Dust Collection - my latest two cents worth

[Stu Ablett in Tokyo Japan]

Turning the blower and mounting it off the cylone is what I did...........


The blower is the big red thing to the right.



Not the best situation, but then again, neither is this for getting into and out of my shop.....



Cheers!

[Dan Forman]

Stu---What's it measure floor to highest point? I don't envy your shop entrance!

Dan

[Jim O'Dell]

Stu---snip I don't envy your shop entrance!

Dan

That's not an entrance, that's a trap door for potential burglers!!! Jim.

[Stu Ablett in Tokyo Japan]

I think it is right around 250 cm, so just a smidge over 98", but I did not go out the side of the cyclone like Mr. Pentz shows you can do, I just used two 45 elbows to make the corner.

Cheers!

[Boyd Gathwright]

Hello Bill,

.... Just wanted to say hi. It's good to be reading your “post” once again. Your “posts” are a very good reminder to me of how serious this problem is and can be. I treat it with the utmost respect, especially after reading some of the comments “posted” here. I have known people in my past who have been on and off of oxygen and in one particular case let me know he felt like a “dog tied to a tin can”. Of course, when you're young, you have your health and with time and the environment and bad habits you wake up one day without your good health especially when the safeguards are NOT in place.

.... Since you're now finding that we need to be down around .01 / .02 microns. I think I will take another look at my system.

.... Thanks again, it has been good hearing from you and the best of luck to you .

Boyd

Emails this morning scolded me for not posting this as a new thread, plus leaving a few things off. Here is an updated version of what I shared at the end of the last cyclone thread. bill

Making a dust collection decision requires you to first decide on what it is you want to do. If you just want a shop with no chips, then just about any hobbyist 1.5 hp or larger dust collector or cyclone will work well for you because you only need about 450 CFM airflow for chip collection. If you seriously want to get the airborne fine dust in your shop under control then you have a whole different set of concerns. You can go to my web pages and study for yourself the dangers of fine dust and what it takes to control, collect and get rid of it.

(too long but Con't).

bill

[David Less]

David---With the new stand, what is the minimum required ceiling height for the clear view cyclone?

Dan

Dan,

Sorry I didn't get back sooner. My ceiling height at the bottom of my rafters is 80". The height at the bottom of my ceiling (excluding rafters) is 87".
The cyclone unit will be 76" tall. I will run 9" diameter flex hose from the cyclone top to the blower top. This will produce about a 12" radius which will be between the rafters.

Hope this helps,

David

[David Less]

I forgot to mention that I will have to make a custom chip can. The height will only be 18" tall. I will have to empty often but it's a small price to pay for being able to use a good system. I would use caution, according the the master (Bill P.) short cyclones are not effecient for propper dust/air separation. I would rather change a chip can rather than deal with a dirty and constantly plugging filter canister. Not to mention the loss of CFM's.

David

[Bill Pentz]

Boyd,

Nice to be back, but my health remains less than stellar so don’t expect much. After most of a year in bed on oxygen, my employer required me to retire a year ago June. I've slowly recovered enough that I am now back on my feet a couple of hours a day and only on oxygen at night. I’ve been spending my up time fielding emails and slowly working on my web pages that seem to improving along with my knowledge. Again my goal is not to get wealthy, but to help others avoid landing in the same place.

Between my age, disposition, and health this thread and the Festool thread left me a little exhausted and frustrated. Instead of the normal few hours of emails, I easily had more than twenty hours worth of work since last Friday which is more than I can do, so woke up today pretty out of it.

bill

[Peter Gavin]

Bill,

I only have a 1.5 HP blower that is currently connected to a bag filter system. If I exhaust the air outside (without any bags), and use a 6" diameter solid run (about 6' long) to a central drop in my shop, and then use 6" flex hose (one machine connection only) to connect to my Machines (I guess I would need about 8' to reach all of them), how badly underpowered am I?

Thanks for all of your advise.

Peter Gavin

[Bill Pentz]

Peter,

Using the Static Calculator that Don Beale and I built you end up with 3.3" of static pressure for 1 6" hood and 14' of smooth walled flex hose with no filters. Depending upon your blower model (impeller size and blower housing size/configuration) you could have anything from 900 to a reall 1100 CFM maximum. That leaves you with a real airflow of between 690 and 793 CFM.

bill

[Allan Johanson]

Allan,

Sharing the testing of your system is a huge help. I often end up feeling like the one in far right field all by myself. Thanks!

bill

You're very welcome, Bill. A long time ago I decided to try and help folks in a small way by trying to provide some "real" numbers instead of excessive theory, guessing or my ultimate favourite, "doing _____ will really hurt your performance". Really? How much will _____ affect things? I really wanted to know. So I set out to discover this for myself.

This Saturday I'll be at a friend's place where we installed a brand new Lee Valley aftermarket filter bag on his 2HP DC a while back. Now that he has a typical dust cake on it, I'll bring out the same piece of pipe I used many months ago and measure the airflow.

With the old factory bag after a good shaking it flowed 700cfm.
With the brand new LV bag it flowed 930 cfm.
What will it flow now???

Some folks think that giving a typical filter bag a quick shake will restore 100% of the airflow. My spider sense is telling me otherwise, but I do wish that were true. We'll see what the testing gear says. I'm looking forward to it.

Take care of yourself, Bill.

Allan

[Allan Johanson]

Peter and Bill,

Here's some test info that might help:

With my friend's 2HP DC I just mentioned in the other post, we also wanted to know what was the impact of the bags - period. So we ran a couple tests without the bags hooked up. We disconnected the blower outlet hose at the blower, so it still had the rectangular to 5" round adapter on the blower, just no flex hose on it. It just blew the air straight up towards the ceiling.

2HP DC with a 12" fan and factory 5" blower inlet/outlet

- short length of 5" solid pipe with factory bag....630 cfm
- short length of 5" solid pipe with new LV bag....810 cfm
- short length of 5" solid pipe with no bag..........900 cfm

Replace factory 5" blower inlet cover with a homemade 6" version so we could hook up a 6" test pipe:

- short length of 6" solid pipe with factory bag....700 cfm
- short length of 6" solid pipe with new LV bag....930 cfm
- short length of 6" solid pipe with no bag.......>1100 cfm

BTW, the more restrictive the ducting and tool, the less benefit you'll get to removing the bags. When we choked the 5" test pipe with a 5x4 reducer, the airflow went like this:

- 5" test pipe with 5x4 reducer and old factory bag....550 cfm
- 5" test pipe with 5x4 reducer and no bag...............700 cfm

********

If you want to really reduce the restriction of the exhaust pipe to outside, you should make it as large as possible. Replace the typical rectangular to 5" round blower exhaust adapter with something much, much larger. 8" solid pipe can be purchased at the BORG. Try that (or larger!) for max benefit.

If you can wait a bit maybe I can run another test for you (if I remember ). I can see about taking a measurement with no bags attached and with a 5' long 5" diameter solid pipe hooked up to the blower exhaust. I'm way too curious for my own good.

Good luck!

Allan

[Jim O'Dell]

Bill, when we get to be too much for you, tell us!!! Take some time out. We don't want to wear you out or take all your "feeling good" time, I'm sure you have other interests. We'll be here when you can get back to us!! Jim.

[Bart Leetch]

[

If you can wait a bit maybe I can run another test for you (if I remember ). I can see about taking a measurement with no bags attached and with a 5' long 5" diameter solid pipe hooked up to the blower exhaust. I'm way too curious for my own good.

Good luck!

Allan[/QUOTE]


Did you check what the max amps the motor is allowed to pull & then check what amps your are pulling with each one of these changes?

[Allan Johanson]

Did you check what the max amps the motor is allowed to pull & then check what amps your are pulling with each one of these changes?

Hi Bart,

I didn't bother checking the amp draw at that time. This particular DC (Trademaster - a Canadian "generic import" brand) has a massive motor rated for 12 amps @ 230V. When we did the "no bag" airflow test the DC only ran for a few seconds before we shut it off.

Most 2HP DCs have an 8-9amp motor so your concern is indeed valid and one that anyone messing with their DCs might want to think about.

My old 2HP DC (Samona - another generic Canadian brand) had a 9amp motor and 5" inlet/outlet. With the factory bag and some 5" flex hose it drew 7amps. With the added resistance of a duct network you'd be able to do a few mods to help compensate for the ducting before potentially running into trouble. But on that DC, running a 6" inlet with no bags might shorten the lifespan of the motor due to excessive current draw. I wish I still had that DC for testing purposes.

Cheers,

Allan