Sand Blasting Cabinet - First use & Impressions

I had the blasting cabinet set up for a few weeks before a friend asked to use it to blast a set of split-rim centres. To make sure everything was set up and working okay (I hadn't blasted anything yet), I grabbed a couple of random pieces off my shelf and tried it out for an hour. Here are my general observations from blasting a few rusted, painted and passivated parts :

The lighting was extremely effective. I had very little problem seeing what I was doing. After an hour however, the window started to be obscured by the fine particles that settled between the glass window and the plastic protective sheet taped onto the glass. This sheet will have to regularly changed .
Initially a lot of glass beads found their way out of the cabinet, leaving a layer of beads on everything around the cabinet. The beads were escaping out of the air inlet port so I covered that port with a nylon stocking to stop the media getting out.
The vacuum/cyclone was incredibly effective. After blasting some rusty parts, I found the material in the tub under the cyclone to have a tinge of brown which was the very fine rust particles being blasted off!
The belt drive compressor handled the job reasonably well. With output set to 70-80psi, it ran for just less than 30 seconds before having to repressurise. I knew the compressor was going to be a limiting factor with its piston pump and low(ish) 11CFM rating.
Surface rust was initially removed at a slow rate but then I realised that I had too much media in the cabinet hopper. I removed all but 7-8 Litres of the glass beads in there and it siphoned much better and removed the rust faster.
Mill scale was removed about the same good rate as rust, however paint and passivating coating was removed extremely quickly.

Overall impression : For ~$230 (Australian Dollars) for the cabinet and upgrades, it's a great little home cabinet. The air flow requirements for any media blasting is very high and without spending big $$ on a high flow 3 phase rotary screw compressor, the only limiting factor here is the compressor pump size, so I will have to give the compressor some time to cool down to maintain it's 50% duty cycle rating. It's a home DIY setup, not commercial so I kind of expected that.

The inlet port covered with nylon stocking :