Later today I am going to inspect a single head 37" wide belt sander that I will likely purchase. From the info I can gather, these machines require around 1800-2000 CFM for adequate/proper dust collection. I want to upgrade my central DC to a 7.5 HP cyclone, but that can't happen for a little while. The machine I am looking at has a single 6" or 8" port for dust collection. In the meantime here's an idea, but I am not sure if it's actually going to work.
1.) Remove the single port that's in the center of the top of the machine and install two smaller ports that are space evenly across the machine's width.
2.) Run a small DC on each smaller port (two small DC units).
If each DC unit is pulling 900 CFM through each smaller port will this be the equivalent of a single 1800 CFM port? Do you think I could get good enough dust removal to get me by until I can spring for the large central DC unit?
Thanks!
- Hutch