Chips about to run me out of the shop!

Festool markets a woodworking dust extraction setup for work with their metal cutting tools, but they require the use of a fire suppression module for that. I'm not quite sure what its function is, but I believe it goes before the filter. Their particular extractor is super quiet, but likely too small for your needs. I'd second some type of bucket, perhaps with a metal screen, as a prefilter.

Consider that it's easy to mod face-shields into magnetic or carriage mounted screens, which may contain things a little.
 
I grind steel, synthetics an Ti, A dangerous mix. I found something called the dust deputy. Its a cyclone thingie that sits on top of a 5 gallon bucket that I fill 1/3 with water and a little dawn dish soap and attach to a shop vac. love it, haven't cleaned the shop vac in a year, nothing gets to it
 
Like the Dust Right Separator mentioned above, I would recommend the Dust Deputy Kit available from Oneida-Air or Woodcraft. I personally have one and it is a dirty deeds wonderment.

During building a custom gun stock, where I needed to fly cut .5" from each side of the 9"x30" blank, the amount of swarf was overwhelming.
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I have the Dust Deputy connected to a Craftsman 6HP shop vac while cutting. I filled the bucket twice while nothing every made it to the filter in the shopvac.

Last week, I was doing aluminum and cast iron. The bucket weighted over 20lbs with all the chips. If you do get the kits, make sure you put a grounding strap connected to the collection hose to discharge the static. It is something I fight here in Arizona.
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I grind steel, synthetics an Ti, A dangerous mix. I found something called the dust deputy. Its a cyclone thingie that sits on top of a 5 gallon bucket that I fill 1/3 with water and a little dawn dish soap and attach to a shop vac. love it, haven't cleaned the shop vac in a year, nothing gets to it

I know this is from 6 years ago, but I can always hope for a reply! ;)

What is the dish soap for? I figure the water is for cooling things down and preventing possible fires, but the soap?
 
I have contemplated using a vacuum on my mill (lathe isnt a problem as aside from curlies running off the front, everything gets dropped in the swarf tray) but also worried about hot chips. Thought about using a bucket "inline" on the hose so that the chips would be pulled by the vacuum but dropped in the bucket, therefore never making it to the actual shop vac enclosure (or motor).

I use a regular shop vacuum on the mill to clean up steel chips on regular basis


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Soap reduces water's surface tension. Dawn dish soap is cheap and very good for this. Anything that falls into soapy water is wetted down more thoroughly and quickly than it would be in plain water.. Soapy water will also help wet down anything oily and disperse the oil. Before I got an "official" (steel) oily rag container in my shop, I'd use a bucket half full of soapy water. Dumped the whole thing when it got full.
 
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