Ron Wallerich by using a shutoff gate, you can get some of that suction power back if you are not using that tool at the same time. You lose some suction power with every funnel (especially the longer it is).

A gate at each of the 2 branches makes the most sense. The gate at the 4" connection is irrelevant.

@@zzgarden Was thinking the same thing, but noticed, it looks like there is a Y with a cap at the mouth of the suction unit. So 4" gate could be of use. There should however also be a gate at each device so it's not sucking from multiple devices while just one is in use.

@@zzgarden My thoughts exactly.

​@@jvbeattie1​ @Stephen Miller ​ @Clifton TV The dust collection needs to be sucking air at the 4" diameter throughout the entire system or it's going to put too much of a load on the motor to maintain suction. My understanding is that the unit in order to function at full capacity needs to have all the hoses / gates open (in this scenario) if they're being reduced from 4" to 2" in order to pull the volume of air that the motor is rated for. I'm not an expert -- this is why it's better to use a shop vac and maintain vacuum hose diameter for individual (small) tools rather than a higher rated CFM dust collection tool stepped down for benchtop and power tool dust collection.

Plus, he has like 8 feet of that tiny blue hose going to a tool that’s about 3 feet from the collector. I’ve never had luck with a 4” dust collector trying to pull through a small hose.

Yeah, maybe he figured the run was short enough it wasn’t a big deal and the 2.5” wyes are easier to come by, or just that taking up less space behind the bench was worth it. I’d still try to go with 4”, and definitely for a run along a longer bench.

Perhaps a gate for/after the y connection? As in, I doubt he’s using all three of these tools at once…

He is doing some advertising for flexiport kit.

If you use an adapter coupling that switches airflow from 4" to 2-1/2," as is shown in the video, the overall volume of air moving through the smaller hose or pipe will be decreased because the airflow is being restricted. However, provided these runs of smaller hose or pipe are short, that loss in air volume won't impede dust collection efficiency to such a degree that the system won't work. A dust collector is moving a huge volume of air, so short runs of pipe or hose will still benefit from the dust collector as the source of air draw. But, restricting airflow from 4" to 2-1/2", then creating long runs of the smaller pipe or hose, would not be a good idea. Regardless of the setup, efficiency with a dust collector will always be optimized if the truck line (line coming directly from the dust collector) is as large as possible, and the branch lines are short as possible (lengthwise) and at the largest internal diameter possible.

He said in the video he will switch the hose between the two 2.5" machines