Hector's Thien-baffle shopvac

You can download a PDF of this drawing: thien_separator.pdf

The shopvac motor, filter and filter cover

The thien-baffle/Separator as viewed from the dust chamber end

Inlet into the Thien-baffle chamber

Outlet from the Thien-baffle chamber

A sizeable pile of dust and shavings for a test

A view of the motor/filter compartment before the test

The same compartment after sucking the pile. I had to use a brush to collect the few "fines" that got by.

The pile of collected dust/shavings in the drum

The final product, still lacking a coat of paint

View from the back. That's the hose inlet at the upper left. The motor and cover are removable after unplugging the power cable. I added a cable reel which the original vac lacked.

Shows how the top unit tilts away to allow bucket removal Initially, I planned to shorten the shop vac container height but I have to leave some space (30mm) between the filter and the baffle outlet. All in all, I can only shave some 60mm from the container's bottom. Meanwhile, I lose rigidity, a new bottom must be fashioned and the all-up weight will increase. These drawbacks hardly offset the advantage of a lower height. An alternative would be using a smaller (lower) filter cartridge but I'd hate to lose filtering area.

See also:

More of Hector's
homemade machines

Building a small dust
collector

Jens Larsen's dust extractor modifications

Ron Walters shopvac
cyclone separator

Peter Fabricius's
wooden cyclone

Maciej's multi-cyclone
vacuum cleaner

Jim Ryan's
"Square cyclone"

More of Hector's projects