I was basically mimicking their design with the hand truck approach. My goal is not to make it move like a typical shop vac where you drag it around the shop by the hose behind you but simply to make it portable when needed. Once it finds its home, I hope that the hose will give me most of the flexibility that I need so the location should be fairly static. I may need to be able to move it over the lip of the garage (about an inch) out to the driveway from time to time and with it being (looking anyway) top heavy, tilting it over a lip on swiveling casters could be a little treacherous. At least that is my concern anyway. The hand truck design seems safer without making the base considerably wider. I am trying to keep the width as narrow as possible and the outriggers with large castors may add 20 cm (~8") to provide enough space for them to fully swivel. One reason I am not mimicking their stand model is because of the larger footprint it requires. Thinking out loud, for larger castors, I could simply lower the mount point to accommodate larger casters. As long as they are not so large as to interfere with the drum as they pivot.
George, I was designing around these 10" wheels. I used them to replace some pneumatic wheels on a hand truck. They work well and are considerably cheaper than the ones you listed. I considered getting the 30 gallon drum too. There are several reasons that I didn't but the main one is that, while frequently emptying is a pain, lifting a full 30 gallon bag out of the drum or worse, moving and lifting a full 30 gallon steel drum to dump it, sounds like an even bigger pain, especially in my back. Another major concern is that designing a mobile cart that can support a full 30 gallon drum seems like a bigger engineering challenge. I think that you would want the stand design -- they have a version with longer legs for a 30 gallon drum but it takes up considerably more floor space because the legs splay out so far. The other reason is that the only place I could possibly hang it on the wall, should my cart prove not a good idea or I decide I want static ducting, does not have the head space required. It would sit under the rails for my garage door and you have to lift the entire cylinder (filter housing) and motor housing as a unit over the filter to mount it . You also may need to remove it from time to time for filter maintenance and replacement. The specs say that the unit with 30 gallon drum version stands 6'7" tall and , IIRC, you need about 2' of overhead clearance to slide the cylinder and motor over the top. You also have to be able to mount and remove that heavy component while standing on a taller ladder. It is probably marginally a one person job as it is and wrangling it a couple feet higher off the ground sounds like an even bigger PITA than emptying a 30 gallon drum.
Good stuff guys. I appreciate the brainstorming.
--Nathan, TX. Hire the lazy man. He may not do as much work but that's because he will find a better way.
