"Andy" wrote in message
ups.com...
I certainly haven't tried it, but my initial response is that your idea
sounds far more complicated than necessary. If a shop vac in the fence
has worked well so far, stick with it unless/until you have problems.
Once you make the router enclosure, you could always vacuum it out once
in a while, or hook up a straight 4" DC port there if you like. It
seems like the hassle and potential useless-ness of an
automatically-emptying-shopvac would be a lot more trouble than it's
worth.
How long does it take to empty your shop vac? I probably spend 3
minutes every 3 weeks on that (at most), so I definitely couldn't
justify spending an hour or several rigging up something that might or
might not save that time. Also, what if you turned your shop vac on
when your DC was off - wouldn't it start pulling dust from your DC bag?

My advice, for what it's worth: keep it simple, and don't fix what
ain't broke.
On the other hand, I'd be sort of curious to hear what happens when
someone hooks up a DC to a shopvac bin and turns them both on, so if
you have the time, go for it and let us know what happens.
Andy, whose shopvac-thru-fence chip collection has been more than
sufficient for his router table work


Yeah, it definitely would be more complicated than necessary, but part of
the fun of a shop is experimenting and trying things out! Seems like it
could be ideal - combine the suction of the SV at the bit, but the high
volume of the DC moving dust and chips out of the inside. And of course, if
you had a shop vac on there, and a DC hose right there, who wouldn't think
"Hmm... why am I empyting this tank?"

If I find a cheap SV on craigslist or even on freecycle I'll play around
with it and see what happens.

Another way of getting past the question would just be to connect the DC
line to the shop vac tank with a blast gate. Leave it closed while using the
router table, then shut off the shop vac (wired to the same switch as the
router), open the gate and let it clean out the tank.