DC-6000 poor performance

[nduanetesh]

Over the winter I picked up a used DC-3300 on Facebook marketplace, got the 6000 upgrade kit from Shopsmith and did the conversion. The DC-3300 was in worse shape than I thought, and I ended up replacing the switch, wiring harness, the plastic tops to both legs...all told, ultimately it would have been cheaper (or close to the same cost) to buy a new DC-6000 by the time I was done. Anyway, the point is this was a major job and I was very careful in reassembling everything to make sure it all went together correctly and that any likely leak points were sealed. I wanted maximum performance!

Before this, for dust collection I was using a home made cyclonic separate above a Rigid 12 gallon wet/dry vac. The cyclone was on top of a 5 gallon bucket, suspended above the wet/dry vac. This set up worked well for some jobs, not so great for others (the bandsaw, for example). I had done the work on the DC-6000 in my garage (not my woodshop). Because my shop is extremely small and it was wet and cold all winter, I left the DC-6000 in storage and kept using my shop vac until yesterday.

I put the DC-6000 into service yesterday and it's...ok, I guess? It does make suction and it does move air, just not nearly as much as I expected. I was able to vacuum sawdust from the floor and it was...ok. It feels like much less airflow than the shop vac has. (The shop vac is rated at 5 hp peak, 144 CFM, btw.) About 3" from the end of the hose I can't feel any significant suction. I can very comfortably completely cover the hose with my hand and remove it with little effort. The bag does deflate a bit when I do this, and the motor changes pitch slightly, but not significantly. (The motor is nice and quiet, btw, but sounds like it's working as it should be.)

I'm not sure if there's something wrong with my dust collector or if my expectations were unreasonable. I've mostly seen people rave about the DC-6000, so I had great expectations for this upgrade. I hate to think I spent all that money (and time) on a dust collector that doesn't perform as well as my wet/dry vac set up did. is there a way I can objectively test the performance of my dust collector?

[RFGuy]

This has actually been discussed quite A LOT here on this forum over the last several years. So, the original DC-3300 is an anemic dust collector. I have one and switched to using my ShopVac™ vacuum with HEPA filter bags, HEPA filter cartridge in it with a ClearVue Cyclones Mini CV-06 cyclone in front of it. I get better airflow and performance with a ShopVac™ than I do with my DC-3300. I have an anemometer here so I have actually measured the air speed going into my DC-3300 and ShopVac™, so I actually have numbers to back this up and have published this in the past. When the DC-3300 upgrade or DC-6000 came out, Dusty bought an anemometer to measure on his DC-3300 with upgrade (DC-6000 equivalent) to compare against what I was measuring on my DC-3300 (no upgrade). Long story short, Shopsmith does NOT hit the marketed airflow numbers that they claim for the DC-3300 or the DC-6000. You can review the link below for more details. I would recommend you go back to your shop vacuum setup, if it is better, and/or buy a real dust collector from one of the main woodworking company brands, but that will set you back at least $1-3k depending on what you choose to buy. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

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As you can see from the charts in the links above, the DC-6000 airflow performance is a bit better than the DC-3300, but NOT by much. Both still suck (pun intended).

P.S. Part of the reason that a good quality shop vacuum can work as well as the DC-3300 or the DC-6000 is that the Shopsmith choice of a 2-1/2" dust collection hose, which has a 2-1/4" dust inlet significantly limits the airflow at the collection port on Shopsmith equipment. This is why everyone else in the industry has a minimum 4" dust port on woodworking equipment today, but keep in mind Shopsmith was engineered decades ago when dust collection was unfortunately just NOT a priority, particularly for the home hobbyist woodworker.

[nduanetesh]

I appreciate the response. I did see that post, but started skimming after pg 4, to be honest.

It looks like the conclusion from the chart though is that a DC-6000 should outperform my 144 CFM wet/dry vac when I'm only using a single port. It certainly doesn't feel like that, though.

[RFGuy]

I appreciate the response. I did see that post, but started skimming after pg 4, to be honest.

It looks like the conclusion from the chart though is that a DC-6000 should outperform my 144 CFM wet/dry vac when I'm only using a single port. It certainly doesn't feel like that, though.

Yeah, if you didn't make it past page 4 of that thread initially, you probably got a rosier than reality perception of the DC-6000 or DC-3300 upgrade kit. That is because it had just come out and ALL of us, myself included, were optimistic about Shopsmith having a new product release and potentially addressing the weaknesses of the DC-3300. As we got into measuring its performance, the outlook changed. Based on Dusty's measurements I would say that the DC-6000 or DC-3300 upgrade kit gives a slight improvement in performance to the original DC-3300, but it comes up well short of the marketed claims.

Can you tell us more about your setup and perhaps even post some pics? It is possible there is something wrong with your DC-3300 + upgrade kit. In other words, maybe your performance is worse than the average DC-3300 upgrade? Meaning we might be able to improve it. Also, how long a hose did you use? Some hoses are better than others, e.g. I measured a significant improvement when I switched to Oneida brand 2-1/2" hoses from my original Shopsmith hoses. The longer the hose, the more restrictive it will be. IF you remove the hose and put your hand over the dust port at the 3-port manifold, how strong does it feel in comparison? What size dust hood are you using and is it clean? Leaks have been reported by many who did the DC-3300->DC-6000 upgrade and chasing them can be a real pain. One thing to point out from my DC-3300 investigations is that the octopus, or 3-port manifold is very restrictive. I actually did some experiments where I installed a short length of 4" PVC replacing the 3-port manifold on my DC-3300 with a reduction down to 2-1/2" hose at the end. The improvement was very noticeable. IF you are willing to experiment here, you can remove the 3-port manifold and work on hooking up a single hose there instead. Keep in mind, that at the end of the day, any DC-3300 or DC-6000 with a Shopsmith filter hood is still going to expel A LOT of fine particulate sawdust back in to the air so you still need to wear a respirator. A good quality HEPA cartridge filter on a shop vacuum should filter down to about 0.3μm. The Shopsmith 12" tall filter hood only filters downs to 7µm and the 24" filter hood down to 5µm, but the 42" filter hood filters down to 1µm. A few have actually purchased a HEPA filter and replaced their filter hood on their DC-3300 so that is always an option, though not cheap (see link below). What I am trying to say here, is that IF your shop vacuum is giving your similar airflow to your DC-3300+upgrade kit then it is still better because it should release fewer fine particulates back into the shop air from its exhaust. ANY DC-3300 or DC-6000 with a filter hood is a dust pump, NOT so much a dust collector. This is why only the cheap dust collectors on the market come with filter hoods. They are kinda pointless IMHO.

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[nduanetesh]

I hadn't thought to do so, but at your suggestion I pulled the hose from the 3 way connector and put my hand over the port, and it feels like there is significantly more suction at the port. I knew the hose would add some resistance, but didn't realize it would be that much. I'm using the 10' clear hose sold by Shopsmith. My dust collector has the 24" hood, btw, brand new. If the suction/airflow at the end of the hose were anywhere close to what I've got at the port, I probably wouldn't have started this thread.

(Mildly interesting, non scientific test: I noticed with the hose attached and the motor running, if I push on the filter hood to collapse it a little, it seems to have barely enough pressure to reinflate the hood. When I removed the hose and did the same thing, the hood popped right back up to it's fully-inflated position.)

The motor is a simple thing and as I mentioned I checked every joint as I assembled the upgrade to make sure every potential leak spot was sealed, either with compressed foam or silicone caulk. I even put a thin layer of adhesive felt around the edge of the 3-way port.

My shop vac has a HEPA bag and a HEPA filter (and the previously mentioned cyclonic separator). There are certain jobs which it does really well (drawing away sanding dust while sanding lathe projects), and other things that it's terrible at (totally fails at collecting any dust from the bandsaw, for example). I thought upgrading to the top-of-the-line SS Dust Collector would be a big improvement. (It was a big expense, after all!)

Complicating all of this is I have technically sold my shop vac dust collector to a friend who just got his first Shopsmith. He didn't seem too excited about dust collection but I didn't want to keep a 2nd, "unneeded" dust collector sitting around once I put my DC-6000 into service.

Now the question is, do I spend $75 on an Oneida hose? Am I just throwing good money after bad? Do I tell my friend actually I'm not going to sell him the shop vac? If I do that, what do I do with the DC-6000?

Sigh

[RFGuy]

I have two different Shopsmith hoses, the original black ones and the newer semi-clear ones. It has been a few years since I did some measurements on them, but I was just surprised how much better performance I got with the Oneida hose. I think the ID is a bit larger for it and the interior is a smoother finish so it has less resistance to airflow IMHO. Having said this, without concrete numbers in front of me, it is difficult for me to make a recommendation for you to go buy new hoses. I would go and try to take some new numbers for you, but it is 112°F outside here today so difficult to get in the shop. No matter what hose you use, there will be static pressure loss down the length of hose and this is normal. The shorter the hose, less loss and the larger ID also less loss. I know well what you describe about the filter hood collapsing and this just proves my point that the DC-3300/DC-6000 are anemic dust collectors. I have the 42" filter hood on mine, but a 24" filter hood shouldn't collapse at all even when the port is partially obstructed. This just proves the dust collector isn't moving as much air as it should be. I don't know how invested you are in trying to make big changes to improve performance. With 4 screws, the 3-port manifold easily comes off. I believe the DC-3300 upgrade kit comes with an industry standard blower motor (based on pics I have seen), so it would easily adapt to a 4" PVC connection in my opinion. IF it were mine, I would investigate removing the 3-port manifold, connecting a 4" PVC and then converting this to either 3" or 4" flex hose to go to whatever tool you want to connect it to. Many here on the forum have other brand dust collectors and run 4" flex to their Mark V. It can be a bit awkward to do reduction from 4" flex down to a 2-1/4" dust port but others have done it. You would get better performance with this. There is a guy in the Shopsmith community that 3D prints Shopsmith parts to allow for connecting 4" flex to different Shopsmith equipment. I believe the Shopsmith FB group has talked about him before. I can try to find his contact info if you are interested. Even upsizing to 3" flex from 2-1/2" hose should give you noticeable improvement, but if you go through the trouble of removing the 3-port manifold, why NOT just run 4" flex from dust collector to Mark V? This experiment wouldn't cost much in a few parts to try out. IF you aren't happy with it afterwards, you could always reinstall the 3-port manifold. I suspect the blower in the DC-3300 upgrade kit has A LOT more performance, but is being limited by the DC-3300 3-port manifold I believe...in addition to the smaller aperture (2-1/4") choking performance.