Central vac in shop?

[Mastiff]

Anyone rigged up centralized vacuum for their shop? I have a very deep garage I use, about 60' deep. I've actually been using a Roomba "Dirt Dog" robot vac to clean up, but they are now discontinued and since they break down periodically I'm sort of outa luck. Dragging a shop vac around the garage just isn't going to happen.

Something like this looks cool:

http://www.amazon.com/Hoover-L2310-5-Gallon-Garage-Utility/dp/B000289920/

but even with 30' of hose, there's no place it could go and reach all around. If I could have maybe four receptacles around to plug into, that would be nice, but I don't know if this particular thing will work that way, and I'm not sure where to source hose and receptacles. Any leads would be great. And I'd prefer not to spend $700 on this. Something around $200 would be ideal.

 

[rdn2blazer]

I would have no issue dragging a shop vac around. Sure it is a big area but it doesn't take all that long to vac the garage imho. I've had large items get stuck in the hose and have had to shove the handle of say a broom down the vac hose to dislodge. If you have something with a super long hose thats going to be a problem if you get something stuck in it.

 

[bigjbear]

Leaf blower

 

[bp71k5]

Leaf blower has worked great for me for a while now too.

 

[Fordum]

They have been putting central vac systems in houses for decades. Its a very mature technology. I suspect that you could find an entire system designed for shops.
But it would probably be a little cheaper to build your own using some of the off the shelf components.
I'm sure you could adapt your present shop vac to a central system.
The deluxe systems, have electricity available at each outlet, and automatically turn on the power unit when you plug in a hose.
But, you only need the electricity when you have electric rug powerheads, and you could just turn on the main unit when you started to clean and off when you were through. That would save money.
All you really need, is some of the outlets that seal off any leaks when you are not using them, some PVC, and a hose or two with fittings.

Here are a couple of places that sell that kind of stuff. There are lots more.
http://www.thinkvacuums.com/central-vacuums/tools.htm
http://www.nutone.com/product-category.asp?CategoryID=10072
http://www.centralvacuumstores.com/central-vacuums/index.php

It just basically works like an air system, in reverse.

 

[Avery4jc]

We had a central vac setup in the machine shop at school and it only worked because the end hoses hanging down from the ceiling were corrugated like a regular shop vac hose but where those met up to the main lines everything from there on was straight like conduit. Plus the main lines in the ceiling were like 8" diameter so stuff really couldn't get stuck.
The big tank and motor were outside because it was so loud but it flat worked, sucked up all kinds of metal chips for the two years I was there and it never once plugged up on me.

That being said I bet that was an EXPENSIVE system. For home use I have one of the biggest craftsman shop vacs I could get from the hardware store and it's great. I blow out the garage with the compressor and everything else gets sucked up with the shop vac.