Shopnotes Vol 3 issue 13 dust collector

[Nelson Aragon]

Anyone actually built the dust collector in Vol3 issue 13 of Shopnotes? Looking at Bill P's site, it looks like this size system should not work efficiently..anyone out there have any personal experience with this specific setup (1 hp blower)?

[Bruce Wrenn]

I haven't built this unit. but if memory serves me correct, they use speaker cloth for the return air filter. That's like putting 3/4" hardware cloth on a screen door to keep out flies. It keeps out the BIG ones More have built the Wood Magazine cyclone. While it's not the best in separation, equipted with proper filter bags (0.5 - 1.0 micron) it does a good job. I have enjoyed mine for the past ten years or so.

[John Lifer]

From what has been posted elsewhere in the past, the Shopnotes is a first generation of the Wood mag cyclone. If I were to build one, I'd get the Wood mag plan and go from there.

[Howard Acheson]

From what has been posted elsewhere in the past, the Shopnotes is a first generation of the Wood mag cyclone. If I were to build one, I'd get the Wood mag plan and go from there.

The same guy designed both. He was first at ShopNotes then went to Wood Magazine. The Wood Magazine was much improved and the plans are still available at the Wood Magazine site I believe. A lot of folks built the Wood Magazine version around the time of publication.

[Jerome Hanby]

Seem like I recall hearing both of those cyclones abused. I know it was discouraging enough that I took it off my one of these days list. Since then I've seen so many "if it's not Bill Penze blessed it's junk" postings that I no longer know what to believe. As I recall it looked like a fun project. I bet a model built with common sense modifications would work fine. I'd love to hear from someone that has built one.

[Bruce Wrenn]

I personally have help build over 50 of the Wood Magazine ones. I used to teach workshops on building them. The one thing I do different from the Wood plans, is I get all my metal from one piece of 26ga that is 3' X 8'. My cone is one piece, not three pieces. Don't forget to install the neutral vane, which wasn't included in the original plans.

[Eric Bong]

My dad built one of the shop notes cyclones. I have it now. It seems to work well, but I have no frame of reference for comparison as it was my first and only dust collector. I did replace the home made filter with one of the Wynn industrial cartridge filters. That did improve the air flow.

[Aaron Rowland]

Wood's cyclone was a real break though in dust control. If it had not been published I don't think any attention would have been given to cyclones. However it was just a start in 2002 and Wood sure could use an up date. John Dilbeck spotted an article about a "neutral vane" in a technical article and added it to his Wood design cyclone. He was published in the Wood issue Ap 2002. He had also added a 12" impeller to the cyclone instead of the called for 10". CFM tests before the mod were about 300 CFM. After it jumped to about 350 with 4" ducts as I remember. Wood never published fan curves that I know of. That is very poor for today's standards and not worth building in my opinion. There have also been some technical articles written about the effect of a neutral vane on particle separation. Theoretically the higher the pressure drop the better the particle separation according to most articles. The neutral vane reduces pressure drop and increases CFM and some claim it has a negative effect on particle separation. I don't use a filter and hate the things so don't care about separation but only CFM. No mag has ever tested for particle separation and the CFM is the major concern. In todays systems there is little difference in CFM if the impellers are the same size.

I have designed and built several cyclones, two for my sons and others. Some were better then others but they are not rocket science. The Pentz cyclone may be the best but I don't know and it's hard to build. Today I would just copy the Oneida V shape with a sliding Neutral vane. Easy to build and a sheetmetal shop could make one for $150- or so.

I have the Oneida Dust Dusty on my shop vac. They were available for about $39.00 on Amazon. A wonderful unit and I highly recommend it. You could just scale this thing up to about a 19" diameter with a 6" inlet and I think you would like the results. Very easy to build.

[Mike Harrison]

I built my cyclone based on the plans published by wood Mag some 10 or so years ago I guess. It was easy to build, and the only thing I added was a neutral vane which was not in the original plans. I also made my own impeller and blower. I found the 1 Micron pleated filters at a damaged freight auction house for not much money, and THAT was a lucky find. This has worked great and has handled anything I've thrown at it.

I just wish I had a taller ceiling so I could use a bigger collection barrel. The small barrel is really inconvenient when I'm planing, because the volume of chips is tremendous.

[Dan Henry]

I made the Shop Notes one when the article 1st came out, I used a 1 HP double bag blower as the vacuum source and 4 inch PVC ducts, work ok
I made the Wood Mag one 5 or 6 years ago and used a Penn Stage 2 1/2 220 volt blower and it really does work muck better. I still am using the 4 inch PVC ducts and know I would have better system if I would upgrade to 6 inch ducts. The Bill Pentz web site is great and using his planning to make the cyclone is very informational.

Dan

Dan