I did?

http://gallery.clearvuecyclones.com/album09/P1040345

I plumbed a blast gate up onto the ceiling of my shop and run 1 3/4 inch hose for my palm sander and small clean up jobs. For cleaning up the floor I use larger 3 inch hose with the vacuum wand and have enough hose to clean up the whole 20 x 20 garage.

Just a thought instead of trying to mod a vac motor.

- R
 
That is a nice looking setup, but I need to be more portable, I have a 2800sft shop to move this around in (well it doesn't go in the wood shop, that's what the full size cyclone is for :) ) and even take the setup to my house or girlfriends house to do drywall so I'd like to condense the whole thing...ideally the cyclone would empty into the shop vac drum but I haven't figure out how to do that and make it pretty yet :) Just kills me to have that shop vac hopper sitting there empty while I lug this big machine around.....and I've been looking for better hose, when I rebuild I won't be using this crap shop vac hose....I'd love to find some of the stuff on my Dyson home vac, crazy flexible.
 
Uh, OK, I didn't realize the size of work space you had! Wow, i wish I had that for my small business, but then again, I guess I couldn't call it "small" anymore!
 
Some Alternatives ...

Some Alternatives ...

Here is the way a colleague of mine mounted his CV06 on top of his Festool -- it rolls around easily and uses the better grade Festool hose for pickups (green hose wrapped around the unit - click the picture for a larger image).



Jerry also has a Grizzly Floor Sweep that is connected to a 4" outlet with a blast gate on his main CV1800 Cyclone duct system with the very flexible 4" hose from Penn State Industries. It is the black or clear hose at the top right of this catalog page. A 50' length is pretty cheap and so is the sweep. Just watch out you don't sweep up pets or small children!

Hope this helps...
 
Mini

Mini

Slick,

This is what i did. http://www.gallery2.clearvuecyclones.com/v/Mini+CV06/album08/
It was quick and Still a huge contraption but at least it all rolls around together. I too hate having the big empty container on the bottom and at one time thought about hacking that up and or putting a seperate container inside that one just haven't stopped long enough to figure something better out.

Matt
 
Rob that festool one isn't too bad, that shop vac is kind of lower profile, I have mine now with a bucket just like that but I put it next to my vac instead of on top.
Matt I saw your in the gallery, that is how I was about to redo mine but damn that shop vac empty cannister is killing me ! :)
 
Still Need the Filter

Still Need the Filter

Jason,

At the risk of having my name changed to Captain Obvious, you're still going to need some sort of filter and thus capture bucket between the Mini and suction source, as there still is some fine dust that gets past the cyclone. But I agree with your general premise, that the combination of the two "buckets" is somewhat unwieldy. Found myself tripping over mine today, so again as the Captain, I've yet to settle on a solution that'll work for me.

Regards,

DWD
 
Yeah I know I need a filter (I won't call you captian obvious :) ) Ideally I'd like to see the bucket for the vacuum, exactly that size...what is a shop vac hepa filter, maybe 6-8" tall....that's all I need the bucket to be, heck it would fit in a 1 gallon bucket, I don't need 12 gallons of nothing! :) I'll figure something out...., it's really bugging now that I'm talking about it :)
 
An idea with potential

An idea with potential

Jason,

I trust you've also viewed Bruce Dickey's solution in the Mini gallery. Some sort of variant on his idea might be just the ticket for you. But rather than using the barrel that came with his Shop Vac, perhaps you might rig up another, smaller barrel with a custom made plywood lid.

The only potential problem that pops immediately to mind is you may have to do something to enhance the unit's stability, as first blush suggests it may be more than a little top heavy. You might also consider a little structure around the Mini to carry the loads from top to bottom.

And thanks for not taking the opportunity to modify my handle.

Regards

DWD
 
Which gallery is Bruce's? I think I looked at all the mini galleries but can't find one with his name on it. I actaully have stability problems now....with a mini/5 gallon bucket next to the shop vac, using the shop vac wheels...I have to keep a brick in the shop vac's bucket to keep it from tipping over.....grrrrrr.....right now I'm picturing a handle coming up to push it around like on the "commercial" shov vac's....with the mini/bucket up front with a single wheel on a swivel, and the motor/small box under it in back kind of under the handle and between the two rear wheels for stability....it all hinges on the vac motor and it wanting to be mounted to something else....
 
Hey Slick,

I may have come up with a soluition to your problem although it will require a large amount of manufacturing but it looks like thats what you do anyway so it shouldn't be a problem for you.

This is my idea:

- make a barrel similar to mine (both ends open) or get one to modify that is roughly the same diameter as the gasket of your shop-vac lid (that houses the motor)

- place a horizontal divider in it and seled it from both sides. It should have just enough room for the filter of the shop-vac (shop-vac lid/motor inserted into the barrel from the bottom)

- on the top make a lid or mod the one that came with the barrel to mount the CV06 Mini

- run your hoses

- make a base that allows for the vacuum motor not to touch the floor when wheels are added I'm thinking an open circle base with 5 castors.

- to solve any tugging on the CV06 itself run the initial hose down to lid and anchor it with a c-bracket and add a blast gate. Then you can attach any kind of hose you want and drag the setup around by it

I know, its kinda of hard to visualize but I will try to draw something up, scan it, and add it to this post. The vac motor being inverted shouldn't impede its abilities unless there are some bearings that won't stay seated when inverted? Now that I have had this idea I want to make mine like this but funds won't allow me to start again at this point. LOL!

Hope it makes sense!

- R
 
Rich I can kind of picture what your saying, a picture would help.

I hadn't seen Bruces setup afterall, thanks for the link, that is a cool idea to skip the hose and just direct attach the shopvac to the mini....now imagine how much lower that could be if that stupid shop vac container wasn't so big! :) Sorry I keep coming back to that....but I hate wasted space :)
 
You could use a central house vacuum motor, and a good quality vacuum filter, in a box you construct yourself.
I have two Ametek motors that pull 7 amps max. each, connected to Cleanstream filters. The housing or box is a 24 inches cube, made from 1/2 inch birch ply. The box is connected to my Clearvue mini with 3 inch pcv dwv.
This set up can cause a 5 gallon plastic bucket to collapse partially, if the inlet hose opening is covered up. This setup also moves way more air, than any of the shop vacs I have tried.
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