Dust Collection Question

[Austin Lange]

Hello everyone. I have a small shop and my adding a dust collection system to it. I plan on buying this collector from Grizzly:

http://m.grizzly.com/products/3-HP-D...eries/G1030Z2P

I plan on venting everything outside. I would like to ditch everything but the impeller and housing and letting the outlet shoot outside into a dump trailer for removal. Is this a good idea? Do I need a cyclone unit or can I just let everything go through the impeller housing?

Austin

[Mike Chalmers]

From my own research and experience, I would say the cyclone is not needed. The risks in that are if you are not careful what you suck up, there is a very small risk of a spark, if a bit of metal strikes the impeller housing somehow. Another down side is that the air vented outside has to be replaced, so you will be sucking in outside air somewhere. Depending on your weather patterns, this could lead to higher heating bills, higher air conditioning bills, or both. Could also introduce more moist air that needs a dehumidifier running. Another aspect is noise. If close to neighbors it could provoke some resentment.

[Jim Andrew]

That 3hp dust collector has a 12 3/4" cast aluminum impeller. No reason to fear sparks. The steel impeller is the one that can create a spark if a screw etc hits it. It would be good if you set up some system to collect the chips etc, rather than just blow them all out into the yard.

[Austin Lange]

What do you mean by a system to collect chips? I have a dump trailer that gets parked behind the shop right now I just am tired of shoveling. I was hoping I could mount the blower up high and use a chute to direct it into the trailer. Is this unfeasable?

[Mike Chalmers]

That 3hp dust collector has a 12 3/4" cast aluminum impeller. No reason to fear sparks. The steel impeller is the one that can create a spark if a screw etc hits it. It would be good if you set up some system to collect the chips etc, rather than just blow them all out into the yard.

That is why I specified the impeller housing.
You should also note that the OP stated it is going into a trailer, not into the yard.
I assume you posted in a hurry.

[Bruce Seidner]

Other than the issue of air replacement, and noise that may be objectionable, I would encourage some sort of screen to cover the top of your trailer. My guess is you are not in a close in residential neighborhood if you have room for a dump trailer. It will be stirring the pot when you are blowing chips and dust out into what I assume is a 4sided bottom covered trailer. Depending on how rural or comfortable you are with the results of this blowing outside and raising a cloud of debris, it is a grand idea. Then again that would be quite a mess for a lot of living situations and maybe some kind of separation along the lines of a simple Thein separator might control the mess significantly. I could see a fully closed trailer with a Thein separator on top with just the dust and air venting to the outside of the trailer. With the main chips and whatnot dumping into the trailer there would be negligible outflow from the trailer collection. These things are just so brilliantly simple and easy to build cheaply that I think there is an argument for why you would not control the discharge of your system when they make such a big difference and have so little effect on the efficacy of your system. Just my 2 cents.

[Mike Chalmers]

Other than the issue of air replacement, and noise that may be objectionable, I would encourage some sort of screen to cover the top of your trailer. My guess is you are not in a close in residential neighborhood if you have room for a dump trailer. It will be stirring the pot when you are blowing chips and dust out into what I assume is a 4sided bottom covered trailer. Depending on how rural or comfortable you are with the results of this blowing outside and raising a cloud of debris, it is a grand idea. Then again that would be quite a mess for a lot of living situations and maybe some kind of separation along the lines of a simple Thein separator might control the mess significantly. I could see a fully closed trailer with a Thein separator on top with just the dust and air venting to the outside of the trailer. With the main chips and whatnot dumping into the trailer there would be negligible outflow from the trailer collection. These things are just so brilliantly simple and easy to build cheaply that I think there is an argument for why you would not control the discharge of your system when they make such a big difference and have so little effect on the efficacy of your system. Just my 2 cents.

Well presented.

[Keith Outten]

I have been using an outside chip box to collect DC effluent for over 20 years. My dust collector discharges right through the wall into a tank outside. No bags and no filters. I have used large drum sanders, CNC Routers, laser engravers and a whole host of other shop machines with my system without any issues.

FWIW I setup the sign shop at Christopher Newport University the same way my shop is setup at home. We were in a residential home very close to other residents and just ten feet from a walkway that students used from a parking lot to the campus. Nobody ever knew that we were operating a dust collection system. At CNU I used the plywood shipping box that our ShopBot came in as a chip box. We painted it white and installed metal clips to fasten the top to the box. I cut a 10 inch hole in the opposite end of the box and installed a baby diaper as an exhaust filter in the box. The system has been working perfectly for over eight years and is still operational today.

As for noise you can expect your DC exhaust to sound like a dryer vent. Forget the sparks, in twenty years my dust collector has consumed more metal objets that I can recall and nothing has happened. There just isn't a high enough concentration of dust to cause any kind of explosive event.

If you live in an extremely cold winter climate the heating loss can be an issue but in relatively mild winter seasons where the temperature is above 20 degrees on average you won't notice any problems.
.

[Derek Stockley]

I would like to ditch everything but the impeller and housing and letting the outlet shoot outside into a dump trailer for removal. Is this a good idea? Do I need a cyclone unit or can I just let everything go through the impeller housing?

One thing to consider is the power rating on the motor. If you take the filters off a blower and run it without pipes, you can burn up your motor. You should consider checking that you're not exceeding its rated amperage draw with it hooked up to the shortest length of pipe you plan to actually use this setup with.

[Robert Delhommer Sr]

I run my HF DC vented outside with no problems, current draw barely went up, still within the rating.

[Keith Outten]

I'm not an electrician but my Grizzly dust collector has been running without bags or filters for about 25 years now. In most cases the performance is almost double when you eliminate the restrictions and it hasn't reduced the life of my DC given its age. Note that my Grizzly DC is often used for laser engraving and CNC Routing jobs so it is not uncommon for it to run for up to six hours continuously.

At CNU I purchased the HF 2hp DC for the ShopBot and the 1hp DC for the laser engraver. The ShopBot dumps to the chip box and the laser engraver exhausts directly to the outside because it doesn't move any chips.....mostly just smoke and fine dust.
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[Austin Lange]

I have been using an outside chip box to collect DC effluent for over 20 years. My dust collector discharges right through the wall into a tank outside. No bags and no filters. I have used large drum sanders, CNC Routers, laser engravers and a whole host of other shop machines with my system without any issues.

FWIW I setup the sign shop at Christopher Newport University the same way my shop is setup at home. We were in a residential home very close to other residents and just ten feet from a walkway that students used from a parking lot to the campus. Nobody ever knew that we were operating a dust collection system. At CNU I used the plywood shipping box that our ShopBot came in as a chip box. We painted it white and installed metal clips to fasten the top to the box. I cut a 10 inch hole in the opposite end of the box and installed a baby diaper as an exhaust filter in the box. The system has been working perfectly for over eight years and is still operational today.

As for noise you can expect your DC exhaust to sound like a dryer vent. Forget the sparks, in twenty years my dust collector has consumed more metal objets that I can recall and nothing has happened. There just isn't a high enough concentration of dust to cause any kind of explosive event.

If you live in an extremely cold winter climate the heating loss can be an issue but in relatively mild winter seasons where the temperature is above 20 degrees on average you won't notice any problems.
.

Excellent. That's exactly what I want to do. So I guess I need to figure out how to cover the trailer as well. I love in south Texas. Most of the year I have two ten foot doors wide open to allow as much airflow as possible. Along with several large fans blowing. It gets really hot really fast here.

Austin

[Bruce Seidner]

Keith,

What are the rough dimensions of these bins? Is it a shovel to wheelbarrow operation to empty or are there bins that you carry out to empty. I am assuming it has a "roof" or cover but can see it using the building wall for a side or is it free standing. Is there a brand of diaper that you have come to prefer over the years? LOL.

I have just moved from a home where I had a couple of acres of woods and lots of room between neighbors to a 60's suburb, houses quite close in. So close that we courtesy cut sections of each others lawn on either side that are shared depending on who gets out first. I really don't want to the bad new neighbor in the rental house so I have been thinking about this thread in terms of my own situation. Although, I have a pretty efficient indoor cyclone and will just be sending dust out the wall once I get my landlords permission to put in a "dryer vent." I am unsure when or how to share that this is going to be a somewhat large dryer vent. I will likely build the rain canopy for because the blower exhaust is about 4"x5" and that is not a standard dryer vent. It will be high enough off the ground on a flat wall so I don't anticipate critter problems. Well not for long because with a 5hp blower it would be quite a ride for any tree rat or bird that wanted to get comfy up there.

[Mike Chalmers]

I have been using an outside chip box to collect DC effluent for over 20 years. My dust collector discharges right through the wall into a tank outside. No bags and no filters. I have used large drum sanders, CNC Routers, laser engravers and a whole host of other shop machines with my system without any issues.

FWIW I setup the sign shop at Christopher Newport University the same way my shop is setup at home. We were in a residential home very close to other residents and just ten feet from a walkway that students used from a parking lot to the campus. Nobody ever knew that we were operating a dust collection system. At CNU I used the plywood shipping box that our ShopBot came in as a chip box. We painted it white and installed metal clips to fasten the top to the box. I cut a 10 inch hole in the opposite end of the box and installed a baby diaper as an exhaust filter in the box. The system has been working perfectly for over eight years and is still operational today.

As for noise you can expect your DC exhaust to sound like a dryer vent. Forget the sparks, in twenty years my dust collector has consumed more metal objets that I can recall and nothing has happened. There just isn't a high enough concentration of dust to cause any kind of explosive event.

If you live in an extremely cold winter climate the heating loss can be an issue but in relatively mild winter seasons where the temperature is above 20 degrees on average you won't notice any problems.
.

Useful information based on personal experience. We need more if this.

[Keith Outten]

Here is a picture of the chip box we used at CNU.

My first chip box was 4' by 4' by 8' long and was about 400 gallons. I use plastic 30 gallon trash cans to empty my chip boxes in the past. At CNU we only had to dump the box once each year so we picked a nice day in the Spring each year to transfer the chips to a dumpster. A plastic coal shovel makes short work of transferring the chips to the trash cans. BTW the pipe going from the DC pump to the chip box is 4" diameter.

The chip box I am using at home these days is a 3000 gallon steel tank I got from a scrap deal. I doubt I will ever fill it up and I haven't fabricated a top for it yet but I have the materials on hand.

FWIW I built my first chip box when my daughters were both very young and money was pretty tight. I sold all of the chips to a local horse barn owner and received enough money to pay the electric bill on my work shop.