Jet DC cone tech - WHY NO RETROFIT????

[Paul McGaha]

Hi Sean,

I used to have a Delta that size with the cannister filter and I dont remember the filter getting all that dirty. I used to stir it at least once a day, just whenever I happened to think of it when I walked by it. Actually once it went into service I never took the filter off of it or cleaned it. The collecter always worked really well. No problems at all with air flow.

The pictures of the old style filter looked to me to be sort of exagerated as to how much dust is usually in there. I wonder if you gave the filter a good stir, let the dust fall into the bag, then took the bag off how much dust is still really in the filter? I'm thinking it should be pretty clean really.

I do see your point though, If it is a markedly better idea they should make it available for their older machines.

I havent seen any of the other manufacturers that make a similar dust collector come out with something like that.

PHM

[Joseph Tarantino]

Here is the reply I got from Jet today
Hello John,

Thank you for writing. We do offer canister filter kits that will interchange to fit the filter bag style DC-1000’s, but we will not offer a VX retrofit kit for the original DC-1100 series.


Thank you,

Debbie Sons
Internet Customer Support
Walter Meier (Manufacturing) Inc.
427 New Sanford Road
LaVergne, TN 37086
www.waltermeier.com

it's like i've always said about jet: really polite and absolutely useless.

[Bruce Wrenn]

Google PHIL THIEN, and get over your misery. You CAN do it yourself, for just a few bucks. I don't blame Jet for not offering retrofits. They are in business to sell machines, not upgrade them. Want the upgrade, buy a new machine and sell your old one. Find someone who has new style, and take ruler and camera over there and see if it's a doable thing to upgrade.

[Nathan Callender]

Sean - what you may not realize is that it probably (most definitely) is not profitable for them to design, bid, get produced (in quantities of 10K or more), shipped, packaged, warehoused, distributed, etc, a part that by all measurements will a) be far more expensive than the scrap of plywood and 20 minutes it takes most people to make one, and b) not many would fork over the cash for. The market for that part has got to be minuscule already, and thein isn't making things any better for them. :-)

You can't blame a company for NOT making a product that doesn't have a profit in it.

Just my 0.02

[Sean Hughto]

Sean - what you may not realize is that it probably (most definitely) is not profitable for them to design, bid, get produced (in quantities of 10K or more), shipped, packaged, warehoused, distributed, etc, a part that by all measurements will a) be far more expensive than the scrap of plywood and 20 minutes it takes most people to make one, and b) not many would fork over the cash for. The market for that part has got to be minuscule already, and thein isn't making things any better for them. :-)

You can't blame a company for NOT making a product that doesn't have a profit in it.

Just my 0.02

Nathan, no offense, but how do you know any of this stuff?

the profitability
the costs of production
the cost that would be charged
the willingness of customers to pay
the merits of the new product relative to DIY alternatives
the size of the market
etc.?

For the record, I would agree that no one owes me making an unprofitable product. However, I don't believe we have the facts available to conclude anything about the relative profitability of producing extra cone parts to be sold separately. Presumably they will have to do so for servicing the new machines anyway.

[Alan Schaffter]

Frankly JET should be criticized (as should other manufacturers who provide a similar DC setup) for marketing a single stage DC with a cartridge filter and claiming that is more than the POS it is- that is the real crime!

Their "vortex" equipped unit, while better than their older version, is still passing enough fine dust to clog that filter- it just takes a little longer. You can see it covering the filter pleats in their video! The fine dust is harder to see, yet it does as good a job or better clogging the air passages in cartridge filters, some of them permanently!! Clogged filters mean less CFM and less dust collection at the source. As many of you know those cartridges are not cheap!

As to a retrofit, I must agree with Nathan- if it is profitable for a company to provide parts to upgrade older units, they WILL do it. Remember, they are not making a DC to protect you, save you money, be your friend, etc., they are making a product to make money and nothing more.

[Curt Harms]

Sean, I'd be willing to bet if its a simple add-on and Jet wont offer it as one...someone else will. I own the similar dc but in a powermatic, I also hate the performance loss and frequency of filter cleaning. I've been looking at the thien baffle to help combat the problem. It would be REALLY nice if there was an add on though that did not require a seperate container. As many of these style dc units that are around, I'd assume it would be a short time before an aftermarket source jumps on this design.

The Thien baffle works great without the extra container. In fact I don't have and don't want the baffle/trash can before the impeller. It takes up room I don't have and adds hoses/plumbing. I made mine and mounted it in the bottom of the metal funnel on the dust collector. Cost virtually nothing, takes up no extra space and works very well. Wood waste still goes through the impeller but it would with the Jet add-on too. I have a write-up on SMC here: http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...fle&highlight=
There are creative installations using a single trash can, D.C. blower and Thien baffle posted here and elsewhere. Mine works and the plumbing's in place so I probably won't mess with it.

[Sean Hughto]

Remember, they are not making a DC to protect you, save you money, be your friend, etc., they are making a product to make money and nothing more.

A appreciate your response, and agree with most of it. But this last bit, I hope it's not true. I think good companies should care about more than making money by hook or by crook. They should care about making good quality products that serve customers well. They should recognize that customer goodwill is important to long term profitability (the customer is more likely to buy from the company again). Treating a customer well over the long term, and developing a reputation for being a good and honest supplier means not thinking about short term single transaction profitability alone, but long term customer relationships and reputation that will bring far more profitability overall. In short, I suspect Jet here is being penny wise and pound foolish, as the saying goes.

[Matt Meiser]

Do you really think Jet is going to see a significant loss of business over the next couple years because they don't offer a kit to upgrade their DC's to the latest variation? Not likely.

In general a manufacturing offering any kind of information, much less a kit, to upgrade their product to the latest version is the exception to the rule. It just isn't commonly done. If you want the new feature you either figure out how to add it yourself, or you sell/dispose the old one and buy the new one.

If Jet considered making a kit as you say and decided not to, that tells me one of two things. Either a) its not profitable to do so (whether because the cost would be too high to make it sell, or the market is too small, or whatever or b) its too complicated to do so--maybe major modifications would be required to change the baffling, maybe the fan curve has changed or again, whatever. I'm pretty sure they aren't doing as some personal vendetta against you.

[Sean Hughto]

Do you really think Jet is going to see a significant loss of business over the next couple years because they don't offer a kit to upgrade their DC's to the latest variation? Not likely.

In general a manufacturing offering any kind of information, much less a kit, to upgrade their product to the latest version is the exception to the rule. It just isn't commonly done. If you want the new feature you either figure out how to add it yourself, or you sell/dispose the old one and buy the new one.

If Jet considered making a kit as you say and decided not to, that tells me one of two things. Either a) its not profitable to do so (whether because the cost would be too high to make it sell, or the market is too small, or whatever or b) its too complicated to do so--maybe major modifications would be required to change the baffling, maybe the fan curve has changed or again, whatever. I'm pretty sure they aren't doing as some personal vendetta against you.

I never said anything about a personal vendetta against me, Matt. Jet can do what they want, but their decision has alienated at least one customer.

As far as not commonly done, Jet itself has done it with their cannister/bag retrofit.

As far as Jet considering a retrofit on this and rejecting it, you are speculating. A more realistic speculation in my opinion is that they would rather force you to spend another $700+ for a replacement than allow you to upgrade your past investment in their product for $100 or less. If it does have a good reason, it would be nice if Jet told us.

[Phil Thien]

The demonstration is a little suspect, if you ask me. The units aren't connected to any equipment, but they do have dust in the bottom bags. Where did the dust come from? Was it shoveled into the bags and then the bags placed on the DC? If so, what is the composition of the dust? Did it all come off a planer or jointer (all chips) or did they include some stuff from a sander (fines). Is the composition in both bottom bags equal?

Now they run the machines for twenty minutes. So they are really demonstrating their ability to prevent scrubbing. We aren't talking about separation here. No new dust is coming in, no separation is occurring. We're just trying to prevent what is in the bottom bag from reaching the top filter.

Nonetheless, it seems (I would agree with Alan on this) that a considerable amount of fines are making it upstairs. I assume they started with clean filters. When you combine the fact that we just don't know how much fines there were in the bottom bag to begin with, it is a little shocking how many of them are making it up to the top when they aren't even running any dust-generating machines. Notice that they don't wrap the right-hand filter with the palm of their hand, BTW.

So it seems that, in terms of scrubbing, it isn't that hot. And we have no idea how well it works in terms of separation.

A comment that they make during the video is that they prevent 98% of CHIPS from getting to the filter. So are we to assume that during real-world use (while running the planer or jointer) that 2% of your chips are going to go to the filter? That is a lot of chips up there.

If I were you I'd just make one of my baffles. You can do it for five bucks and have enough money left over for a beer.

These are all just one man's personal opinions, of course.

[Sean Hughto]

The demonstration is a little suspect, if you ask me. The units aren't connected to any equipment, but they do have dust in the bottom bags. Where did the dust come from? Was it shoveled into the bags and then the bags placed on the DC? If so, what is the composition of the dust? Did it all come off a planer or jointer (all chips) or did they include some stuff from a sander (fines). Is the composition in both bottom bags equal?

Now they run the machines for twenty minutes. So they are really demonstrating their ability to prevent scrubbing. We aren't talking about separation here. No new dust is coming in, no separation is occurring. We're just trying to prevent what is in the bottom bag from reaching the top filter.

Nonetheless, it seems (I would agree with Alan on this) that a considerable amount of fines are making it upstairs. I assume they started with clean filters. When you combine the fact that we just don't know how much fines there were in the bottom bag to begin with, it is a little shocking how many of them are making it up to the top when they aren't even running any dust-generating machines. Notice that they don't wrap the right-hand filter with the palm of their hand, BTW.

So it seems that, in terms of scrubbing, it isn't that hot. And we have no idea how well it works in terms of separation.

A comment that they make during the video is that they prevent 98% of CHIPS from getting to the filter. So are we to assume that during real-world use (while running the planer or jointer) that 2% of your chips are going to go to the filter? That is a lot of chips up there.

If I were you I'd just make one of my baffles. You can do it for five bucks and have enough money left over for a beer.

These are all just one man's personal opinions, of course.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply, Phil. I'm generally aware of your baffle, but not the specifics. My vague understanding was that it was a "better mousetrap" sort of cyclone cannister device that trapped most chips before the steam even got to the impeller. Is that right? Is there any CFM volume penalty to your device - i.e., do you lose suction power overall? If there is a post or website somewhere that addresses this stuff, of course, feel free to just send me to a link. I don't expect you to recreate the wheel for my benefit in this thread. Again, thanks for the reply. I will definitely look into your solution.

Best,

Sean

[Phil Thien]

Sean, I sent a PM.

[Kevin Gregoire]

not to change topics but since there are so many jet owners viewing and responding to this post i wanted to ask which machine is better,
one with a top bag or the canister filter? how long does the filter last before needing replacement? its just so VERY expensive.

[Alan Schaffter]

not to change topics but since there are so many jet owners viewing and responding to this post i wanted to ask which machine is better,
one with a top bag or the canister filter? how long does the filter last before needing replacement? its just so VERY expensive.

Unfortunately, the correct answer is neither as far as dust collection "at the source". Without a pre-separator, both will clog quickly which results in reduced CFM and suction at the source. Cartridge filters have quite a bit much more surface area, but that only matters if you are just collecting fine dust. The tightly packed pleat design will clog as quickly and easily as a bag if sucking up both chips and fine dust. Without a pre-separator, both are a lose-lose proposition. As far as dust passing through the filter, most cartridges perform better than most bags.