Camvac

[marcros]

My camvac has arrived. I am already a little stuck!

1. There is a large drum cloth filter. As supplied it is stretched around the drum- is this correct it looks like it will stop everything going into the extractor?

2. I bought a hose connection piece to go onto the 4" spigot. I expected it to be a tight fit but it really isn't at all. It feels like soil pipe material- have I got a dud or how does it fit? It is the camvac one so I am slightly surprised. http://www.camvac.co.uk/index.php?view=product&pid=40

3. Do I need left or right spiral hose. If fitter the adaptor I would have to screw the hose anticlockwise.

 

[Tierney]

On question 1, I think the answer is that it is ok. I have a Camvac and I haven't noticed the cloth bag impacting the performance. How I think of it is that the cloth protects the motors, so in operation will be sucked towards the motors and away from the inlet. Ultimately it has to work because my Camvac fills up completely with chips and dust in operation. There may be more efficient ways to set things up, but, you'll be getting into theory about vortex etc.

DT

 

[marcros]

ah ok. i was more concerned that it was fitted that way for delivery and i needed to do something with it for use.

 

[chipmunk]

Hi Marcos,
The camvac cloth bag stops the majority of the shavings and big stuff hitting and blocking the paper filters. It easily gets pushed aside by the shavings entering the inlet but it does get blocked after a lot of dust has gone in.

Mine is a wall mounted unit and when I notice that suction begins to drop, I shut off the unit, lift the lid and give the cloth bag a shake from the inside (motor/clean side). The build up of dust drops off into the collection sack and away you go again.

Mine's a 2.5" unit but the hose doesn't need to be a very tight fit as the vacuum will pull it to form a seal when the unit is running. It's handy to be able to remove the hose in the case of a blockage - don't be tempted to seal everything up too securely as things do get sucked up.

HTH
Jon

 

[RogerS]

What the others have said.

When mine gets full, I don a full-face mask and remove the lid. Upend the stuff into a bin bag although a large proportion usually ends up on the floor. I then take the cloth bag outside and give it a good beating to remove the dust. I rarely bother with cleaning the other two filters as the cloth bag does such a good job.

I only use mine for dust-generating machines such as the table saw, drum sander, linisher. I have a proper chip extractor for the two machines that generate predominantly chips (no surprise there!). When the thicknesser is going flat out, the bag on the chip extractor gets filled up much much quicker than the Camvac and so disposal can become a problem. I found that by separating the two (Camvac/chip extractor) that the stuff in the chip extractor was relatively dust-free and so i could take it up to the local stables.

 

[marcros]

i plan to make a drop box, so ordered the smallest capacity camvac. i am in a situation, i guess like many of us, that my most used machines are dust generating, but from time to time i do some planing and thicknessing. I plan to size the drop box so that it will last a reasonable amount of time which thicknessing. I dont do hours long sessions, just a few boards at a time.

 

[paulm]

i plan to make a drop box, so ordered the smallest capacity camvac. i am in a situation, i guess like many of us, that my most used machines are dust generating, but from time to time i do some planing and thicknessing. I plan to size the drop box so that it will last a reasonable amount of time which thicknessing. I dont do hours long sessions, just a few boards at a time.

Sounds like a good approach.

I purchased an oil drum (couldn't find any knocking around for free locally sadly !) to use as a drop box and it works well, the only problem is that it's a real struggle to handle and empty it when it needs it as it's quite large and heavy, should really have gone for something smaller, but then dustbins of different types kept imploding on me !

Cheers, Paul

 

[marcros]

i have located a plastic drum of 150L. I was going to use a wheelie bin- still might, but thought that an oil drum would allow me to try it out first. Whilst looking for that, I found the plastic one.

How are the input and output hoses arranged? I have seen some dustbin lids for sale (non seem to be available now) which are just holes on the underside, and some with a 90 degree bend on the inside. the 90 degree bends seem to make more sense