need help deciding how to do dust collection in garage.

[James Baker SD]

My shop is half of our garage which, by order of SWMBO, has to remain a garage with room for the car. Hence all my machines except the drill press and lathe are on mobile platforms and get moved against the wall at night. I also have failing lungs which, by order of pulmonologist, needs best dust collection I can obtain. Erring on the side of overkill, I purchased an Oneida Pro2000 cyclone and essentially connect one machine at a time to it. Trying to follow Bill Pentz' advice I have been retrofitting the various machines with larger ports and often with two ports on a machine. (Table saw has 6" port in cabinet and 4" port above the blade, jointer has 7" port, bandsaw has 5" port at bottom wheel and 4" port by blade guide, etc trying to optimize each machine) The cyclone itself has the original 8" port reduced to 7". The result is total chaos in the flex hoses, wyes, reducers laying on the shop floor. It is so I can almost not walk around any longer due to the clutter on the floor.

Does it make sense for me to try to run a 7" duct system along the ceiling? The cyclone is pretty much stationary due to its weight although it is on a Vega mobile base. I do not see a logical way of ducting the "shop" since almost none of the machines sits at night where I use it in the day. I really don't want a bunch of flex hoses hanging uselessly from the ceiling (seems something more to bump into when I try to walk around); neither do I really want to climb a ladder to connect a flex hose (I use the Nordbadquick connect system) up to wyes at ceiling height. Seems hopeless to me, but I am opening someone out there sees a clever solution.

A separate shop is out as there is no room on our property for another structure. Leaving the car is out if I want to stay married. I already protect myself with a 3M PAPR system that I wear all the time I am out there, but I would like to figure out something GOOD for the cyclone. Right now I am losing my enjoyment of woodworking because the clutter in the shop is becoming such an obstacle. This has to be corrected, as I do not want to give up my hobby.

Thanks for any and all suggestions.

James

[David Kumm]

I would duct the 7" and drop down in several places with the full 7" to waist or just above the machine table height. A 7" drop will give you the ability to fit up to two ports of various sizes and the 2000 will have enough cfm to handle them. In fact it will handle 8" mains but the 7" will work in your application. The best thing for your lungs is to run the DC with good filters and an open gate when you are out there. The shop will have the cleanest air you breathe. Dave

[Michael W. Clark]

If you follow David's advice and have 7" drops at multiple locations that are stationary, then you could plumb your machines so that the multiple connections on each machine end in a 7" connection. Afix the 6" and 4" duct to the machine so that it stays with the machine and rolls out of the way. Then, when you get the machine out, you only have to connect the 7" duct. The 6" and 4" duct are already connected.

Open the garage door when you can and use box fans or other fans to blow the dust away from you. I had a garage shop when we lived in Arkansas. The garage also had a side door. I could open the side door and work in the end of the garage with the big door up and get a good cross draft.

[Ole Anderson]

Personally I would go with a 7" main and 6" drops as you want a slightly higher velocity in the verticals and you won't likely need two blast gates open at once, except for the table saw, and there the table top collector will probably go directly to the 7" main. The 7" to the jointer might be the exception. A 5" and a 4" to a bandsaw seems like a lot of air for that tiny blade contact area and fairly low ejection velocity. But then you are talking a 5 hp pro dc cyclone.

[David Kumm]

Personally I would go with a 7" main and 6" drops as you want a slightly higher velocity in the verticals and you won't likely need two blast gates open at once, except for the table saw, and there the table top collector will probably go directly to the 7" main. The 7" to the jointer might be the exception. A 5" and a 4" to a bandsaw seems like a lot of air for that tiny blade contact area and fairly low ejection velocity. But then you are talking a 5 hp pro dc cyclone.

The 2000 should move air in the 7" pipe at over 5000fpm. Just trying to avoid buying two sizes of pipe and the 7x7x7 wye will be cheaper than 7x7x6 although the drop will need a wye if two ports are used. Mainly using the 7" drop to bring as much cfm down to where you can use it. A shaper with two ports or an old tablesaw with crappy internal DC are probably all that would need it. Dave

[Ole Anderson]

The 2000 should move air in the 7" pipe at over 5000fpm. Just trying to avoid buying two sizes of pipe and the 7x7x7 wye will be cheaper than 7x7x6 although the drop will need a wye if two ports are used. Mainly using the 7" drop to bring as much cfm down to where you can use it. A shaper with two ports or an old tablesaw with crappy internal DC are probably all that would need it. Dave

Just remember you are only going to get as much air in the 7" vertical pipe as your inlet and upstream piping will allow, so you will get that 5000 fpm only if you have a couple of medium gates, or one 7" gate wide open. If you have a smaller machine with a 4 or 5" inlet, you will be starving that 7" for air. But to determine pipe velocities, you need a full pipe analysis to determine losses and where that puts you on the fan curve.

[Salem Ganzhorn]

James, I have 1/2 of a 2 car garage. I used to move my tools around to use them. But it took too much time/effort to setup and tear down.

Now I have a semi permanent setup and am in the process of running 6" PVC to all my machines. I wont claim to have conquered the beast but it is working pretty well. I have big tools too: 18" bandsaw, 15" planer, 8" jointer, router table, cabinet saw with 50" rails, 15" drill press, jet 1236 lathe, grinder, scms, OSS, 82x24 bench etc.
Good luck!
Salem

[David Kumm]

Just remember you are only going to get as much air in the 7" vertical pipe as your inlet and upstream piping will allow, so you will get that 5000 fpm only if you have a couple of medium gates, or one 7" gate wide open. If you have a smaller machine with a 4 or 5" inlet, you will be starving that 7" for air. But to determine pipe velocities, you need a full pipe analysis to determine losses and where that puts you on the fan curve.

Ole, that is correct assuming the blower is at max resistence. If so you need to open the other port. My 5 hp system though that runs over 5000 fpm in the 7" will pull considerably more through a 4" gate. depending on the location 7000-10000 fpm so velocity is unlikely to be an issue with the 2000 system unless the 4" flex is pretty long. Dave

[James Baker SD]

James, I have 1/2 of a 2 car garage. I used to move my tools around to use them. But it took too much time/effort to setup and tear down.

Now I have a semi permanent setup and am in the process of running 6" PVC to all my machines. I wont claim to have conquered the beast but it is working pretty well. I have big tools too: 18" bandsaw, 15" planer, 8" jointer, router table, cabinet saw with 50" rails, 15" drill press, jet 1236 lathe, grinder, scms, OSS, 82x24 bench etc.
Good luck!
Salem

Salem:

Did you make your semi permanent setup a ring around the edge of the one side of the garage or did it become a 1 car garage? I have a 2 car garage, all tools on one side, but still needs to get 2 cars in at night. Fortunately, it is a rather large 2 car garage (tools along 1 wall and between the cars--limited to 2 cars because it has 2 single car doors with a load bearing wall between them supporting the 2nd floor of the house), and I think if I got clever enough I could come up with a solution.

James

[James Baker SD]

Ole, that is correct assuming the blower is at max resistence. If so you need to open the other port. My 5 hp system though that runs over 5000 fpm in the 7" will pull considerably more through a 4" gate. depending on the location 7000-10000 fpm so velocity is unlikely to be an issue with the 2000 system unless the 4" flex is pretty long. Dave

David:

For the machines that still have only a single 4" port, I run 5' of 7" flex then a reducer to 5' of 4" flex. I move the machine to within 10' of the DC. Eventually no machine will have only a single 4" port.

So far I am getting some ideas based on the replies that could work. Thanks to all.

James

[Salem Ganzhorn]

All of my tools are on one side. But I use the empty space as indeed for my TS. My layout looks something like:
garage.png
Note: It is not exactly like this. The lathe is actually in the hole by the water heater. Oh and there is wood, junk and scrap everywhere .

The toughest part is the garage door overhang. Makes getting DC to my bandsaw, planer and jointer tough. But in this setup the only tool I have to move to use is the planer for long boards. And sometimes I have to open the garage door for the jointer.
Salem

[Jim Matthews]

Two things I wonder about, in this set up (I have a bandsaw, jointer and planer that are dust factories in the garage)...

Can you hang a barrier between the two sides?
Why not just have a flexible line connected to the DC? You would need to have uniform port sizes.

If you finish one process before moving to the next machine, it may be less money and hassle to just drag the line around...

jim
wpt, ma

[Dick Mahany]

I have a shop in a 3 car garage that also is used to park 2 vehicles. Therefore, all my tools need to be mobile, but I managed to shoe horn my Oneida V3000 into a corner where it is semi-permanantly installed. I ran 6" PVC overhead to several locations and installed drops that terminate approx 7' from the floor. Then I made a PVC "tree" that is supported by a home made floor support and can easily be moved to three different locations in the "shop". This has offered the best combination of flexibily and portability between garage and shop. The drops are sufficiently low enough so that I don't need a ladder to operate the gates, yet high enough to provide sufficient OH clerence for vehicles (and tall friends). I have a number of pics at the following site:

https://picasaweb.google.com/dmshops...ustCollection#

[Nathan Callender]

I'm sort of in the middle of this as well. I've gotten tired of dust and having to move tools and hook them up all the time. I'm striving to find a setup that will require no movement for most items, and I think I'm there. Since you have to park 2 cars, you might have to swing out he table saw but if it's all hooked up and all you have to do is roll it out it makes it more fun.

[Salem Ganzhorn]

It can be done. Tonight I jointed, planed, ripped and worked at my workbench. For DC all I had to do was open and close blast gates. I never had to move a tool. Although I did move my stool a lot... The end result? My first houndstooth dovetail
IMG_0726.jpg