Sidetrack #2 - Dust Collection

I decided I needed a better way of dust collection than the good-ole shop vac.  It does what I need but is not a pleasure to clean and looses suction as the filter gets clogged.  I read reviews and specs and decided that:
1. I am too cheap to buy a real dust collector
2. The cheap ones will not do much more than the shop vac.

Then I found this contraption, which is designed to be inserted upstream from a shop vac and collects most (they claim 99%) of the dust and chips.  Of course I got the DIY version and added it to my shop vac:

I basically thru-bolted it to the lid of a paint bucket.  Notice the plywood washers on the base, I figured they will protect the plastic better than metal washers.  The way it is connected to the shop vac is from what I found on their web site and brochure.  The bucket with the thingie attached sits inside a second bucket that is again through-bolted to the side of the shop vac:

There is a foam block between the bucket and the shop vac to even out the irregular surfaces and reduce some vibration:

Sidetrack #1 - The Router Table

After mixed success routing edges by hand, I decided to build a router table.  I found this "easy as it gets" design which seemed simple enough and not take too long to build.  I upgraded the fence with a fixed face using melamine-covered shelving and added a box for dust collection.  Here it is:

 

Update: added top and bottom dust pickup.  On the bottom I installed the dust cover that came with the router.  I joined the two collection ports with a Y connector (with the fence port getting the "straight" path.