Thanks for doing this comparison! I have been going back a forth as to whether I should replace my shop vac + dust buster combo with the 1HP HF collector for use with my table saw. Your test convinces me it would be a worthwhile upgrade. The HF will also save me some floor space since I can mount it on the wall next to my saw.

Holy dust collection! I was contemplating using a rolling "dust deputy" type setup for my workshop dust collection but I am glad I watched this. I am really surprised by the difference in dust collection capacity between a shop vac and the Harbor Freight system. I think it's time for an upgrade! Fantastic video - thanks for making this!

This was fantastic and I appreciate you taking the time to do this test.

Thanks, I've been on a shopvac & dust deputy for quite awhile now, just itching to upgrade to a HF system. Great job and very informative

Now I need to buy an Anemometer and check my equipment. This was super informative. Well done!

Very interesting experiment with very useful results. Your experiment completely solved my confusion and answered questions I had in mind which one to buy. Thank you!

Very interesting analysis. Thank you for this thoughtful and informative video.

Great video. You did a lot of work to put that together. Just what I needed to see

I really appreciate the hard data. Thanks for sharing!

Finally someone did a video on the harbor junk mobile dust collector. I've had this thing sitting around for years after buying it and only using it for one job. So now its going to be used for my small shop dust collection. Thanks Robert

Exactly what I was wondering - great video!!

Thanks so much for this! I'm trying to rig up a 3/4 horsepower dust collector as a dedicated thing for a lightweight table saw that moves from job to job, and I'm hoping it'll be a big upgrade over the shop vac I'm currently using. The real world numbers are very encouraging!

Very good information. The low power efficiency of a small shop vac helped me make my decision to go with a larger system. Maybe the Harber Freight.

Thanks for making this! Very interesting findings.

Very good! I like this style of video. Easy to digest.

Great video Robert!

Finally the test of all test 🤘. Thanks the video it's great.

That was great information! Thank you for doing a comparison with real stats.

Really Appreciate this video .. I purchased a SurfPrep Sander and I've been trying to research how adding dust collectors inline with the shop vac would impact the performance of the dust removal. Again thanks for taking the time to make this video. I'm a woodworking virgin and haven't a clue to what I'm doing. *Happy Holidays*

This video convinced me to subscribe! Thanks Robert!

This is very good information! That little 1hp harbor freight jobber does pretty good for the money. The larger one does even better from what I have seen, and the price is pretty reasonable as well.

Thanks for making this video. You just saved me from wasting my time and money setting up a dust deputy system.

Excellent video, and very useful information!

The Shopvac is designed for high pressure and low volume. The dust collection units are designed for high volume and low pressure. As an example, if you were going to build a vacuum hold down table for your AVID cnc, you would want a motor that was high pressure and high volume. The shopvac would be great holding down a board to the table, until there was an air leak or you cut through. Then there wouldn't be enough volume to maintain pressure. The dust collection units would be horrible and holding anything down since they don't create much pressure. Just my 2 cents of info.

Outstanding quality 👌 thank you so much

I designed and printed my own cyclone filter that drops the dust into a 30 gallon drum using the shop vac. I mainly cut Styrofoam board and thought the really light dust would never drop out of the cyclone. Boy was I wrong! Everything goes into the 30 gallon drum and there wasn't anything getting sucked into the shop vac.

Great comparison Thanks for sharing!!

AWESOME BREAKDOWN! Thank you!

I've been looking for a video like this! Thanks for taking the time to show me how shit my budget system is LOL

Sweet, this was very informative, thanks so much, 100 thumbs up 👍

BRILLIANT video! Thank you!

Thanks for the video, really put it into perspertive. CFM/kW is usefull, only CFM or only kW not so much. Always compare to whats important to you. For some it's CFM/€or$ or CFM/Volume when you have limited space.

CFM and fine particle collection (HEPA) are the most important things to me. Then noise is 3rd and and watts is 4th. Hard to find reviews that talk about filtration and sound on any of these things. 2 parts which especially for hobby workers on small garages and shops is super important

Excellent video.

Hi Robert ... outstanding video, I learned a lot ... this was eye-opening at the very least. If you are indeed on a budget, the Harbor Freight solution is quite attractive. In any case, your time and effort is definitely appreciated. Thanks much, Cheers, Dave

Very interesting, well done.

Crocs in the workshop I see you too are a man of culture

Great video! Thanks!

Absolutely killer video, got a sub. You rock🤘😄🙌

Great comparison. If I was energy conscious, (which I am) The dust collector will do a better job after the $$$ outlay but save in the long run. That SUCKS. I cannot run the lathe, compressor and shop vac without overloading my small workshop. Cutting the power KW load would work for starters. Thanks for the info.

It's like a giant vacuum cleaner brilliant video

Very interesting comparison

I love the “this is just complete bullshit “on the 4hp

Hey robert! Thanks for posting these results! Did you happen to test the hard or freight dust collector without the bag filter attached? I’m curious as to what the airflow increase would be and my expectation is that it would jump from ~500 cfm with the bag to about 1200 cfm without.

Great demo, thanks for posting. Can you comment on the cfm typically required to pull xx% of dust from various tools, say a table saw?

Great vid, thx 👍👍...I have a 1hp 4" extractor, plus the shop vac... making big me reasses! I wonder if using the 4" hose, coupled down to 2" (DeWalt 745 table saw) would work better than shop vac...

Awesome video thanks

Thanks for making this with real data!

Thanks for the info. Question for you test the harbor freight without the bag on it. I just purchased one for my little hobby setup but I plan on making a homemade barrel cyclone and through wall venting without the bag. Was curious what the cfm without the bag was and the wattage. Thanks

2.2kw with 2600cfm vs 1kw with 150cfm. What a scam on consumers with those shop vacs. Great video! Just was I was looking for!!

you are a badass dude. great info!!!

Thing about the shop vac, it has the smallest hose diameter of the 3. With CFM, you're somewhat restricted on the hose diameter. People have increased the inlet on the HF Dust Collector from 5" to 6" just to get a CFM increase.

Robert, do you think you could make a video on air particulates like solder fumes and chemical voc's? If be interested in your opinion on safety and practices. Edit: specifically focusing on environments like shops and interior home rooms

Thanks Robert! I came to your video by searching for the answer to a question. Would I be better off using my Shop-vac, 12-gallon vacuum to drive my dust collection system or a Grainger blower with 425 CFM that I have laying around in the garage? I'm only connecting a chop saw and router right now. From your testing, it sounds like I'm better off with the blower?

Super helpful

Hi Robert, very nice 👍. I would have hoped you tested the 3hp w/o cyclone. That would really tell the story.

Great video. I built my cyclone over 20 years ago and I piped the exhaust to the outside thru an insulated duct which sound deadens the noise. Much quieter and 100% dust-free. No filter cleaning ever. The amount of heat loss is not significant. Hepa filter works best right before it needs cleaning then you have to clean and avoid dust from the filter. This makes no sense!

I believe that the main draw of the Dust Deputy (aside from budget) is the dust separator which saves on filters and provides for easier dust disposal.

Would be interesting to see how necking down the dust collectors to 2.5" affects CFM. I haven't gone to a full on dust collection system because all of my tools have 2.5" ports, but if the CFM difference is still staggering I might "upgrade" from my shop vac and dust deputy. I'm not super pleased with it's performance, and frankly the shop vac bags perform a heck of a lot better than the dust deputy, the problem is the cost.

Could you do a workshop tour??

CFM and CFNM are very different things. Both, however, apparently, involve suction. I have no idea what that means.

I have the HarborFreight 2 HP dust collector. Rated at 1300 cfm I think...but I reduced it to 2" fitting and found that the suction to be useless. Far less than my Craftsman shop vac. I'm not an engineer but I think it has something to do with pressure. It's kinda like comparing a wide slow moving river compared to a power washer. The river moves more water but the power washer can cut wood. Each system has its advantages if used for what they are designed to do. A 2" shop vac with a dust deputy will be sufficient for smaller bench top power tools like sanders. The bigger dust collector systems are designed for table saws, jointer, and planers.

In my shop there was a preexisting 4" line for dust collection built under the counter tops in the house I bought. I am running a 5.5 hp shop vac to a homemade cyclone, all 2" pipe, to the 4" pipe. All my accessories are 2" fed off the 4" line. What should I have my surface area set to on my anemometer to get accurate results? I tried the .034 as you did, but I got a lot higher results than you did. I'm thinking something might be skewed because of the pipe size variance. Whatcha think?

Good info. However, there are a few things to note here. Having used both a cyclone setup with a large volume dust collector and a shop vac with a similar separator, they both have their purposes in the shop. A big cyclone is very good for moving large amounts of air with bigger objects in it (think planer, jointer) or in areas where dust collecting is hard to do, due to the volume of air /dust needed to be collected (think bandsaw, table saw) the cyclone wins hands down. Now hooking the big cyclone to a 2" ish port on a router table or a smaller port on a sander to capture the dust, it will suck, and not in a good way. The shop vac will outperform that hands down. Also sweeping up your show floor after a day's work, the shop vac wins easily. Verdict = both are needed in a shop for completely different tasks.

Apples and oranges. The shop vac works with vacuum, the other collectors with airflow. Every device has it's application. If you reduce the diameter of the hose, the big ones don't work anymore, no airflow. If you need volume, the big ones shine. Basically, you need both or get a Cam Vac. They have volume and vaccum capabilities.

super helpful

Could you please measure the CFM after the vacuum hose is attached to the Dust collectors? I wonder if is different than minus 20 CFM for the hose connected to the dust collectors..That could show how long the hose can be before real loss of suction..

Would of liked to see the harbor freight CFM w cyclone too… I have the Wen version of that one and debating if I need a cyclone or not- converting my 2 in shop vac system to that w 4 in duck

Kind of late with this comment but thank you for the informative comparison. My dilemma is that I want to build a very portable, like jobsite to jobsite, cyclone dust collector but wanted something better than (and possibly smaller than) the dust deputy /shop vac combo. So I was thinking of the dust deputy 2.5 and a small 3/4 or 1 hp fan but step in down to the 2 1/2" opening on the DD 2.5. I was considering the smallest cyclone with 4" ports but it is way too big. Question is, how much cfm do you get (or lose) after you step down from 4" to 2 1/2"?

Question and im not doing it. I bought a larger unit but just for fun with the harbor fraight chip collector, and the dust deputy how much loss of power insted of using a vacume. I think if I was going to go a vacume route I might buy a shark Bagless unit. Four about what a shop vac and dust deputy cost and you get all that stuff with a hepa filter in one unit around the same money. Shop vacs are good to pick up water. Or vacume the floor. But they cost more to run. Just use it to clean out your pickup truck bed.

A sound level comparison using a phone app would have also been pretty useful. Excellent video nonetheless.

Can’t decide whether to build a flat cylinder centrifuge with Thein baffle…or a deep conical cyclone funnel….or a hybrid which starts as a cylinder and then tapers to a cone. The difference is the way the air gets to the outlet tube. In a Thein cylinder the air flows in a flat circle radially closing in on the pipe at the core. In a cyclone the air forms a vortex moving down, then funnels up through the vortex centre like a whirlwind….which works best for spinning out fine dust I wonder? Important to keep in mind in the video…dust is easily moved by even gentle flows…so a slow speed high CFM set up is probably the most effective at capturing wood dust and small flakes…BUT, the static pressure or ‘suck’ will be much lower so heavy particles..like metal shavings and metal filings in a multipurpose workshop might not be pulled into the hose at all…or might ‘settle out’ at lower speed sections within the duct. Some shopvacs can literally lift a house brick on the end of the hose with their huge vacuum pressure and will easily take up small metal offcuts..and dropped money/keys/screws etc. Just a thought.

I used the 1hp dust collector (Harbor Freight $150.00 ) in sand and finish hardwood. I'll produce 2 55 gal garbage cans of dust on an average job. I'll hand dust window sills after the job and that's all the dust left behind. Many professionals some years back bought 25k Atomic 2micron trailer systems (Think professional carpet cleaning system but way friggin more $$$ ) and I'm running 90% of that system for less than $300.00. Most other trades watched me pull this unit out and instantly say...WTF and then dude that works great.

I see in the meter 1269 and you put 130cmf what is the calculation to know that they are 130cfm that would help me a lot.

The Harbor Freight can makes a great exhaust for a laser cutter. Speaking from experience

I have a Harbor Freight Dust collector i thinks it works great i have nothing else to compare it to.

In your opinion do you think the HF collector would be sufficient for use solely in mitersaw station? I've used a shop vac in the past but I'm not satisfied with it but dont want to run a line from my big collector.

Thank you

What brand anemometer did you use? Would you recommend it?

So I have that same anemometer. And seem to can't read cfm beyond 700-800 I get either a bunch of 0000 or the letters OL on the screen. I sent back 1 thinking it was broken and got a new one but same thing. Did yours really give the higher readouts?

Great video, Thk u! Whats your thoughts on a Harbor Freight or WEN, or equivalent 600cfm unit, connected to an 4” reducer to a 2.5” connection, then to a Oneida Dust Deputy using a 2.5” hose directly connected to my table saw? I am thinking a whole lot better than using a shop vac.

Then there is the crazy expensive Ruwac collection system with a 3 motor hepa vacuum and 2x 50gal drum separators/collectors. Intended for asbestos vermiculite insulation removal, but would still be amazing for for everything else.

Robert Cowan do you have a Facebook group/page or a Instagram?? I enjoy your no nonsense way of presenting the information.

I need to put my 2 cents in here I think your information is great and viewers can understand the differences now especially those who may not have a real technical back ground. I bought a 2hp harbor freight dust collector and it works fine I also have the shop vac cyclone setup . What I really want to say here is everyone on u tube want to modify the harbor freight system which is fine , I would like to say that every time they add all these mods they are reducing the original cfm's and I do not understand their reasoning maybe some of your viewers can enlighten me.your demonstration really explains that . thank you for the time of doing it. Oh yes which home energy monitor are you using?

Thanks,

This is one the best videos on dust collection I've seen. Short answer if starting out - skip the shop vac setup and go straight to the HF 1HP. It may not even cost more at the end of the day. It would have been interesting to know what the velocities were just for kicks.

Good video but man you pressing the wrong button every time on the shop vac really bugged me to the point I wanted to shout! Lol

Hi, thank you for video, but you are not comparing right things - Im talking about shop vac (high pressure low volume system) vs dust collector (low pressure high volume). You need both in workshop. Try to reduce 6" inlet of DC to 1" to use it on orbital sander or hand router - it will just dont work! You need shop vac here. SV has high pressure and therefore it can work with small ducting... And I really dont think that cyclone for SV is waste of money. I think it is necessary because of small filters and bags - even when you loose 23% of CFM how you showed to us. There is also important question about how much pressure do you loose? Nevertheless I think cyclone for shopvac still worth it. What I really miss is measuring lost of CFM in DC cyclone? Many of us with small shops do have a small power DC. And because dust collector is usable without cyclone it is really important if one should add it? When Mathias Wandel measured CFM his conclusion was that adding cyclone to shop vacuum makes sense but when you add it to DC there is too much loss of CFM. Of course it depends how powerful DC do you have... Regards, Tomas

I've been using a shop vac with a dust deputy because I already had it but you sold me on a harbor freight upgrade. Did I just say Harbor Freight was an upgrade!?! Great, now I have to watch for lightning strikes...

How to calculate suction pressure of dust collector ?

I've set up a woodworking shop and now have a clean slate, but I'm uncertain about what diameter pipe to opt for in my dust collection system. Currently, I'm equipped with a Harbor Freight 2HP setup, enhanced with upgraded fan blades and a P181038 filter, alongside the addition of the Oneida Cyclone, which I've wall-mounted. I've noticed many KZfaq creators employing 4" pipes, while a few opt for 6". Could you shed some light on why you chose the size you did?"

The test is flawed 1000 ways to Sunday BUT, the errors are really important unless you were comparing 1 shop vac to another. Even with error, it's easy to see the point that the Shop vac sucks. Lol. I'm setting up my system in a small shop and have the shop vac and cyclone. I have not looked at the price of the the harbor freight but I'm going to and see if I should switch gears. In setting up for a drill press, spindle sander small 7 1/ inch miter saw (for rough work only. I have a Large Ridgid that I take outside in their Amazon folding rolling stand) and also a router table that gets used mostly for round overs at the moment. My table saw and Ridgid miter saw are used outside 99.99% of the time and I don't currently have a planer or jointer. I live the video and made me think. Thanks and good luck with that suckinator.

Do you realy need 2.2kW of dust collection? Would it be possible to save a little electrical power by adding a VFD?

What about static pressure? Also, i would love to get an e-guage to support you but it just does not make much sense for a homeowner that likes numbers.

That’s interesting.

6:03 "this is complete bullshit" 😂

Dude do you know your off and on button?

CFM isn't the whole story. You also need to measure static pressure. Shop vac should be low volume high pressure, and dust collectors are high volume low pressure. The pressure can be measured by seeing how high of a water column it can suck up a vertical pipe.

This is an over simplification. These solutions are not mutually exclusive they are complimentary. You measure CFM but ignore pressure. Shop vacs and dust collectors are mostly opposite here. High pressure, low CFM show vacs vs high CFM but low pressure dust collectors. Also, the level of separation and filter life are also important. The dust deputy and the big collector will preserve filter life versus the bag filter on a single stage like that HF has much less filtration - it's a chip collector that won't capture fine dust. Also, when you take a dust collector and reduce the hose down to the port on, for example, a sander that kills that CFM and you still get low pressure. Generally you should match the dust solution to the tool based on the tool's port. Small ports call for a shop vac or dust extractor. Big ports, like on a table saw or band saw call for a dust collector.

Not trying to be mean, I just thought it was funny. On the shopvac you hit the off switch to turn it on and the on switch to turn it off almost every time. :D