I’m using this dust collector on my Primo. It’s running to a regular Ridgid shop vac for dust and chip collection. I’m thinking of laser cutting and read up on how dangerous the fumes and smoke are.
My nearest window in my workspace is about 20 feet away. Could I run an adapter to 4" duct on my shop vac’s exhaust port to push fumes out the window with that collector? I’m not sure if there’s enough oomph on your regular everyday shop vac to push the fumes, or if that collector is sufficient to get the fumes out in the first place.
I don’t have an enclosure on my MPCNC, just open air and the dust collector.
It’s primarily going to depend on the shop vac. They’re generally intended for higher static pressure and moderate flow, so I think you’ll be ok with the smaller 2 1/2 hose. I think opening up to 4in would slow the air a bit and decrease the pickup at the laser.
I’d either borrow or buy a bunch of hose and hook it up to your shop vac to see how it feels.
I’m not sure whether I disagree with @turbomacncheese Tony or not - shopvacs are high speed low volume carriers of air suitable for larger chips and less suitable for collecting tiny particles.
Computer fans don’t have the grunt, but most laster collection systems I’ve seen have an inline hydroponics fan and a 4" duct. Just check that you are getting one with enough volume - some of the really cheap ones aren’t much better than a computer fan, but the just plain old cheap ones seem to be OK.
It wouldn’t be hard to set up a visual smoke test using something very smokey but not too poisonous, (I use mosquito coils for this but I don’t know how available they are elsewhere) to check out whether the shop vac will do the trick.
I’m going to be different and say that the hose from the dust collector to the window doesn’t really matter.
As long as the fumes are picked up by the shop vac and get into the collection system, I wouldn’t worry about how long it takes the fumes to get out the window.
You just don’t want them floating around inside the shop.
Personally, I’d use the larger diameter exhaust hose to reduce any pressure on the fan pushing air out the window.
But I’m not sure if it’d make any real difference.
But we’re just talking about fumes here. Not debris. It doesn’t take much to keep the enclosure evacuated of fumes. Carbon scrubbers on 3d printers are way more restrictive.
From what I remember, shop vacs don’t do well under long term usage. Mine tends to get really hot after about 10 minutes, so I refuse to use mine on the CNC and went ahead and bought an actual dust collector for the heavier duty cycle motor.
