Well, I got a bit over-ambitious about what I could do with my Nomad over the holiday weekend. Replacing the bed ended up being more than I could manage, but I did put together the first iteration of my dust-collection system.
Basically, I picked up a Fein vacuum (as linked in a previous post in this thread) – I just couldn’t swing the price of a Festool, and frankly I just don’t use the Nomad enough to justify that. I also picked up a Dust Deputy, and some hoses and odds and ends. So, voila! (apologies for the Portrait orientation)
I wasn’t trying to do anything as ambitious as FlatBaller’s dust collector on the head – I mainly just wanted to maintain some negative pressure inside the enclosure. So the Fein connects to the Deputy, which just connects to a ShopVac utility grommet that I mounted to the back wall of the Nomad using a 2.5-in hole saw. The clear plastic tub under the Deputy is a pet food container with an “airtight seal” around the lid – I wanted something smaller than a 5-gallon bucket, for when I have to empty it.
So, then I put my prop-nut on for maximum air turbulence, and sent my .250" flat fill to planing down a 5"x8" piece of pine lumber. While doing this before, I had definitely noticed some bronchial irritation and a definite smell of wood dust filling the room. This time, nada – sitting right next to the Nomad, I couldn’t smell a thing, and no lung irritation at all. In fact, there’s probably not enough airflow – there’s a definite “suck” when I pop the door a bit, and the sawdust near the door jumps back towards the vacuum port. I might need to prop the door open just a tad.
The downside: while the vacuum is handling the floating dust, the visible-size sawdust is still (50% or so) settling inside the Nomad. Which I mostly expected, at this phase. The bigger problem is the airflow noise – when I used the Fein by itself, it was actually quieter than my normal household vacuum. But after adding the Dust Deputy, the airflow noises got so loud they drowned out the Nomad’s milling noses, and could be heard a few rooms away. Definitely an issue for watching TV while the system is running.
What I need to do next:
- trim down the hoses – they’re much longer than I need, right now.
- Try out the system without the Deputy – I know, it’s bad for the HEPA filter, but at these noise levels, I may not have a choice. Or maybe there’s other noise-reduction possibilities?
- How important are static-grounded hoses? I’m just using regular ShopVac hoses, right now.
- Look at how much work would be involved in adding on FlatBaller’s head-mounted vac box
- Find a simple way to branch or quick-connect the vac hoses so I can free up the Fein to hand-vacuum out the resting sawdust when a cut is finished.