Jointer Dust Collection

[Michael Zerance]

Based on your responses and advice, I have developed a plan of attack:

Remove the duct from the cyclone inlet and note the backpressure on the filter guage (it's the only gauge I have to work with that is measuring airflow).
Add the ducting back, one piece at a time and determine which piece is restricting airflow.

I think that I am going to have to redo the duct work from the cylone inlet, eliminating the wye and lengthening the straight prior to the inlet.

Here's what I am thinking:

IMAG0416 1a.jpg

Unfortunately it is going to add about 8' of additional straight pipe but moving the cyclone or jointer is not an option at this point.

[Joe Jensen]

If that tight turn is the issue do you see the low flow at the vertical pipe from the jointer up to the elbow?

[Michael Zerance]

I disconnected the fitting from the inlet to the cyclone so that it was running wide open and the gauge barely fluctuated so I assume that the restriction is in the cyclone itself.

I did close in the top of the jointer discharge chute with plywood as the other fellas had recommended and that seemed to help a lot. There is a lot of open space around the cutterhead so I also enclosed that with some cardboard. I am pleased with the performance now; there is only minimal saw dust and chips left behind.

[Mike Heidrick]

Was this a DIY cyclone?

[Michael Zerance]

eBay cyclone...East Caroga.

http://cycloneseparator.com/

[Mike Heidrick]

Did you ever run it without that separator? How much performance did you loose when you added that separator?

[Michael Zerance]

Never tested it without the separator. I don't really have any good way to test performance on the system. I used the filter pressure differential gauge as a general measure of how much air is flowing through the system. The gauge will read around .5" (iirc) with the cyclone branch open; other similarly sized branches run around 1.5" (iirc).

[Robert Engel]

Looks like you've got a good system there. One comment: I have the same jointer I've noticed when the fence is slid all the way over, I get more chips than normal exiting out the top. But I think there's something else going on. I don't think re routing the ducts as you plane will make that much difference.


Looking at that cyclone and the size of your ducts, you think its possible you need a bigger blower? Did the company recommend a blower CFM? It seems a 1900 CFM blower would be adequate, but an quick and dirty test would be to bypass the cyclone and run directly to blower. This will give you a real world indication of how much the cycloe is degrading the CFM's.

[Chris Parks]

Looking at that cyclone and the size of your ducts, you think its possible you need a bigger blower? Did the company recommend a blower CFM? It seems a 1900 CFM blower would be adequate, but an quick and dirty test would be to bypass the cyclone and run directly to blower. This will give you a real world indication of how much the cycloe is degrading the CFM's.

You can't have 3HP and 1900CFM in the same sentence.

[Mike Heidrick]

What impeler size?

[Michael Zerance]

What impeler size?

14" impeller, 3HP, 1900 CFM.

[Michael Zerance]

Looks like you've got a good system there. One comment: I have the same jointer I've noticed when the fence is slid all the way over, I get more chips than normal exiting out the top. But I think there's something else going on. I don't think re routing the ducts as you plane will make that much difference.


Looking at that cyclone and the size of your ducts, you think its possible you need a bigger blower? Did the company recommend a blower CFM? It seems a 1900 CFM blower would be adequate, but an quick and dirty test would be to bypass the cyclone and run directly to blower. This will give you a real world indication of how much the cycloe is degrading the CFM's.

You're right about the fence position...when it is all the way to the back edge of the table, lots of chips were blowing out around the cutterhead. The cardboard I taped there solved that issue.

I think it is working well enough to leave it alone, at this point. I may address it in the future if the need arises.

[James Gunning]

It seems the older the machine, the worse the dust/chip collection tends to be. Not surprising, since most manufacturers made little or no accommodation for dust collection in the past. Most are still not doing that good a job even now since most collection ports are still sized at 4" or less. That just isn't large enough to get really good collection, since the available airflow for proper dust collectors (as opposed to shop vacs) is choked by that size pipe. It should be standardized at 6".

I haven't looked over a jointer like yours, but I have a 6" 54A Powermatic and it has excellent collection, possibly because Powermatic did a better job on the internals to collect to chips as they come off the cutter head. Owners are probably going to have to do some kind of modification to some of the older machines to get really good collection. Witness the older Unisaws for example.

[Chris Parks]

14" impeller, 3HP, 1900 CFM.

No way is it 1900CFM, that is impossible for that size impeller. You may have been told that, it may have that written on the machine but it just ain't so and an example of the manufacturers in general inflating the numbers.

[Michael Zerance]

No way is it 1900CFM, that is impossible for that size impeller. You may have been told that, it may have that written on the machine but it just ain't so and an example of the manufacturers in general inflating the numbers.

I guess I could have prefaced my statement with "The manufacturer's specifications are as follows..."; I just thought that it would be generally assumed.