Dust Collector A Lot of Work

[Brian Brightwell]

I have been in the process of installing a 5Hp Clear Vue dust collector. I should have done this years ago. Here are a few pictures.



I had to raise the roof a little for motor clearance. I wanted the intake as close to the ceiling as possible.



I wanted some isolation between the piping and the machines. Rubber sleeves and clamps at the plumping store was like $13. So, I am going to try using an inner tube. It fits very tight and I can make 7 sleeves per $8 tube.




I am about to start my building my first blast gate tomorrow. Any suggestions will be appreciated.

[Dick Mahany]

Nice work !! Like you, I said should have done this years ago when I installed my DC and ducting about two years back. When it's finished, you will have one first class system, and wonder how you got along without it. Those fittings are getting pricey aren't they ? Just don't leave any tape measures or other valuable items anywhere near the blast gates .

[Jim Andrew]

Cool couplings. There is a plan for plastic blastgates on this forum somewhere. Seems like Terry Hatfield posted it.

[Brian Brightwell]

Yes Dick, expensive, $16 for Y's and $9 for 45's. I have been looking at how others have made there blast gates. I think I will use 15 of them.

[Paul Wunder]

Congratulations. If you are like the rest of us, you'll like your results.

BTW, Since you used PVC, did you consider using the ClearVue blastgates (the newly designed ones), Very good design. I'm pleased with mine and they fit the 6" PVC perfectly. At $15 each, I found them to be cost-effective. P.S. Blue is a neat color; I did mine in white and now I'm jealous.

[Lornie McCullough]

Very clever use of inner tubes.

Lornie

[Robert Payne]

The ClearVue blast gates are really good ones and they do fit 6" PVC perfectly, but if you want to make your own, there are several good plans for them -- Alan Shafftner has made them using laminate for the slides and creating a sandwich between two pieces of plywood or melamine -- I've made some with leftover pieces of 3/4"plywood for the bodies and 1/4" baltic birch for the sliders and a 6" coupling sawn in half glued in from each side. Here's a picture or two...

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[Dick Mahany]

I also recommend the Alan Schafftner design and made a dozen of them. They work well and were very economical. I had thought abut upgrading to the clearvue, but these work fine and I'll spend the money on tools instead. Here's a shot of one that I made to terminate several down drops that use a movable tree underneath them when I need to change tool arrangements.

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[Brian Brightwell]

I saw the ClearVue gates and $15 isn't bad on the price but being cheap I would like to try making them. I have some sheets of plexiglass and some half inch plastic material I am going to try to use. It is the same material I made my box joint jigs from. (Pic). The stuff is strong, stable and slick. I ordered a fly cutter from Lee Valley and a straight cutter and matching bearing for the shaper to cut out the circles. I will see which works best.
I read where ideally blast gates should be high is the duct work but I did not understand why but I was going to try to place them as high as possible.

[Dick Mahany]

I read where ideally blast gates should be high is the duct work but I did not understand why but I was going to try to place them as high as possible.

Most of my blast gates are right at the machine and work great there. The only ones that I have mounted up high are the ones for my down drop terminations.

[Jim O'Dell]

I like my home made gates better than the original CV units...haven't had a chance to get my hands on the new ones, but they do look better. Home made are easy to do. I used various materials, but the melamine shelf material is the best. I used 1/4" MDF for the slider section.DSCN1182.jpg I have a thread here on how I did mine if you are interested. http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...0BLAST%20GATES I also have one 4" gate I did for fun, but kept because it works so well. The body is 1/4" Lexan, and the slider is a scrap piece of PTEG that Ed Morgano sent me to play with years ago. I use it for my TS overhead guard.

DSCN2621-.jpg This style of gate is self cleaning, so it never clogs up. Jim.

[Michael W. Clark]

I read where ideally blast gates should be high is the duct work but I did not understand why but I was going to try to place them as high as possible.

Brian, In your situation, I would put the gates wherever that are the most accessible for operation. One reason you see recommendations for gates to be close to the main is when the main is larger than the branch duct. For example, if you had a 7" or 8" main and 6" branch ducts. The velocity will be slower in the main and large chips could fall out into a closed downstream branch that was taken off the bottom of the main. Since you have a 5HP DC and all 6", I don't think this would be a problem.

The other reason to mount the gates high is in a commercial/industrial environment where you do not want operaters adjusting them on a balanced system. You put the gates where they are only accessible to maintenance or contractors balancing the system.

Mike

[Brian Brightwell]

Thanks for the explanation Micheal. I won't make high blast gates a priority now.
I worked maintenance at Rohm & Haas where we made plastic molding powder. It was abrasive and corrosive and I know I breathed a ton of it in 23 years. We had dust collection and baghouses a many but the only flow I had to mess with was no flow. Plugged lines.

[Michael W. Clark]

Plastic powder generates a lot of static electricity when being conveyed. The ducts have to be electically bonded, then grounded to dissipate the charge. Plastic powder DC lines are certainly prone to plugging. My Dad worked for Rohm & Haas in Huntsville for a period of time.

[Brian Brightwell]

Yes, we had a few booms at the Louisville plant and any remaining powder is tough to put out the fires. We had three driers, two of them were spray driers and two used a different process. All our baghouses were designed to vent explosions to suppressed areas. The drying units even had explosion suppression with sensors that sensed the pressure and then activated high pressure bottles with blasting caps. I worked on that a lot. However, once the drying was completed, we rarely had an incident in the storage and packaging process.
I remember after two explosions in a week I had to check resistance between pipe flanges that would have twelve 3/4 inch stud bolts and a bonding cable bolted to each flange. That was boring. They finally found the cause as a small piece of burned plastic that was missed during a clean. Ah, the good old days ??