# Anyone own this dust extractor?



## southernclay (May 29, 2014)

Rikon Portable Dust Extractor

Buy Rikon Portable Dust Extractor at Woodcraft.com


I am looking for a quiet dust solution. Building a closet isn't a good option at this time. Thought about building a box for shop vac but saw this today. Wondering if it is as quiet as it says it is. I turn in the basement when kids asleep upstairs so need something quieter. 

If you don't own this but know of another quiet and not terribly expensive option would love to know about it. Wearing a good mask now, using fans etc but there's still dust in the air when I take the mask off, it gets in around my beard etc.

Thanks!
Warren


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## Swagopenturner (May 29, 2014)

Warren;  I talked to Rikon a few years ago when I was in the market for a lathe and asked about this dust collector.  They claim it is alot quieter than any shop vac.  But check the db ratings and you might find one quieter.  It does look like a really well built unit, not just a fancy shop vac.
Another alternative is to build an enclosure for whatever dust collector you have or buy.  Just build a box with lost of insulation and a small vent (at least 4" diameter), for the air outlet.  Don't forget to raise it up off the floor and insulate under it.
If you do get the Rikon, let me know how you like it or not!


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## Old Codger (May 29, 2014)

Warren..I've noticed this unit for some time but wondered about it's CFM...  Seems like it's very low for the size and price... I currently use a Onedia (?) dust devil/shop vacuum, Rikon Shop air filtration system and a 20" box fan/w/hepa air filter...  But always looking for a better system as air quality is a must...  Please keep this entry posting updated as I'm sure I'm the only turner interested in a good, inexpensive system to add to their shop!!!  Safe turning to you and yours!


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## Old Codger (May 29, 2014)

Swagopenturner... I noticed your question about how quiet the Rikon filtration system is...  It is definitely much quieter than my shop vacuum and I hardly notice it running when I'm working in the garage/turning...  I have the smaller Rikon unit and I couldn't be happier, I noticed a definite improvement in the air quality and wood dust throughout my garage!  I'm still looking for a even better air filtration system as I noted on my previous posting, but I don't think you can go wrong with the Rikon unit.  I've been VERY pleased with ALL my Rikon products and thier customer service!
Good Luck and safe turning to you!


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## southernclay (May 29, 2014)

Thanks fellas, I'm hoping to have some time tomorrow to call around and get some ideas, worse case next week. Hopefully someone on here has this and can give direct experience with it. I know so little about dust collection in general, not even sure how many CFM is enough to do what I need done : ) But if it's quiet it's a good starting point, I'm 35 and would like to be turning and playing for a long long time to come....I'd like to be breathing well too :doctor:


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## Cmiles1985 (May 29, 2014)

Thanks for starting this thread. I too have little/no dust collection other than a shop vac with the wide floor attachment zip tied to an HF magnetic base. It is far too noisy for turning any time without my two year old wanting to be up my butt scared the whole time. I've been wondering about noise on the small DC from HF. Being that I just received 60 blanks in the mail as part of a woodturners "estate sale," I have a reminder of why I need a DC!!


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## Cmiles1985 (May 30, 2014)

According to Amazon's description, this collector operates at "no greater than 95 dB". In my mind that's still pretty loud as anything at work greater than 85 dB requires hearing protection. An increase of 10 dB means double the noise level since decibel scale is logarithmic. As a general rule at work, if you have to raise your voice for conversation at three feet apart, you need hearing protection...


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## JasonC (May 30, 2014)

southernclay said:


> Rikon Portable Dust Extractor
> 
> Buy Rikon Portable Dust Extractor at Woodcraft.com
> 
> ...





Cmiles1985 said:


> Thanks for starting this thread. I too have little/no dust collection other than a shop vac with the wide floor attachment zip tied to an HF magnetic base. It is far too noisy for turning any time without my two year old wanting to be up my butt scared the whole time. I've been wondering about noise on the small DC from HF. Being that I just received 60 blanks in the mail as part of a woodturners "estate sale," I have a reminder of why I need a DC!!





Old Codger said:


> Warren..I've noticed this unit for some time but wondered about it's CFM...  Seems like it's very low for the size and price... I currently use a Onedia (?) dust devil/shop vacuum, Rikon Shop air filtration system and a 20" box fan/w/hepa air filter...  But always looking for a better system as air quality is a must...  Please keep this entry posting updated as I'm sure I'm the only turner interested in a good, inexpensive system to add to their shop!!!  Safe turning to you and yours!



Interesting time for this to come up...I JUST went through this. Here's what I've been doing and my thought process/thoughts on the situation.


Here's the set-up I've been using for dust collection. A 16 gallon stainless Shop-vac with a 10 gallon Oneida Dust Deputy.






I started off using only the Shop-Vac then I bought the Dust Deputy and thought I would be good. The system seemed to work fine for my router table (with dust collection in the chamber for the router as well as at the fence with a 2 1/2" flex hose), but it just didn't work on the table saw which has a 4" opening at the saw with a 4" to 2 1/2" adapter and 2 1/2" flex hose to the Dust Deputy.

So when I started turning I bought the PSI hood for my lathe and used a 4" to 2 1/2" adapter with the Shop-Vac/Dust Deputy combo. The Shop-Vac/Dust Deputy combo just wouldn't pull the chips from the lathe. The reason was that there wasn't enough CFM with the system.

Now the Shop-Vac I have is rated at 210 CFM (follow the above link) and the Rikon you're looking at is rated at 106 CFM. I know the 4" hose should flow better than the 2 1/2" I was using but honestly - for most anything you're going to be doing - you're going to want a higher CFM unit. The only way to evacuate chips like you'll see on a lathe (especially those strings from acrylic) is with a high CFM dust collector.

So I looked at dust collectors. We don't have a Harbor Freight on the island so that wasn't an option. I went to Woodcraft, saw what they had available, did some research, and picked up a Jet DC-1100VX-CK, which is currently 15% off. It has a single 6" inlet but comes with a dual 4" inlet adapter so you can branch off to two 4" flex hoses without issue. I currently have one to the table saw with a blast gate on that 4" inlet at the dust collector, and a 4" to 2 1/2" adapter on the other inlet with the 2 1/2" flex hose I used with the Shop-Vac on the router table. Works very well and I can quickly drop the 4" to 2 1/2" adapter and stick on a 4" flex hose for the lathe or cap that inlet if I'm not using the router. What's nice is that with a single 6" inlet and the adapter - as you expand the shop you can go to a single 6" main and run 4" drops to each piece.

I actually picked up the Jet yesterday and rearranged the shop today so I could easily connect all of my major dust/chip producers without issue.





Now...between the two there's no comparison. The Jet far exceeds the capabilities of the Shop-Vac/Dust Deputy combo when it comes to filtering out dust.


As far as noise, check this out.

The Shop-Vac/Dust Deputy. You can see the Shop-Vac is just about 3 ft from the meter.





And the Jet DC-1100VX-CK.





If you guys want I can actually show graphs of dB readings across our range of hearing to see where the highest dB readings happen. 



Anyway, if you have a Harbor Freight in your area you could go with their 2 HP dust collector and later get a Wynn 35A filter for it. Would still end up cheaper than the Jet unit I bought (even with the 15% discount) but it seems to have a single 4" inlet with a dual 4" inlet adapter. I'd rather have the Jet's single 6" with dual 4" adapter.

Basically, if you want to eliminate dust, the first step get a big CFM dust collector and a good filter. The next step after that get an air handler to filter anything that's floating. 

That Rikon's 106 CFM though a 4" flex hose isn't going to satisfy you (the CFM will drop the longer your hose run is) and, if it does, you'll likely end up wanting something that will do more (evacuate more air) in the (near) future.

I'm of the opinion that if you're going to spend the money it's best to do it once and be done with it. Otherwise you end up regretting spending money multiple times to come to the same end result. I thought I'd be good with the Shop-Vac/Dust Deputy combo but it's just too weak for the table saw (doesn't pull enough CFM). It'll cost more initially but be cheaper in the long run - healthier too.

Check out the following link. It gives basic CFM requirements for various woodworking machines and has a guide for calculating a good size collector. You'll notice the Rikon's 106 CFM is well below even the lowest rated CFM for any machine on the list.

Figure Dust-Collection Needs

My next step is an air filter like the Jet AFS-1000B which has a max flow of 1,044 CFM. 

Here's an interesting link on Rockler about dust and filtration. 



> Dust particles are measured in microns, or thousandths of a millimeter. Larger dust particles – greater than 100 microns or so – are heavy enough to fall to the floor quickly. This is the debris that dust collectors are so effective at removing. Fine dust particles, on the other hand, don't have enough mass to fall quickly to the floor and can float through the air in your shop for a surprisingly long time. Once a 5-micron wood dust particle is stirred up, it will stay aloft for 30 minutes or longer, depending on air movement.
> Dust particles of less than 10 microns constitute the primary respiratory health risk to woodworkers. They're easily stirred up, stay aloft for a long time and – worse – travel easily into the deepest reaches of the lungs, where they are reported to cause problems ranging from mild allergic reactions to severe and chronic respiratory ailments.





> The Jet AFS-1100B Air Filtration System, for example, has a maximum setting of 1044 cfm, which means that it will filter the entire volume of air in a 20' X 20' shop more than 12 times per hour.


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## southernclay (May 30, 2014)

Clark great catch on that!...95 db is not quiet as a whisper as advertised :biggrin:

Jason, great info and good shop layout! I would prefer to go ahead and get it all set up the way you have but... We're looking to move this year so my major want is a shop and if that works out will get a multi machine DC at that time and set it up similar to what you have. 

Last night I found this one on PSI's site
1HP Economy Portable Dust Collector at Penn State Industries
62 db....I have my doubts, going to call them today and see what else I can find. I looked at my layout last night and think I can work something like this underneath the basement stairs and damper it a bit more and it work out pretty well. With this I would want to do a separator too since the bag looks like it may be a pain to empty. 

I'll be doing a little more research so if I find anything interesting I'll post it up. Once I decide on the route I'm going to go will start another thread for final critique.

Thanks!!
Warren


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## Swagopenturner (May 30, 2014)

Warren;
I agree a dust collector is the first thing to get to suck up chips and lathe shavings.  A air handler is also just as important as the DC.  For years I relied on a shop vac and put up with the noise and replacing it every year or so.  Then I finally got smart.  Shopped aroungd the web for the smallest unit I could find (that's why I checked out Rikon's).  I went with Steel City's 1hp.  I only use a short 4" hose hooked to whatever tool I'm using at the time.  The noise is much less than a shop vac and it is much better built.  I also made a air handler that hangs from the ceiling over the workbench.  Much cheaper to make one and you get to pick what filters you want to put in it!


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## southernclay (May 30, 2014)

1.5HP DC3 Portable Dust Collector with 1 Micron Bag at Penn State Industries

Talked to PSI tech Bill, extremely helpful and straight forward. Based on our conversation most likely will end up with this one, still going to research a little more. Hard to believe 62 db. I will most likely end up ordering close to Father's Day so if any suggestions in the meantime let me know thanks!

Mark, good advice on the air cleaner too!


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## brownsfn2 (May 30, 2014)

What ever you do you should not trust the DB noise level that PSI posts on any of their dust collectors.  It's just not accurate.

I bought the Penn State 2HP DC which they said is rated at 65db.  That things shook the whole house and sounded like I had a jet engine running in the basement.  It was surely over 85db.  It is a shame that they do not post real world sound levels.  I am sure the room they did there test in was well insulated and the DC was in another room behind a wall.

After I quickly sold that one (at a loss) I bought this one from Woodcraft:

Buy Laguna Mobile Cyclone 2HP at Woodcraft.com

It is the Laguna 2HP mobile cyclone.  It says it is rated for 74 DB and I actually think it is quieter.  I did end up putting it in a closet to cut down the noise even further.  Now when I turn it on I only hear the rush of wind and my talking in the shop is actually louder than the sound of the cyclone.  It is expensive but it is quickly becoming my favorite purchase in the shop.

Don't trust its Static Pressure rating.  To get more accurate details you can look at the Wood Magazine review.  Its best feature is how quiet it is.

Laguna 2 HP Mobile Cyclone

Hope this helps.


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## mark james (May 30, 2014)

Hi Warren

I have a Jet 1 HP cyclone filter that I use for 2 lathes with blast gates to shut off whatever I'm not using; and a ceiling mounted Jet air filter.

I am sorry I did not go for a stronger (1.5 or 2 HP) cyclone! * I do love* the ceiling mounted unit, but that will double the cost.  I'm in a spacious but musty basement with little ventilation.  Recently I mounted a window fan simply to pull air out, and installed an open screen in a window 30' away.  I can turn this on to simply circulate outside air in and out - has helped tremendously with just a fresher smell.

I think you'll have better luck with a 1.5 HP unit!  

FYI:  Woodcraft has a 15% off sale on JET right now I believe.

Best of luck!


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## southernclay (May 30, 2014)

Thanks Ron, for the future (hopefully) location that looks pretty dang ideal. I'm still leaning towards the PSI for now, they have a package deal too that has all I'll need other than a switch (not really a need but you know what I mean)

Lathe Dust Collection Package at Penn State Industries


For what I'm needing now I think it may be the best available with spending huge $$$. I have one small spot under the basement stairs that worse case scenario I can put this there, insulate around it and should do the trick.


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