One of our most frequently asked questions is “Which vac do I need for my shot blaster?”. This question has come up more as OSHA and environmental guidelines have tightened over the last decade. Preventing airborne dust from contaminating your work environment is a critical piece of job site safety. Call it a vac, call it a dust collector, just make sure it’s properly paired.
When matching a dust collector to your shot blaster, check manufacturer’s specs of the blaster. You need to make sure your dust collector has the right cfm rating. CFM stands for ‘cubic feet per minute’ which is a unit of measurement for air flow volume. Essentially, this rating tells you how fast the dust collector is moving air/dust/debris from a space.
Shot blasters work on rebound and suction, and require a specific amount of suction to clear the silica dust from the shot in the rebound plenum. Too little cfm in the dust collector will cause a buildup of silica dust and will cause the blaster to stop working and drop shot. Too much suction will pull the dust and steel shot out of the machine.
Add another level of safety and security to your equipment with an auto pulsing dust collector. This feature auto-cleans the filters and allows the machine to work most efficiently. The large amount of dust created in concrete prep makes this feature necessary. Keeping the dust collector at optimal efficiency, keeps airborne dust out of the surrounding environment.