If you've got a central vac system, you're biggest expenditure has already been made. If you haven't got a central vac system in your home, you'll have to buy a really powerful shop vac.

I got this system from Lee Valley and use it with our central vac system. http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=30042&cat=1,42401 

You can have as many ports as you want, like one for your saw, one for your sander, one for your router, one for your lathe, one for your "fill in the blank". My central vac system has a really neat floor port.  I got an extra for the shop and into it you can sweep the dust/sawdust/wood chips/small particles from your floor. When the other ports are not being used, by closing them, you maintain maximum "suckage" for the one you're using.  That's why the total number of ports is not of concern, because when the rest are closed, the one you're using is at maximum power and it's like you only had one port!  For the maximum performance, you must close the ports you're not using but it's easy - you just slide the gate closed (in) for that port.  Each port has it's own  sliding gate.  Pulled out is open and pushed in is closed.  See photos below.  

You also need to buy some sort of cyclone which is put in the "vacumn line" after the tools.  http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=30282&cat=1,42401 This swirls the particulants around in a drum (a plastic garbage container) - they tell you what size and type to get.  The middle sized one is all you need.  The heavier pieces fall to the bottom of the can, and the finer lighter stuff goes on to your vacumn.  Periodically, you empty the garbage can. 

To clean the air of finer dust particle - the kind that leave a "fine haze or fine dust" over everything like the phone etc, which you don't at first really notice. I got mine from Delta but there are a variety of similar products available. I still get "some" dust but at least it's not very much, and so sometimes, I still wear a face mask when doing things which will cause a lot of dust like sanding.  Maybe it's overkill, but I think you can't be too safe!  

1. Port with gate closed.  In this position there is no suction at his port.

2. Port with gate open.  In this position there is suction at his port.

3. Photo of one end of my shop showing my lathe sitting on top of the router table to maximize my shop space, with hoses going from the lathe to the vac system piping, which goes to the cyclone. Also shown is the Delta air cleaner (with light). One pull chain turns on the air cleaner and the other is for the light. Note the special dust hood behind lathe to help collect more particles. This is set up low because I work sitting down because of the MS, and the switch on the wall is just another convenient way of turning the vac system on.

4. Same as 3, but here you can see my stationary disc/belt sander on the shelves to the left. It also has it's own port which is connected by black flexible tubing (as is the lathe) to the clear tubing above, which takes the debris to the cyclone. So,,, the particles/dust travel thru the black flexible tubing and then thru the clear tubing to the cyclone where heavier bits drop to the bottom of the garbage pail and the lighter pieces and dust travel through the gray tubing you will see below, to the central vac unit which is in the garage.

5. Shows floor port attached to bottom of bench leg, and garbage pail with cyclone top sitting under the end of my bench.  See close up photos below.

6. Floor port to sweep things into.  That's an amazingly useful port and is used everyday after I'm done for the day.

7. Shows tubing. The gray tubing goes from the cyclone to the central vac system and the clear tubing on the left, goes from the various ports at each tool to the cyclone. You'll see more of the tubing in other shots which follow.

8. How the tubing gets to the area with the lathe, sander and router table.

9. A shot of the Delta air cleaner showing it's nice and strong flourescent lights - a big plus I think!  For most other air cleaners, you must buy all of the replacement filters on an ongoing basis so it's a never ending cost. Another big plus of this Delta unit is that all but one of the filters can be blown out and hand washed so THAT'S MOSTLY FREE!!!  With me being of Scottish decent, I love that!  ;-)

10. The cyclone sitting under the end of bench. Note all the dust inside, instead of in the shop. You can see the clear tubing running to the right and ultimately to the drill press port which are the ones shown in earlier photos. I have my table saw to the right of the drill press and a long black piece of flexible tubing which reaches to the saw, so if I'm using the saw, I just connect that tubing to the port on the saw. But it is mainly used for my drill press when drilling pen blanks. You'd be surprised at how much comes out of a pen blank when it's drilled.  It'd be all over the floor if not for the vac system.  

The white material going around the lid is an adhesive tape to make it air tight thereby keeping the dust and debris inside the unit.

11. Another view of the tubing. The gray tubing which goes to the central vac and the clear tubing running from the lathe and sander down to the cyclone. This set up works well for me and would probably work well for you too.

Check out the prices at Lee Valley Tools.  Though a Canadian company, they sell and ship internationally. Similar types of systems are probably available near you too, but maybe not at as good a price as "this" system which is made for Lee Valley and I think is handled only by them.

If you don't have a central vac system, be sure to purchase a really strong shop vac - it needs to be really powerful to really do the job! 

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