Dual Thien Baffle idea

[Nick Abbott]

Thanks Phil. I will be building my first Thien baffle next week.

[Peter Aeschliman]

Alright, so I decided not to vent outside at all. This cost me a lot more money, but I went with the 36" tall Wynn Environmental Poly spun bond .5 micron cartridge filters.

The reason is that I turned on my new DC without the ducting attached and realized that this thing really pulls a lot of air. I have been working hard on insulating and drywalling my shop for heat in the winters, and it would be really counterproductive of me to suck all of the warm air out of my shop like that. I definitely thought about this issue before, but I didn't really get how much air I would be blowing out of the shop until now!

I'll keep you guys posted. They have to make my filters and ship them to Seattle from PA, so I won't be getting them for at least a few weeks. I can still build the thien baffles without them though.

From what I've seen, my setup will be pretty unique. I'm excited to see how well it performs.

[Greg McCallister]

This is my version of Phil's baffle. being that you have one heck of a blower - I would like to see what that would do on mine.
Good luck.

Edit- here is another mod I did after the first post.

[Peter Aeschliman]

Yeah, I saw those threads. Great work!

The only downside I see of my adaptation vs. yours is that all material passes through the impeller. I don't think this is a major problem since I use my shop vac to clean up the shop. My dust collector will only be hooked up to my tools.

I can't wait to get this thing hooked up and going! I'm working on the baffle tonight and tomorrow. Should be done tomorrow with the exception of the Wynn Environmental filters, which won't be here for a few weeks.

[George Bregar]

I know this is an old thread, but question pertains to it. I am contemplating installing a Thien seperator in front of a Grizz G1030Z2 DC http://www.grizzly.com/products/3-HP...peller/G1030Z2. My shop is in a converted three car garage at my lake home in northern WI, so although I would prefer to exhaust outside, I was thinking in the winter I would run it through the DC. My idea was to install blast gates on the output side as shown with red arrows in the picture attached. One side would have the bag replaced and 6" PVC to outside exhaust. The other side would have the upper bag replaced with a high performance filter. Opening/closing the blast gates would direct the output to either the bag/filter or outside. I don't think that this would degrade performance as the exhaust diameter is the same as each output in the "Y". Any thoughts?

Oh, it will be 6" in/out of the Thien and I will pull the triple connection to the DC and run 6" to it.

[Peter Aeschliman]

That's a really interesting idea! I wish I had thought of it.

Man, I might have to copy this somehow!

My thought (with no experience to back it up) is that you'd probably want to install more of a "flap" or "diverter" where the duct splits off, rather than installing two blast gates. I say this because although the air will follow the path of least resistance (meaning, through the open blast gate), you also have to consider the trajectory of dust as it comes out of the impeller... it will try to blow up into the closed off section of the duct, causing turbulence.

I'm no physicist, so I might be overestimating the issue... And this would definitely be more of a problem if you designed your DC like I did (with the separator AFTER the impeller inside the rings) because you'd be dealing with larger chips rather than fine dust.

Just a thought to consider.

[George Bregar]

My thought (with no experience to back it up) is that you'd probably want to install more of a "flap" or "diverter" where the duct splits off, rather than installing two blast gates. I say this because although the air will follow the path of least resistance (meaning, through the open blast gate), you also have to consider the trajectory of dust as it comes out of the impeller... it will try to blow up into the closed off section of the duct, causing turbulence.

I actually had the same thoughts, hopefully someone can add to this. I think a flapper would be very difficult to engineer and make however. Wait...why not just have a 6" long sweep elbow that goes one way...or the other? Make the change in December, change it back in May?

Edit: Need something to hold the bag/filter, I think Sched 40 PVC would be okay. Just would need to fab a fitting to transition from the round PVC to square fitting.

[Dan Hintz]

In the interest of full disclosure, I am patenting it. But I don't mind people making their own (for personal use), either. I'm not trying to get rich or anything.

Phil,

I know it's an old thread, but since someone else brought it to the top...

When did you file the patent on this? I ask because if it was made public before the patent was filed, the patent is unlikely to hold up in court...

[George Bregar]

Phil,

I know it's an old thread, but since someone else brought it to the top...

When did you file the patent on this? I ask because if it was made public before the patent was filed, the patent is unlikely to hold up in court...

Think it's actually a year before.

[Bob Riefer]

Working on a foggy memory from a patent class at work... but

if it was made public before the patent was filed, the patent is unlikely to hold up in court

I believe "prior art" is defined as public mention of an idea. Prior art can squash a secondary "inventor" from getting a patent granted on the primary inventor's idea (that is proven by the presence of prior art). So I do not think that Phil publicly mentioning an idea has bearing on Phil getting a patent - although it would have bearing on whether someone other than Phil could get a patent for his baffle design.

But I'm no expert, I'm just paraphrasing what we were taught by the attorneys at my company.

[Phil Thien]

According to my attorney, I had one year from public disclosure to file (which we did).

There are some compromises when you do it as I did. But there are some benefits which (for me) outweighed the compromises.

[George Bregar]

Ok, I was right about the one year, how about the design Phil? Will closing one of the "Y's" with a blastgate detriment the flow?

[Peter Aeschliman]

Wait...why not just have a 6" long sweep elbow that goes one way...or the other? Make the change in December, change it back in May?

The simplest solution is often the best one. If you're only going to be changing it over once or twice per year, I don't see any issue with doing it this way.

[Phil Thien]

Ok, I was right about the one year, how about the design Phil? Will closing one of the "Y's" with a blastgate detriment the flow?

Yep, but I doubt it would be enough to be consequential.

[George Bregar]

Yep, but I doubt it would be enough to be consequential.

Yeah, thats what I thought...and thanks again for your design. It certainly has to have commercial appeal. Hope you do get rich!