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I think you should have a disclaimer as I'm rather certain running shop vac's in series will overspeed one of the motors and burn it out. I think you should look at Record Power dust extractor that is far better than dual vacs being that it's a smaller footprint and probably more power as well - I have a triple motor four horsepower model and I think it will exceed your dual shop vac setup easily on smaller hose, it can also use the larger hose 4" as well.

You should add craftsman, husky, and Bauer to this test.

Are there shop vacs with a soft start out there? I live in a house with crappy aluminum wiring and would also have the vac in a shed hooked up to a long extension cord. I definitely don't need a huge power surge when starting the damn thing.

Interesting to see the double-vac setup. The pressure-vs-airflow trade-off is why Oneida created the Supercell, a high-pressure dust collector for small shops. It's crazy expensive though, so I'm still on team shop-vac for the time being. I'd like to see you check out and compare the Dewalt Stealthsonic series. They are SO much quieter, it was an absolute game changer for me. I'd be curious to know how it compares to your Ridgid. It's probably less CFM, but my ears sure thank me.

That was so funny mate, put the comedy at the start of you vids, I almost missed it as I was skimming your vid. More people would see it closer to the start, so funny bro.

The Ridgid vacs have a lifetime warranty that you don’t need to even register for. Call them up and they will send you parts or replace your vac. Not sure why you’d need to buy a new one.

I don't consider loudness in the decision matix, the reason being you should use hearing protection all the time and most of the time you'll be using a power tool as well, which also makes a lot of noise, which doubles the reasons to use hearing protection. That said, GREAT video!

What about noise in the 2 vacuum case? Doesn’t it just go too high? Great demonstration by the way

Have you tested dual parallel vacs w a dust tornado collector?

Another huge downside to the large dust collector shown here, which is needed for larger bandsaws/planers etc is the cloth filter bags. They are useless, they get clogged easily, and often only filtering 5 microns or higher which is poor and no good for the harmful fine dust. The result is fine dust in the air settling on everything, being breathed in too, especially in a small shop. So then you have to factor in an upgraded filter, or a more expensive extractor, or one of those former options, plus an air filter which is more money. You will then need an expensive M rated shop vac for the smaller tools (mitre saw, router, sander etc). Its incredibly expensive and restrictive for something that is so important for a nicer working environment and your health.

So here we go, The test you ran were wrong nobody lites smoke bombs in the wood shop. DUMMY!! Second why would you put reducer on a main suction line? you would pipe in your main line placing tees at where your small power tools will be placed, then you hook up your small powertools to the teed off branch of the main line. you want a fair test try hooking that shop vac to that planer you have ,and see how fast you plug that 1.5 vac hose You test your system with your biggest saw dust makers , I.E planner, joiner, and maybe your router table. NO place to put it. who says the dust collector has to be in the shop to work properly? Who says you need all of the dust collector to collect saw dust? You find a place your in your shop that 's not doing anything build box canabalize the that dust collector you only need the impeller assembly and the vortex housing. and the bags. the rest is garbage . I know because i've built my own dust collection system and it works great, the reduced branch has no effect on the volume of air being drawn . in fact it increases the suction , But you need blast gates to make the system work right. It's all in the way you build your dust collection system. you want your biggest dust makers to be the closest to the dustcollector. sanders produce fine dust therefore a reduce line off the main trunk line is fine for sanders. Drill presses and mortising machines ,you clean up the dust with shop vac after use. YOUR TESTS ARE WRONG! YOUR THEROY IS WRONG! real test is that planner on a 1.5 inch hose attached to a shop vac.!!!!

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I believe the bigger one is to suck the shit out of the air to have cleaner work environment, not to hook to tools hence dust collection, and dust extractor!!!

Turned out Awesome!! TotalBoat Is The Best!!

I was using a ridgid 6hp NXT shop vac with the dustopper & 5 gallon bucket for years on my dewalt 7491 table saw and miter saw. I then got a bench top jointer and it worked sort of ok, but would occasionally get some chips fly out from the cutter head. I also got the larger larger dewalt planer (735) and my shop vac was not enough. I even upgraded to the dustopper pro which has a rubber gasket and chips were flying from the connection points on the hose. I upgraded to a cabinet saw and had to upgrade to a proper dust collector. I got a grizzly 1.5hp wall hanging model that is basically identical to the large rockler, and use it with the dust right cyclone separator and it is perfect! It’s quieter, just like you said, more of a low hummmm, and the cabinet of the table saw doesn’t really accumulate any dust. Having both I kinda believe getting a larger dust collector is worth it. Mine hangs in the wall and takes up no floor space whatsoever. Also I feel the shop vac releases a bit of fine dust even though it has the green hepa dust bag and filter, yet I feel the dust collector doesn’t (also with large hepa canister filter). Interesting video and cool experiment though.

Try it with velocity tornado to prevent small dust getting to the filter

Use hot glue to secure the power cord where it exits.

Another awesome vid! I'm a new subscriber here. I learned a lot and am completely surprised by the results. Would love it if you compared the Oneida Dust Deputy 2.5 to the Home Depot Dust Deputy! They (Oneida) say it improves airflow over the lid-style dust separators,, but does it??

Super helpful video! Thanks for doing it! I'd love to see you compare the big Ridgid to the Dewalt Stealthsonic. Only because my 15yr old Ridgid is starting to overheat when I run it on long CNC projects, so I'm going to need to replace is soon. I just don't want to give up a bunch of performance just for a quieter machine, but if I can get the same performance AND reduce the noise, it's game over for Ridgid in my garage.

Notice in your basement shop you have your shop plumbed for a 4” vac system. Just wondering why you’re downplaying them when you already using the system. Lastly how do the two compare with how many microns of dust escapes both. Nice presentation though. Would like to hear your feedback. Rick

Great information as I have been considering getting something like that WEN. Now I'm curious with the dual vac setup, if you put one cyclone separator on the combined hose or if you put a cyclone in front of each vacuum which would be more efficient.

Would love a practical test where you test the dust collection with the dustiest of tools: the miter saw. Test it without anything. One shop vac. And then two. Cuz for me the shop vac works well on everything but the miter saw. Great video.

Shop vac for sure! I had my shop vac hooked up to a scroll saw dust exhaust and there was so much pressure I couldn't move the work piece, I had to drill some relief holes so I could move the work piece and it was really efficient after that! I agree with what you're saying!

duel vacs...too many DIY tools

Dual vac takes up more space than a dust collecto0r.

The smoke test you did was pretty cool. Reminds me of Mythbusters! 😂

Interesting concept. Kind of the opposite of Obsessed Garage running two pressure washers in series to get a higher Gallons Per Minute flow rate. It doesn't increase the pressure, just the amount of water being pushed. (Nice tests, presentation, and humor. Subscribed.)

A good test of theory, but I'd like to see it performed on shop tools in use.

seems absurd to compare these 2 types of vaccum since they are for different purposes, big one with a induction motor for continuos use are incomparable to a carbon motor that needs working cicles and stop to do not burn out the coils.... you are comparing irrelevant aspects of the device. And finally is absolutely insane use 2 lil' vaccums to meet the caudal air of the big one,,,, nobody will run 2 vaccums of around 2k watts each without mess his house wiring power supply things....

I have both in my shop which is half of a 2 car garage. It depends on the port size of the tool. Eg. Planer =HVLP, Mitre saw = LVHP.

How would the dual vac system work with a Dust Deputy?

If you used 4" hose and necked it down with the two shop vacs you would have gotten better results. The volume of the 4" hose is like 9 times greater than the 2" hose. The extra resistance in 20 feet of 1.5" hose vs 20 feet of 2" hose is over 10% decrease. (This is from the carpet cleaning industry.) Use the 4" hose as far as you can until you neck down to the smaller diameter. Come 2" from both shopvacs to a 4" junction and then 4" as close to the tool as possible.

This is a massive subject. Well presented video but there no right & wrong answers. Personally I open my garage doors & wear a dust mask. Not always possible but I have never smoked so I think I am ahead of the curve health wise

The other advantage to parallel is when you use series the second motor is getting all hot air and will wear out and overheat quickly.

The Reason Shop Vacs are sold it to sell more filters. A Prefilter is absolutely needed if you use a Shopvac.

Dust collection is a rabbit hole. I have the Harbor Freight CENTRAL MACHINERY 35 Gallon, 2 HP High-Flow High-Capacity Dust Collector. Likely identical to your WEN. I was running for a year stock. 4 inch hose to a lathe dust collector inlet. Worked pretty decent. Then I added one of those Wynne Env type drum filters...WOW...the amount of air increased a lot...would love to say exponentially, but it is drawing a significant amount more air. Now I am looking for a 5 inch hose and dust hood. Pull even more of that fine dust in.

I think you should have tested the two shop vacs with a 4 inch hose to compare it to the Dust Extractor. You could get the best of both worlds. One shop vac for tools that use smaller hoses but yet you could turn them both on when you are using larger tools that can use a 4 inch hose.

I use a single leaf blower vacuum. Works great. Two would be amazing.

FFS...they are two different tools for two different uses. If you have a planer, jointer, router table and/or a table saw...a DC will outperform a shopvac by a huge margin. If you want to sweep up the chips and dust that are thrown away from the DC then put a floor sweep on it and still kick a shopvacs ass. The difference between the smoke box tests is negligible and I'd say in the margin of error since you cannot account for the smoke bombs making the same amount of smoke and since you made a different seal on the DC vs Shopvac and the subjectivity of the thumbs up. Still you said "just as well" I see your plumbing in the background. Its too small for a DC. Now I know you arent plumbed for it right now BUT if you had run 4in all over and only reduced to smaller diameters at the tool you would find that in most cases the DC does just fine and there is no need for an additional shopvac. "If you need to reduce...stick with a wet-dry vac" Thing is you are using a shop vac that is presently selling for $295 at Home Depot where that Wen DC is selling for $351...add the Hart unit which today is $53 and you are at break even on the cost. If reducing it gets us to the same "suck" as the shop vac then why should anyone use the shop vac over the DC? And if they have neither then why buy the $300 vac over a dust collector? And for that matter, why pay more for the Wen when the Harbor Freight DC, at full price, is $50 cheaper, or, just $4.25 more than that vac...with 1550 cfm? About the ONLY things my shop vacs do better than my DC get full quicker and clog easier...oh, and liquids cause duh, the DC doesn't. I get it if you dont have space for one, and its not just the height but also the footprint...you gotta make do. But if you make a lot of sawdust and have space for one you wont regret having it considering the costs of things in this video especially? You should also have a cheap shop vac cause occasionally you might need to suck up some liquids or vac your truck...and that Hart is probably plenty,

“Ribbed for her pleasure” is wild😂

My thinking on this subject is: I used a shop vac for years, but it was not adequate for my jointer, planner, nor my cabinet saw. The noise was unbearable. So, if I am getting the big dust collector to manage my major machines, why not use it for the smaller ones. Increasing the size of port when I can. The noise is so much more tolerable and power consumption is not that much different. I also have a small shop but I made room because I was tired of building one day then cleaning for two days.

All you need is a 45 amp breaker

For a quiet shop vac, checkout the Dewalt Stealthsonic line - 65 dba.

The two vac system has a bigger footprint than the wen dust collector. It's louder. It has more parts and requires more routine maintenance. The wen can be used with every tool even when reduced. The shop vac cannot. Even multiple tools at once if needed. The shop vac cannot. Hook up the shop vac to a table saw, jointer or planer. It won't keep up. Just my humble opinion.

Great video, as I was thinking of getting the big extraction system. The tests were good but I think what would have been really good is seeing both hooked up to actual machines.

When I was searching for a sander in this category for use on larger tops and surfaces i considered this one as well as the Mirka and possibly another Festool. Did a little research and watched several videos including yours. Decided on something other than this one for one simple reason. The sound of the motor during start and stop. Did not sound right to me and made an “educated” guess that there might be issues regarding longevity of the unit compared to the price point. Can’t really expect a $60 sander to last very long with frequent constant use but expectations increase when paying a premium. Something about the sound didn’t seem right to me. Hopefully They do come up with a proper fix for it.

I go with adage-if has two inch then connect a two inch and if has 4 inch then hook a 4 inch. I use a Seperator (dust deputy) and connect a shop vac to it. The shop vac and has bag and of course a filter. Good Info. My shop is a garage.

My Ridgid 14 Gallon NXT shop vac with fine dust bag and filter in combination with a Home Depot Dustopper and 5-gallon pail works very well for everything but my small planer and jointer (counter/table top size). I do have to clean the inside of the my bandsaw cabinet as the air volume isn't enough to get it all, but I don't have any issues of dust outside of the cabinet up where I am making the cut. I have thought of adding a second shop vac setup to my table saw, I I have a blade guard that has a hose port. But have yet to do that. My dream shop vac would be the Oneida Supercell, but at nearly $3K I can't justify the cost. I have my current Ridgid shop vac setup with pail on wheels so I can move it around the shop. I do this versus having a longer hose that would allow me to leave the dust extraction setup stationary, but would likely reduce the effectiveness of the system. I haven't tested that outcome, but I can say with a 5-8 foot hose the system has worked well. Some equipment like my mitre saw I have a hose left attached to it and simply plug it into the shop vac. but for most tools, I move the shop vac with like a 5-8 foot hose to the machine, like my table saw, jointer, etc.

I use three shop vacs. One each at my table saw / band saw, disc/belt sanders, and router table. Three separate systems. Fairly economical and very effective. I also use a cyclone separater on two of the systems. Maybe it’s an 80% solution, but good enough. Also, I’ve given up on dust collection at the chop saw. I just have a semi enclosure around it to contain the mess and I sweep it out. I’m still not satisfied with that, but I haven’t seen any good solutions.

Restricting airflow on the dust collector is just wrong. Use a shop-vac for tools having 2.5" port or less. Use dust collector for 4" tools.