Does the Direction of Top Hat Matter???

[Clark Harbaugh]

Not to start another DC thread, but here is one I have not seen asked yet. I am going to move the motor of my DC to be horizontal and on top of a 30gal separator with a Thien baffle top hat on top. The question I have is does it matter the direction of intake vs the impeller direction? When looking from the top, mine rotates counter clockwise, so the exhaust is on the right. M thought is that the intake should be on the left. Unfortunately, the small real estate I have available would dictate having the intake on the right, so as to minimize elbows, etc. Maybe someone has real world experience to confirm this or to tell me that I am being over analytical...

[Michael W. Clark]

Put the rotation of the blower the same rotation of the separator, same as for a cyclone. You wan to continue the rotation direction or the fan will loose performance. Seen this several times with commercial/industrial cyclones and a fan mounted on top.

[Phil Thien]

Put the rotation of the blower the same rotation of the separator, same as for a cyclone. You wan to continue the rotation direction or the fan will loose performance. Seen this several times with commercial/industrial cyclones and a fan mounted on top.

^^^ This is the correct answer.

If it cannot be done, it isn't the end of the world. You can mitigate the effects by altering the distance between the blower and the separator, or sometimes using air straighteners between the separator and the blower.