Air Cleaners Are they effective

[spowers]

I am thinking of getting a Air Cleaner for my Basement Shop 
It is about 290 Sq Ft.
It is sound proof and air tight so the dust does not get to other part of the basement when the door is closed.
I have dust collector and festool vacuum so most of the dust get captured, but I still see some dust on tool surfaces and shelves.

Will the air cleaner be effective to capture the escaped dust and keep the shop relatively clean?

I have a 24 by 24 foot shop.  With 2-20 inch box fans and a series of filters (merv 4, merv 9, and merv 13), I can bring the dust level down from about 6,000 parts (as measured on a Dylos meter) to about 240 in less that an hour.  I vacuum the surface of the merv 4 filter (outside one) daily.  They definitely work!

[Mike in kc]

I built an air cleaner/down draft dust collector and it works quite well.   I use 3 layers of filtering, one for the big pieces like saw dust, a second typical furnace filter, and last a sub micron HEPA filter.  The deflector on the output port directs the air so that a circular air rotation is established in the shop so "all" the air gets quickly filtered. Regardless how much dust I kick up, after I turn the fan on, it will clean the air in about 5 minutes max.

With the grate, I simply do all the heavy sanding there so no dust even gets in the air.   This has worked very well.

THESE PICTURES are probably fifteen years old and the multiple filters were added after they were taken.

[rwe2156]

I depends on whether you're shop is closed or not.  

If you're like me, I keep the doors open and fan blowing when its warm and I have an exhaust fan in the back of the shop.

That said, I do have one right over my tablesaw and keep it running especially when working with MDF.

[meackerman]

And all that said, it is far easier to add dust to the air, than remove it.  ... Equally important is making sure you're doing the best you can, within your limits, to prevent dust from escaping machining operations.

this.

everything else is secondary.  

with air cleaners it can be just as important where you hang it as it is just having it.    

I have an air cleaner that gets turned on when I know I'm going to be doing something that puts dust in the air....but I have a box fan/furnace filter hanging from the ceiling that's hooked up to the lights that always comes on when the lights come on.   That filter gets dirty pretty darn quickly....which really means I should turn on the air cleaner more often.

[daddo]

Cut only wet wood.