Yet another DC project

[Angie Orfanedes]

My shop is small – basically I have most of my power tools in a row down one wall with most on wheels so I can move them as needed (and also get them out of the way of the cars). I recently added a lathe and when sanding, the dust was starting to get to me. Sound familiar?

I had previously added a fresh air intake on one side of the shop and an attic exhaust fan on the other to exhaust it all. While that helped, it did not do enough.

So with the help of a 20% off coupon I bought the ever popular 2HP HF unit:
HF Dust Collector.gif

After reading many posts here and on several other websites, I decided, to modify the unit, so now it looks like this.
Dust Collector 004.jpg



The enclosure is made of ¾ plywood, and the metal can is 30 gallons. You will notice that the metal can is off the bottom by about an inch. The impeller/motor is on top and draws through a 5 inch duct that extends about 2.5 inches down into the separator unit, to which I added a Thien baffle (Google “Phil Thien” for details – that guy is brilliant). Most of this design came from others except for the plywood box/eyebolt hook ideas. The plywood box allows me to remove the metal can without lifting up the heavy motor/impeller unit. The metal can is held up by two eyebolt hooks - one in the front left corner, and one in the back right corner. The metal can is removed by loosening the nuts on the eyebolt hooks that pull up on the metal can handles. I also cut an access hole on the right side to ease the access to the right-rear eyebolt hook.
Dust Collector 005.jpg




Living in the sunny South (it only snowed once this year), I will exhaust the fine dust out to Mother Nature through a dryer vent, which I have yet to install. The long hose coiled on the floor will be shortened and hooked to that dryer vent . Since my garage is unheated, I will not be losing much heat….and it could be a good thing in the summertime.

I have run 4 inch S&D PVC to the tools in the line – and the one farthest from the DC is 15 feet – so while I know 5 inch pipe would have been better, this seems to have a lot of suction - the initial tests have been very good. I have installed self-made blast gates, so that only one machine at a time has an open inlet. The Thien baffle is also amazingly effective.

I built in a floor sweep inlet controlled by a blast gate, and I really like that. This week I will build the inlet collectors for the lathe, the belt sander and the table saw. I will post more pictures when the inlet collectors are done.

Thanks to everyone for your previous posts on DC's,
Angie

(No, I am a guy)

[Joel Earl]

Looks great Angie - nice mods and work!

I had the HF for many years, bet I bought in 2002 or '03 - and the things still is running fine, altho someone else has it in use use.

I can't imagine a better bang for the buck DC around unless it's stolen or mis-labeled at a shop sale!

Enjoy it and slick looking setup you got. I wish I had thought "outside" the box years back too. I could have used the extra shop space back then

Edited: Is that the HF lathe hiding off to the side? How do you like it? Thx

[Angie Orfanedes]

I am just learning to turn, but so far I like the lathe. It is a near clone of the Jet 12 x 34 1/2, with the motor in the same strange location (sticking out beyond the chuck spindle). This machine only goes down to 600 rpm where the Jet gets down to 450 rpm - biggest difference I can see so far. I built a shelf box on top of the cross members of the lathe stand, and loaded it with about 250 pounds of sand and weights - and it makes the lathe feel very stable.

HF keeps sending me those 20% off coupons, and I feel bad if I don't use them.

[Art Mulder]

Looks like a neat design.

I hope you don't have nearby neighbours who might not appreciate the find dust you'll be exhausting...

[Angie Orfanedes]

Installed the dryer outlet yesterday - had to poke a hole through a brick wall ...in the rain - no fun there. But now finally, the DC is exhausting directly outside through the dryer outlet. The Thien baffle does such a good job, that the only stuff exhausted is so tiny it is invisible, and I figure it is actually better than blowing chips and dust out of my garage with a leaf blower. And fortunately the houses here are not super close.

[Mike Griffin]

I'm going to use your can suspenion system with a bolt thru knob.

Mike

[keith ouellette]

That looks like a smart design. Good idea about the hooks holding up the collection can.

To make sure I am straight on how your system works..

The grey flex hose exhausts to the outside and the white pvc pulls chips/dust from the machines. The heavy particles fall in the can.

Is that right. I Looked at the picture again and think I have it backwards. The grey line pulls from the machines and the pvc exhausts to the outside. which one is right.

[Angie Orfanedes]

...and the gray flex line is connected to the exhaust of the impeller. The gray flex line is now much shorter and connected to the dryer vent that goes through the wall to the great outdoors. The impeller/motor housing sits on top and has a 5 inch inlet that reaches down into the collector housing (that's what I'm calling the lower green cylinder). So the impeller pulls a vacuum from the collector which in turn causes a suction on the white PVC line. The chips and dust come into the collector, drawn by the vacuum. The chips and dust then hit the inside of the collector and are drawn a circular path until they lose enough velocity to fall down through the side opening in the Thien baffle down to the metal can. So far, I have not been able to see anything exiting from the exhaust line - it all seems to be trapped in the metal can.

[Jack Horner]

Angie,

Nice design, I might give it a try. What holds the Collector Housing in place? Also, is the Thein baffle a separate piece inside the green Collector Housing or is it part of the plywood base that the Housing sits on (so the plywood base is a square with a slot cut in it to form the Thein baffle and base)? Thanks.

Jack

[Angie Orfanedes]

Angie,

Nice design, I might give it a try. What holds the Collector Housing in place? Also, is the Thein baffle a separate piece inside the green Collector Housing or is it part of the plywood base that the Housing sits on (so the plywood base is a square with a slot cut in it to form the Thein baffle and base)? Thanks.

Jack

Hi Jack,

The collector is trapped between the top of the plywood box, and the next square of plywood above it. The plywood corners shown next to the collector hold this part of the assembly together.

The Thien baffle is a separate piece (1/4 inch MDF) near the bottom of the green collector housing. It is held there by three pieces of one inch dowel, that are also connected to the inside ramp piece of the collector. This idea came from the Phil Thein website - if you google "Jet DC Thien", it should bring you to a reference with photographs of this same mod. If that doesn't work, send me a PM and I'll send you the URL.

Your comment/question about building the Thien baffle into the top of the plywood box is interesting. I briefly considered that, but I couldn't figure out how to support the free side of the baffle without interfering with the flow. I also wanted the baffle to be thinner than the 3/4 inch plywood.

This whole discussion makes me wish my SketchUp talents were more developed. Maybe someday....

Angie

[Stephen Edwards]

That's a very nice looking setup and well thought out. Thanks for sharing...........

[Greg McCallister]

Angie,
Your design is somewhat similar to mine (posted here) but you did not have to actually build the upper chamber. I was thinking along those line before I built mine but wanted to up the pipe to 6" - Nice job!

[Angie Orfanedes]

Hi Greg,

I read a lot of posts while I was scratching my head trying to figure out what to do - and I am pretty sure yours was one of them. Thanks for the inspiration. And yes, beer is a hobby.

Angie

[Frank Hagan]

Angie, I'm thinking of "stealing" your design, but locating the whole thing outside. How tall is your total assembly?

If I could nest it below a bathroom window (set fairly high in the wall), I have the perfect outdoor location for it. I would probably use some kind of "drop box" on the outlet just to slow down the air and collect any fines.

[Angie Orfanedes]

Hi Frank,

The whole assembly is 54 inches tall - but the motor is on top and would some kind of protection from the weather to at least keep rain off of it.