Finally ordered my first wide belt sander last week and need to get dust collection squared away in my small commercial shop. All the 37" wide belts specified 1000 CFM in dust collection capacity, which seemed a little low to me.
I have a couple questions and would love some feedback.
1) I heard that the filters on cyclones (eg Oneida, ClearVue) clog up terribly with all the fine dust from wide belts, so that isn't a good way to go. Does anyone have experience with that? The smartest solution for my shop overall would be to get a 5hp cyclone and run all or most of my tools to it, but if the cyclone filters constantly clog from all the fine dust from a wide belt, that's a no go.
2) The easiest/least expensive option for me would be to get a Grizzly 3hp DC for $425, put a couple aftermarket felt bags from American Filter on it for $250, and run a 10' piece of flex hose straight to the machine. I can't figure out static pressure calculations for the life of me, so I'm not sure if the 3hp has enough oomph for this (assuming 10' of 6" diameter flex hose with a couple 90's). It is rated at 2300 CFM, FWIW. I'm sure that rating is without any kind of bag on it.
3) Alternatively, I can get a bigger Grizzly, say a 4hp or 5hp for $1,000, get 2 really big bags from American Filter for $500, and run that for all/most of my tools including the wide belt. I've been told you just periodically beat the big bags with a broom and the fine dust sort of drops down off the felt, but I have no personal experience with these bags. This option ends up costing almost as much as a cyclone, but has the single advantage of not having a pleated filter.
What say ye?
John
PS I'll do a review of the sander once I've gotten a chance to run it a bit.