Build Log: Dust Collection Cart Mk III

DIY
Written By DP

I have a fairly effective setup for small-tool dust collection: a highpowered vac with a cyclone all mounted on a cart but aomething that’s been bugging me for a bit now is just how damn loud the vac actually is. I find myself reaching for hearing protection whenever I have to run the vac cuz the tone is just so annoying. I’ve been on the lookout for a definitively quieter setup. Recently I picked up a ‘quiet vac’ so this was a good opportunity to revisit the dust collection cart.

Quick Links

Starting Point

I’ve been using my Dust Collection Cart Mk II and recently I swapped out my main vac hose and changed up the main cyclone separator as a series of small improvements. On paper, I mostly hit all the checkboxes:

  • [Relatively] high-powered/high-cfm vac

  • Nice 2.5” hose (antistatic too!)

  • Highly-effective cyclone separator

  • By using custom-length flex-hose to connect the vac and cyclone, I minimized ‘excess hose’ as best as I could

Having all of this mounted vertically was a blessing and a curse: by stacking the cyclone, I was able to reduce the footprint that this cart occupied but it was ungainly and top-heavy. The addition/upgrade to the 16-ft hose did not help the situation — I had resorted to sprawling the hose along the floor. The important thing though, was that it worked and so there was never really a reason to substantially revisit this.

There were two things that bugged me about this cart.

  1. The cart is still bulky. Even though I had stacked the cyclone atop the vac to minimize the footprint, there was no getting away from the fact that the vac was a behemoth to begin with (16-gallon!). This is particularly frustrating because I use the cyclone, so I have little to no use for the vacuum’s actual capacity

  2. Running the vac is loud. Sure, it cleans really well, but other than short bursts, I found myself reaching for hearing protection just to try and cut down the tiring drone of the vac

I was able to find a new vac that all but eliminated the noise, so this was a great time to revisit the cart to see if I couldn’t address the bulky concern.

[Back to Top]

New vac (and rant)

Before we get started…

Compared to some other brands that I have looked at vacs in the past (i.e., Ridgid, Miwaukee), Dewalt really struggles to with product information pages. It feels like all of the product pages are just poorly auto-generated and/or there’s a disconnect between dewalt.com (US) and dewalt.ca (CA) — multiple products that definitely do exist and are available for sale in Canada, just don’t have any existance on the Canadian website. Ironically, the single Stealthsonic vacuum listed on the Canadian site is nigh-impossible to actually buy…

Dewalt has a series of wet-dry vacs marketed as ‘StealthSonic’ and as the name suggests, the focus is on being hella-quiet. From what I can tell, there are ~four vacuums that fall under the ‘StealthSonic’ marque:

  • DXV16P-QTA (US) / DXV16P-QTA (Canada) :

    • ‘6.5HP’-class vac, 16-gallon, ‘cart-style’ vac, 20-ft cord

    • The vac includes some 2.5” accessories so presumably the connection is 2.5” (which is expected for this class of vac)

    • According to the product page (at the time of this post), this doesn’t include a hose so there’s no way to verify. None of the product pictures show a hose.

    • The US site indicates that you get 1 (or 2?) bonus contractor kit(s) but it’s not clear what that kit includes

  • DXV12P-QTA (US)

    • ‘5.5HP’-class vac, 12-gallon, 20-ft cord

    • The vac includes some 2.5” accessories so presumable the connection is 2.5” (which is common for this class of vac, but not guaranteed)

    • The product page does say that it includes a ‘crush resistant’ hose

    • The US site indicates that you get 1 bonus contractor kit, but it’s not clear what that kit includes

  • DXV12P-QT (US)

    • The same as the above, but with a ‘sturdy hose’

    • Also, you don’tget a bonus contractor kit

  • DXV09-QTA (US)

    • ‘5HP’-class vac, 9-gallon, 10-ft cord

    • The vac includes 1-7/8” accessories

    • The included hose is a ‘crush resistant’ 1-7/8” hose

    • The US site indicates that you get 1 bonus contractor kit, but it’s not clear what that kit includes

 
 

Based on the information “available” on the product pages, you would be justified in thinking that the DXV09-QTA (9-gallon) would be eliminated for me because I’m looking specifically for 2-1/2 vacs.

But it’s a bit more nuanced than that:

  • The included accessories are 1-7/8

  • The included hose is 1-7/8, mostly:

    • The hose is 1-7/8

    • The tool-end (where you connect the nozzles and accessories) is 1-7/8

    • The vac-end (where you connect the hose to the vac) is 2-1/4 (which is the ‘actual size’ for 2-1/2 hoses)

There was recently a ‘Dewalt demo day’ at a nearby tool store so I took the opportunity to swing by and see for myself. Embarrassingly, the Dewalt-rep was adamant that ‘Dewalt vacs only connect to Dewalt tools’. I had to coax him into the idea that “hey maybe we can go and actually check the demo unit on the shelf”. Sigh. I’m sure this isn’t representative of their entire team but gah.

In either case, I specifically showed up with a 2-1/4 x 2-1/2 coupler (the type that threads neatly onto 2-1/2 flex hose) and individually checked the vacuums.

It was easier to just walk into the store with a hose connection and physically jam it into the vac to verify that it fits…

For my use case, I only needed to confirm that my flex-hose coupler physically fits into the vac any included hoses/accessories were going into long term storage anyways. For regular consumers though, this is a bit of a mixed bag

  • The vac can take 2-1/2 hoses, so you could (at additional expense) upgrade down the road — but I imagine if potential buyers knew that in advance, they would have just opted for the 12-gallon vac to begin with.

  • If you had just looked at the hose connection and made your decsion based on that (like I did ha), when you got home and found that you got all 1-7/8 hose & accessories would feel a little bit like a bummer

 
 

TL;DR — I bought the 9-gallon StealthSonic (DXV09-QTA) vac because it accepts 2-1/2 hose.

[Back to Top]

Step 1 - Platform

Instead of building cart around the cyclone and vacuum, I wanted to integrate the cyclone onto/into the vac as this would reduce the overall bulkiness. I lucked out — the Dewalt vac has a nice flat platform that I can lever some plywood against.

Step 2 - Verticals

Technically, I could have stopped there with just the platform for a bucket — add a couple tie downs and some bungee cords to keep it from tilting and call it a day. I wanted to do something a bit different to redeuce the amount of tipsiness that the cyclone introduced (particularly with the 16-ft hose connected to the front of it).

Once the verticals were in place, I needed to find a way to keep the bucket from sliding and tipping. Initially I had thought to use two bungees to strap over-and-down, in a criss-cross fashion but my wife had the clever idea of just strapping the bucket to the verticals. Strictly speaking, it’s less secure, but a quick test showed that it’s perfectly fine — and I could always add another bungee at the bottom if I needed it.

Step 3 - Support dolly

Everything up to now is levered by the handle of the vac: with a relatively light load (empty bucket), the plywood base handles it but I can envision it sagging over time. Also, having the plywood cantilevered so far makes me generally feel uneasy, so I wanted to support that mass by connecting it to the ground. Initially I thought to use a spring-loaded gate-wheel, but I wanted to work with materials I had on hand.

Once I attached this dolly to the platform, it really reduced the amount of ‘chatter’ as I moved the vac and cart around. There is one concern though: that an accidental swipe would just twist this platform off. While I can’t prevent the leg from breaking off away from the vac, I can minimize the chances of it breaking towards the vac by adding a standoff. You guessed it, using a plywood T.

Step 4 - Accessories

The Ridgid vac I used before had onboard storage for accessories and this vac doesn’t so I needed to find a way to get this organized. When I build my miter station, I specifically left a bit of an overhang between the leveled base and the cabinets so I opted to hang the accessories there.

Milestone

This was a spur of the moment project triggered by the transition to a new vac and overall I think it was quite a success: the vac cart takes up less space (both literally and ‘visually’) and I’m able to bring the hose around with the cart rather than dragging it along the floor. As a bonus, the brace that I used to connect the vertical T’s makes for a good grab-handle.

 
 

The burning question is: how does it sound? I made a quick comparison clip before building the cart and it’s a pretty stark difference.

Quick noise comparison between my old Ridgid WD1680 and new Dewalt DXV09-QTA vac.

Appendix

[Back to Top]

 

Improved Dust Collection Cart Mk II

This is what I used for the better part of a decade before making this cart.

Read More
 

Product links may be affiliate links: MinMaxGeek may earn a commission on any purchases made via said links without any additional cost to you.

DP
Previous

Build Log: LED Slat Wall
Next

Build Log: DIY Leveled-floor