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I’ve had to replace my old workhorse Dyson DC2 vacuum cleaner having broken the plastic cover which is now letting in air. I’ve been and bought a cheapish wet and dry workshop vacuum cleaner to suck up all the dust from my X-carve. Now it does this very well and that’s not a problem. The problem is… wow its loud! i can’t hear myself think while its running. It completely drowns out the noise from the x-carve which sounds like a tiny mouse in comparison.
So has anyone got a cleaver solution? I was thinking about sealing it up in a cabinet with a baffled vent for the air to get out but i’m a little worried about it overheating on longer carves.
@Alex1380 could you “fix” the crack in the old one with some epoxy and tape? Just an idea.
As to enclosures and overheating, I have my shopvac in a large rolling cabinet made out of 3/4 plywood and lined with carpet scraps. It has a t-track in the top so that I can use it as a work surface, this has become the permanent home for my planer. It has an 8 inch hole in the top with a PVC elbow for air flow, and holes in the side for the power cord and vacuum hose. My shop vac is a big sears model from the 90s and it’s still going strong.
Several folks have posted here that a shop vac isn’t really suitable for the multiple hour carving runs, and I’ve only done a few of those, but so far my old shop vac is fine, but I have thought about switching over to my dust collector.
I have a standard shop vac as the dust collection for my X-Carve and it stays in the cabinet below it. I do have a vent I made in the back of the cabinet to allow for airflow. I have run multiple 8+ hour jobs and have had no issues. Keeping the shop vac in the vented cabinet at least muffles the noise to a manageable level.
I had the same issue w/ my small shop vac. super loud! I wanted to experiment a bit before coming up with a more permanent solution so As a zero cost solution I ended up using my shop vac packaging box as an enclosure. I placed some old tshirts around the base to help deaden the sound a bit. Then I made a hole for the hose out of that box and then another hold in the side to vent. To further baffle the noise I used a small amazon prime box and placed that over the vent hole. I then put a divider down the middle of it so that the air (NOISE) has to make a U path through it to exit. I duct taped around all seams and holes to seal it up real nice.
Sounds quite silly but for zero dollhairs and perhaps a little haphazard but it actually worked out pretty nice. I can post some pictures then so you guys can make fun of me
BTW: I bought the $5 “muffler” at home depot (just sort of a foam cone that goes over the outflow from the wet-dry vac, and it definitely brought the sound way down. Doesn’t seem to have greatly affected the suction either.
One of the guys at work suggested putting the shop vac in a plastic trash can with appropriate holes in the side and setting it on the outside of the shop. This worked great until the day I flipped the switch to turn it on and nothing happened.
I now have an empty trash can with two holes in the side . Live and learn. I had the muffler on it when it was in the shop and that worked for a while but eventually seemed to clog up with micro dust. Which on some thought is good because I would have been breathing that dust otherwise.
Where is your shop in relation to the rest of the house. Ever consider locating the vac away from the shop and running a hose or tubing. In my case I have TWO shopvacs (because I use them hooked into a multi port dust collection down one side of my shop for the router,joiner, and bandsaw too) but I located them on the other side of the wall in the crawl space of my house where no one goes. If your in your garage maybe you have an attic above. Works great.
. Live and learn. I had the muffler on it when it was in the shop and that worked for a while but eventually seemed to clog up with micro dust. Which on some thought is good because I would have been breathing that dust otherwise.