Oversize Dust Collector? Oneida V System 3HP vs. 5HP

[Paul Wunder]

Ben,

Appearance and design are subject to personal preferences of course, but there are only three pieces in the Clearvue cyclone that would be subject to painting, if so desired: (the blower, the hanger bracket and the elbow (transition) that comes off the blower. With either a brush or spray that adds about an hour to the assembly. Naturally, you would not paint the cyclone body because it is clear which is useful in identifying operational problems such as clogs or an overfull dust bin.

I painted my unit white, but on the ClearVue site there are red, blue, green, etc. Perhaps some folks call in decorators.

[Kirk Poore]

A potential issue with extra horsepower is heat. A 5 hp motor generates something like 3000 watts of heat. A typical one of those 110-volt plug-in room heaters puts out about 800 watts. So running your cyclone is like running four of those room heaters. Run the cyclone for a couple of hours, and it will heat up a 600 sq ft shop quite a bit.

This is dead on. I was running my 5 HP Oneida over the weekend (outside temp 102F), and my shop heated up noticably even in the evening when it was finally cooling down outside.

I will say that my system worked fine even when I accidentally left my 6" jointer port open and was running my RAS (also with a 6" port). I'm not sure a 3 hp would have done that.

KirK

[Ben Martin]

Dealing with the heat won't be a problem as I am installing a 1.5T heat pump in the shop, which is oversized for my needs.

I see that Oneida has a sale that started today, I think I might be placing my order...

[Jamie Buxton]

Dealing with the heat won't be a problem as I am installing a 1.5T heat pump in the shop, which is oversized for my needs.

I see that Oneida has a sale that started today, I think I might be placing my order...

Doing the conversions, a 1 ton air conditioner would not quite keep up with a 5 hp motor.

[Ben Martin]

Doing the conversions, a 1 ton air conditioner would not quite keep up with a 5 hp motor.

This would be assuming that the dust collector and heat pump were the only things and located in a pseudo "vacuum" of a shop. The thermal capacity (I think that is the name, Heat Transfer class escapes me now...) of everything else in the shop can't be ignored.

Albeit it was interesting seeing how much heat a 5hp motor creates, something along the lines of 14,000 Btu/hr compared to my heat pumps cooling output of 18,000 Btu/hr. Now if I was a professional and leaving it on for hours at a time it would be a different story...

I called Oneida today and put the order in for a 5hp Super Gorilla, their current sale put me over the edge. I only paid $170 more delivered vs. the quote I got for the V System. Now just waiting the 4-5 weeks they quoted for delivery, I wasn't expecting that long of a wait...

[Michael W. Clark]

I called Oneida today and put the order in for a 5hp Super Gorilla, their current sale put me over the edge. I only paid $170 more delivered vs. the quote I got for the V System. Now just waiting the 4-5 weeks they quoted for delivery, I wasn't expecting that long of a wait...

I think you will be happy that you went with the higher HP and larger cyclone.

Mike

[Todd Brewer]

Good choice on the 5HP Super Gorilla. Nice thing about Oneida systems is you don't have to fuss around too much. Pull it out of the boxes and bolt it together.

[Kirk Poore]

Now just waiting the 4-5 weeks they quoted for delivery, I wasn't expecting that long of a wait...

Mine came in a week and a half early last November. Good thing my daughter was home from college, because nobody called me.

Kirk

[Joe Jensen]

I own and like Oneida. I also think buying a larger collector is a good idea. But if the port on the tool is say 4", the cfm you will actually get with a 3HP, or 5HP will be about the same. Also, putting that 4" port on a 5", 6", or 7" line won't make much difference either. What you need is more suction pressure. Most dust collectors are designed for max cfm with modest suction pressure. Say 14" of pressure with no duct, cyclone or filter resistance. The reason shops buy larger collectors is to run more machines at the same time. That's why in commercial shops you see huge main branches down to smaller sub branches and then the final size to the machine. That system is designed assuming many tools in use at the same time. Shop vacs on the other hand are designed for high suction pressure, say 90", but modest cfm of around 100. With either the 3HP or 5HP you will get only 350-400 cfm through a 4" port. Amazingly, you will get more CFM on a 2.5" port with a shop vac that with a normal dust collector.

Oneida has another line called the smart collector. I am certain that with nearly any tool you have in the shop you will get more real world CFM with the 3HP smart collector than you will with the 5HP dust gorilla.

[ian maybury]

Even an extra inch on impeller diameter at a given RPM makes quite a worthwhile difference to pressure capability Joe.

It seems like the Oneida impellers may be fairly heavily backwards inclined. Which normally quietens impellers a bit, but at the cost of a bit less pressure capability...

ian

[Joe Jensen]

Even an extra inch on impeller diameter at a given RPM makes quite a worthwhile difference to pressure capability Joe.

It seems like the Oneida impellers may be fairly heavily backwards inclined. Which normally quietens impellers a bit, but at the cost of a bit less pressure capability...

ian

Agree. There is just soooo much mis information on the web. I've read about a guy who ran 8" pipe everywhere hooked up to stock ports on hobby machines. Oneida's 5HP smart collector adjusts the speed of the fan to keep the current consistent. With small ports it generates more pressure. With that machine the extra HP is going to pressure and not raw cfm. No home shop is really getting 1200 cfm from cabinet saw class tools, 3HP, 5HP, or 7HP unless they have a high pressure fan design. Wish more folks understood and gave sound advice (not pointing at you )

[Ryan Brucks]

One thing has always puzzled me about the 5hp smart oneida. If it increases RPMs to get better suction at higher SP, that means it must have some RPMs to add....

meaning either their motors are running less then 3450 rpms by default (probably), or they somehow get them to spin faster than that at full speed?

[Joe Jensen]

One thing has always puzzled me about the 5hp smart oneida. If it increases RPMs to get better suction at higher SP, that means it must have some RPMs to add....

meaning either their motors are running less then 3450 rpms by default (probably), or they somehow get them to spin faster than that at full speed?

They are using a 3 phase motor with a separate electronic controller that varies the frequency of the power delivered to the 3 phase motor. Takes single phase in and makes variable frequency 3 phase out. These are called variable feed drives. They make them for 3 phase in and 3 phase out too. The tradeoff I'm told is more fan noise with the higher RPM and not all fan blades are engineered for higher speeds.

[Ryan Brucks]

I understand the 3 phase and the VFD. I have that same setup myself.

What I meant was that, almost all motors in this size class are meant to run at 3450rpm.

So either they are using a motor that can go beyond that... or they are setting them up to under perform in most situations, to give the impression of having more power.


either the motor goes up beyond 3450 or its operating under that most of the time.

[Joe Jensen]

I understand the 3 phase and the VFD. I have that same setup myself.

What I meant was that, almost all motors in this size class are meant to run at 3450rpm.

So either they are using a motor that can go beyond that... or they are setting them up to under perform in most situations, to give the impression of having more power.


either the motor goes up beyond 3450 or its operating under that most of the time.

Hmm, I just assumed that 3 phase motors operate at 3450 only when on 60hz power and that if you change the freq you change the speed. There would of course be a max speed that the motor could run at without shaking or destroying itself.