Dust Deputy - dust collection from Oneida Air

I have had several “woodworking pros” tell me about the Oneida dust collector; I am seriously looking at the Oneida Mini gorilla 1.1/2 hp. (my shop is 500sq.feet in the basement- I am serious about taking care of dust). Living in Canada and all the stuff to get it home it will cost me between $800-900. Its not in my budget today. For now the Dust Deputy with my oversized Sears vacum- I bought two of them at Woodcraft for 59.00 each; Got two 5 gallon pails (where used for storing chlorine pucks for swimming pool) and eureka….it works great. I am in the process of milling quarter sawn white oak into 2” wainscotting; chop saw, cabinet saw, and my 735 Dewalt(power fan helps) lots of sawdust. I am using 4’’ and 2’‘hose to feed one Deputy (bought a few plastic adapters to make the transition). Of course I am interchanging to operate one machine at a time. I have emptied the 5 gallon pail atleast 4 times and my Sears vacum is humming along with no loss of suction (atleast any that I can tell)and the shop is clean. I only have one Dust Deputy set up for now The other I am going to hook up to a central vac that I use for my hand power tools which are also set up for dust control. I you like and I can decipher the formula for downloading a couple of photos and maybe you can get a better picture. There are a couple of Reviews in Lumberjock and mine is similar in set-up

-- AllWood

I have tried using a shop vac connected to the dust port on a RAS without the dust deputy with very poor results. A collection hood of some type is needed behind the saw and then routed to the dust deputy should provide a fair amount of cust collection.

-- Allen, WA

I have a Dust Deputy and I am happy as a clam with it (see: http://lumberjocks.com/reviews/879).

My table saw has a ShopVac port on the blade shroud and the ShopVac/Dust Deputy rig shown in the review do a pretty decent job.

I don’t have a RAS, but I hear the dust collection on most of them is just about on a par with a CMS. I have found the most effective way to deal with dust from my CMS is to take it outside … makes a cleanup a breeze (pun intended)!

-- Gerry -- "I don't plan to ever really grow up ... I'm just going to learn how to act in public!"

I have a Dust Deputy with shop vac and a Delta dust collector. It’s easy to confuse the dust deputy with a dust collector but remember that while the Dust Deputy does it’s job well, it’s job is to only separate the particles so they don’t go into the shop vac’s can and filter and get pumped back out the exhaust port of the vac. It doesn’t turn your shop vac into a dust collector and it doesn’t allow your shop vac to pull more air. If your shop vac can’t pull enough from the RAS port, then the vac + the dd won’t either.

Oh, also, rockler sells a dust hood that I have on the back of my RAS which means it sticks out even further from the wall but when it’s connected to my dust collector it all works like a charm. But my delta can really move some air (as all true dust collectors probably can).

Sorry to sound preachy but I love my dust deputy and it works great but only when I don’t try to confuse it for a full blown dust collection system.

Tim is correct. There are a couple of things I did that seem to make a difference. First, the ShopVac is outfitted with a HEPA filter that significantly reduces the amount of fine dust that gets discharged back into the air in the shop. Second, I always run my ceiling-mounted air cleaner, and clean and replace the filters in it regularly.

-- Gerry -- "I don't plan to ever really grow up ... I'm just going to learn how to act in public!"