Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Shop vac get a HEPA filter

The air filter on my $30 shop vac sucks, not in a good way. When i suck up super fine dust it can be seen coming out the exhaust port back into the air. Most unsatisfactory. I've been thinking about upgrading it to a HEPA filter for a while, but they are a little pricey. Recently i got a new dust extraction system which meant i decommissioned by DIY cyclone one i had made earlier. When i pulled apart one of the vacs that was in that system i discovered it had a HEPA filter.

HEPA (High-efficiency particulate air) filters remove at least 99.97% of airborne  articles 0.3 micrometers (µm) in diameter or larger.


I started with figuring out how to adapt the rectangle filter to the round exhaust port. I had a 2.5" to 4" adaptor that would be a good start but the exhaust port was only 2" in diameter. So I cut it in half and removed the excess material to form a 2" pipe and plastic welded it back together.


Next i made a quick box to encase the filter using 3mm MDF and hot glue and cut a hole on the back before i attached it. (Baking paper works great to stop hot from setting where it shouldn't)

I had to be careful to not get glue on the pipe, as that hole would serve as the maintenance port for cleaning.

Wham bam thankyou mam, shop vac now has a HEPA filter.

Till next time.

Al

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