Yes I know, I've done that in the past, and I just did it again! :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Mike Weaver
Yes I know, I've done that in the past, and I just did it again! :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Mike Weaver
Andy - I followed your mods on this $159 cyclone. I have the 7" pipe going down through the cyclone and it was about 4" longer than what is suggested on Bill Pentz's web site. I added the neutral vane also. Thanks for noting that the top comes of pretty easy on this unit.
I also ground off the rivots and sealed the unit up good with sealer. I have a HF unit just like yours and am surprised you have so much efficiency on the cyclone. Good to hear. I elected to build a blower using a HF 3hp motor (AKA 5hp motor for only $60 bucks). I might have tried to use the HP 2hp blower I had if I read your post sooner.
Anyway, the cyclone purchase and mods you provided is a really good way to step into the world of woodworking with a cyclone.
Regards, Justin
Justin,
You also deserve another well done too.
Still, for those considering these units I again clarify that these are not efficient fine dust separators, so are best used without filters and should be exhausted directly outside. Pumping lots of fine dust into filters quickly ruins filters from over cleaning and the high silica (glass) content in wood rapidly cutting up our filters quickly turning even good fine filters into sieves that pass most of the finest dust. Likewise, the cost and time to buy then modify one of these often exceeds the cost to build or buy a far more efficient separating cyclone based on my better separating design.
OSHA gathered sawdust from hundreds of large woodworking shops, and measured that dust. They found on average woodworking dust is about 85% heavier sawdust and chips and about 15% fine airborne dust. Airborne dust consists of small dust particles that do not immediately fall out of the air. Most airborne dust is sized 30-microns and smaller, with 30-microns being about one third the diameter of a human hair. We all know from working with MDF and doing some operations like power sanding that we sometimes generate close to 100% fine dust and other times like when planning we generate near zero fine dust. So the amount of airborne dust we make will vary considerably.
Going after that 85% heavier dust is known as “chip collection” and means collecting the same stuff we would otherwise sweep up with a broom. Going after the remaining 15% finer airborne dust is known as fine dust collection, something most hobbyist tool, dust collector, and cyclone vendors do not provide in spite of advertising claims. Sadly, vendors like this cyclone maker test with heavy chips to make incredible separation claims, yet decades of testing shows cyclones based on this basic design provide about the same 85% separation by weight that we get from a far less costly trashcan separator.
This remaining 15% of the finest airborne dust poses serious short term and long term health problems. We can quickly become sensitized to some of the more toxic woods if we have too much exposure. That sensitization can lead to serious immediate reactions such as severe asthma attacks and worse. We all also develop long term damage from too much fine dust exposure. Our bodies do a good job clearing dust down to about 10-microns, but have trouble with finer stuff getting lodged in our tissues. Particles sized 1-micron and smaller pass directly into our blood and can get lodged anywhere. Over time the chemicals and toxins in that dust, plus the silica (glass) will cause almost all to get ill. At typical hobbyist exposures this may take a decade or two, but we have over forty years of insurance data and medical tests that show all are affected with about one in eight developing serious problems. Sadly this often occurs so late in life that many do not tie their respiratory problems to this exposure.
Dust sized 10-microns and smaller is invisible without magnification, creating a big problem for hobbyist woodworkers. Unlike most large woodworking facilities that blow the finest dust away outside, we mostly trap this fine dust inside where it often builds to dangerously unhealthy levels even in shops that do minimal woodworking. It takes six months or more for this dust to dissipate. During this time it gets broken down into finer particles plus gathers extra toxins as it is broken down my molds, mildews, bacteria, yeasts, etc. I know from personal experience this buildup can be dangerous, especially when working with the more toxic woods like walnut, red oak, cocobolo, rosewood, etc. I thought I was well protected because I used the “best” advertised cyclone and “best” oversized 1-micron filter. After landing in the hospital, I did not believe my new respiratory doctor, so had my shop tested. Although praised for such a clean looking shop, my shop after over three months of no woodworking still failed its fine airborne particle counts from just turning on my cyclone with doing no woodworking. My near new fine filter stored up and freely passed most of the fine dust.
This cyclone you modified is near identical to almost all other current hobbyist cyclones and the one I bought. They are all built on plans from the New York Dept. of Labor, Division of Hygiene Engineering published in August 1962. This cyclone design has its roots in a basic agricultural cotton cyclone built with very high internal turbulence to break sand and dirt from cotton fiber. When used with woodworking these agricultural cyclones do an excellent job of “chip separation” breaking the fine dust from heavier and dropping close to 100% of the heavier sawdust and chips into a collection bin while and separating near 0% of the airborne dust particles that it blows right through the cyclone. In short, these cyclones provide almost exactly the same 85% separation efficiency that we get from a trash can separator lid. Instead of just blowing this fine dust directly into the outside air as done by large commercial woodworking cyclones, Delta built their cyclones to blow the fine dust into very open filters that freely pass the airborne dust. These big filters catch the chips and sawdust if the dust bin gets full because cyclones with a full bin blow everything right through. The big commercial units don’t have this problem because they have automatic bin emptying, or sensors that shut down the cyclone when the bin becomes full.
Even with all the changes from my Cyclone Modifications pages this basic cyclone design will still pump nearly 60% of the 30-micon and smaller particles right through. With this fine dust full of silica (glass) that trees use for strength, that dust loading will soon cut and tear its way through fine filters leaving them wide open and of little use to protect your health from the finest unhealthiest dust. Worse, unless you use a particle counter or pressure gauge to know when it is time to change filters, you are not going to see any problems until well after the finest dust levels have become dangerously unhealthy. That is why I strongly recommend venting these cyclones directly outside with open filters and no air returned into your shop.
My own testing showed my cyclone design was over 90% efficient at separating off these fine particles before the filters. This greatly increased filter life, reduces cleaning needs, and provides much better long term health protection. Recently I received the early testing results from a major medical school. They provided some nice praise for my design saying it was more than twice as efficient as any other hobbyist cyclone they tested showing better than 90% separation on the 30-micon and smaller particles.
bill
Keep up the good work Bill, I want to thank you again publicly for your work on this front, if it was not for your cyclone research, I would have been breathing this crap in forever, and or had to give up woodworking.
My Pentz designed cyclone just simply works.
Cheers!
Great info, thanks!
I too was worried about fine particle filtration in my basement shop, I had a sub-2 micron canister that did an adequate but not good enough job of cleaning the air.
I bought a trash can separator to catch the majority of the small particulates and then routed the exit air outdoors. Can't beat that for evacuating the really fine particulates! For those that have a similar setup (basement shop) but are leary of cutting a hole in your house, you won't need to if you have a window. I built an mdf insert with a 6" pipe sticking out of it that mounted on the outside of the frame. When I open the window about halfway, the molding I installed on the insert meets the window frame. I then crack a window on the other side of the basement for the fresh air return. Since I did this my shop has remained amazingly dust free. I get better suction from the DC as well since I removed many restrictions.
Of course I have to chine in!
I was pleasantly surprised to see how you located your cyclone Andy! Its int the exact same place as mine!!
I almost thought it was!
I, like Stu, built Bills' design and except for having installed a bad motor from HF it is working like a charm now that I have a 3.5 hp Leeson (shortly to be replaced with Ed Morganos' 5hp... If you hear the 3.5HP and how it sucks I cant even begin to imagine how the 5hp will work, I may just get sucked in)
Here a pic of mine you can see its in the same location as yours.
By the way, after thanking BIll Pentz for all his invaluable information I have to thank Stu for his intricate description of how he built his cyclone. I dont think Stu will know just how many times I ran to the computer from the shop when I came to an impass to look and see how he had done his then ran back to the shop shouting.."of course!!!"
On piece of advice to any one who is thinking about building a cyclone from Mr Pentz's design...get a power sheet metal cutter! It will pay off over and over again.
Heres a pic of mine:
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachme...1&d=1147395419
This is it now with new base:
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachme...1&d=1152549014
Glad to know I helped, and your advice about the power shears is DEAD on, my hand hurt for a week :D
I just used a jigsaw with a metal-cutting blade. Keep the metal supported close to the cut or else the blade might catch and the jigsaw will be bouncing up and down instead of the blade. BTDT :rolleyes: :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Stu Ablett in Tokyo Japan
Also, most importantly, wear a full face shield when cutting metal because little pieces of metal go flying.
Cheers,
Allan
Allan,Quote:
Originally Posted by Allan Johanson
I really agree on the need to wear a face mask when sawing metal. My son cut a lot of these metal kits and we tried just about everything.
We started with a big pair of metal tin snips, but those will kill your hands soon. We shifted to the compound tin snips which cut slower but give the extra leverage to save the hands. Unfortunately, ours had serrated edges that messed up the cuts. My jig saw worked fairly well once we also learned to properly support the metal, but it was slow and we were going through the Bosch metal cutting blades by the gross. I then bought an electric nibbler that cut little 1/8 moon shaped pieces. It worked slowly and those pieces went everywhere. We then bought an air powered cutter that worked by cutting a 3/16” strip with a moveable blade moving between two fixed blades. That worked best yet, but it was a cheap unit and only lasted a few cyclones before biting the dust. We next got a good quality electric metal sheer. That worked well and allowed just following a plywood template for a quick and pretty accurate cutout. I recently helped a friend cut one with a HF metal sheer and it worked as quickly as our more expensive unit and only cost $20. I don’t know if that was a sale price or not, but is the way I would recommend going as we were done with the cutting in less than an hour. We spent longer than that doing the layout.
Regardless of some saying these are a pain to build, I still get a few people each week asking questions and building their own cyclones very successfully from my plans.
bill
Hi,
I went through this entire thread. There is a heck of a lot of information here.
Thanks a Million!
Enjoy,
Jim
Andy , could you post some pictures?
I want to do the exact same thing.
Thank you.
Bert
I'm in process of producing my MacIntyre cyclone powered by a Jet 2hp DC. I sure would like to see pictures of your set up!
Keep in mind guys, this thread was started 5 years ago!!! Hopefully these guys are still around and will post pictures. I know Stu is no longer here at the Creek, but you can do a U-tube search on Stu's Dungeon Workshop and come up with some videos of his. Jim.
very good write up... I have a cyclone just like what you have, got it in a trade. I am also running a 2hp dc with a 2hp leeson motor on it. My first thing that I am going to try though is to get the dust outside in a box.... if that cant be accomplished then I am going to try the setup you just described.