Upgrade or UPGRADE?....

[James Gunning]

Joe,

The overriding reason you would want to upgrade is to have better dust collection at your machines. The Grizzly unit you have now is probably doing an adequate job getting the chips, but the fine dust that is of real concern health-wise is likely not being picked up. You have a different situation than many here by having your DC enclosed in a separate building. That helps to keep the fine dust cloud that felt bags (I'm assuming you are using those that came with the Grizzly collector?) generate away from you and the main part of your shop. As long as that continues, and you don't mind dumping the bags, then a larger machine with a higher HP rating and most importantly a larger impeller might serve you just as well as a cyclone.

However, you are not being well served by the Rockler hoses. It may be the most convenient thing to use, but the 4" flex hose is eating badly into the ability of your current blower to move air. A 4" hose has less than half the cross section of a 6" hose. The fact that it's flex hose makes that even worse. You would be wasting your money upgrading to a larger blower and staying with the 4" flex hose. It could be the Rockler system is the only thing that will work for your situation. In that case stay with what you have, but I would start wearing a dust mask if you don't now.

I have a small garage shop and everything is on wheels including my SDD cyclone. I use the shortest length of 6" flex hose I can, to hook up one machine at a time, so I understand a little bit of your situation. I went from 4" to 6" hose when I built my portable SDD cyclone. The difference in the airflow in my system was dramatic, with no change in blower HP. Bigger is always better in blowers and DC hose diameters.

[andy bessette]

4" sounds so small for such a long run.

[Jim Becker]

I use the high quality clear flex hose available from suppliers like Oneida, Air Handling Systems, etc. It doesn't "retract", but it's smoother inside and does a fine job. Using a quick disconnect, it's easy to pull off a drop/tool and coil for storage if necessary. (I do that with the ceiling drop I use for my router table setup since that's a long hose)

[Joe Shinall]

Thanks Jim, I'll see what I can't work out with a 6" pipe and try a higher quality flex hose and see what I can come up with before upgrading the actual unit. Just going to take some well thought out planning to get that big of a pipe turned around the corner I need it to go and still have room for my machines to push towards the wall. Hard to explain how I have to route it but I know the larger sweeping turns, the better.

Thanks guys!

[Jim Becker]

Joe, duct size is critical to dust collection efficiency, so spending some time working it out will be time well spent, as it were.

[James Gunning]

Joe,

I bought my flex hose from Wynn Environmental. It's very high quality and Wynn has done a lot of work with woodworkers. They understand our needs and their web site offers good information. There are other sources as well.

So you know, the flex hose that most use does not stretch in length very much. It will stretch (and retract) somewhat in length, but from your description, probably less than the Rockler hose. The 6" hose is very flexible so routing it is easy.

[Jim Becker]

And again, quick disconnects sound like they would be a boon in your particular shop situation. Think Nordfab or equivalent. Not inexpensive, but you only need the quick disconnect setups so you can clamp and unclamp a hose quickly and easily.

Example: https://www.oneida-air.com/inventoryD.asp?item_no=GCOLLECT14&CatId={3345C4DA-0E18-4EF2-B7F7-374003290CAF}

Mine came from Grizzly, but they don't seem to have them listed online at this point.

[Joe Shinall]

Awesome, thanks Jim! Definitely going to try those.

[Carl Kona]

Joe,

I have been doing a lot of research into the next step with my dust collecting (currently have a Jet 1100 1.5HP single stage). What I have found is numbers from manufacturers are useless. Comparing a Grizzly 2HP single stage "quoted" CFM and the Laguna is apples and oranges. Gizzly (like many others) uses an open unrestricted CFM rating (1550 I think for your machine). Once your old style filter bag gets a small coating of dust and you attach your 4" flex that number is a fraction of 1550. Laguna appears to under rate their motor HP (the current draw for a 2HP unit i more like a 3hp unit. Maybe it is new marketing to say our 2HP (really 3HP unit) outperforms their 2HP unit. In the end it does not matter if you get 3hp performance for 2hp price. Looking at Laguna specs they rate their unit at various pressure levels and filter attached. So it is more real world. Oneida is doing the same thing (showing performance at various pressure levels.

As previously mentioned a Super Dust Deputy (SDD) will give good separation to alleviate clogging your filter. If you google SDD and look at the images you will see people who mount the SDD on a steel garbage can and then mount the old blower unit 90 degrees right on top of the SDD and then the blower exhausts into a 90 into a pleated filter. (I use a Donaldson torit p190817 or p190818 DFT ULTRA-WEB CARTRIDGE 13.84"OD X 26.00"L 9.46ID - less than $100 ~250sq-ft of area). So for ~$300 you can get a SDD, Filter and 6" duct/hoses with decent performance (But you have to build this setup on your current cart or a new one).

On the other hand the 2HP Laguna will outperform that setup both in real CFM and better separation performance (less filter cleaning). You apparently will spend half a day putting this together!

And as everyone else has mentioned please stop using the convenient 4" hoses! They are killing performance and maybe even you in the long run.

Hope that helps and let us know what you decide!

Carl

[Larry Frank]

Unlike some others, I use 4" flex hose in places. I have measured just over 700 cfm with 10 foot of flex hose which was connected to 6" DWV pipe. (Note...this was measured with a hot wire anemometer.

There are several good sources for performance data...Wood Magazine has done some good testing. Also, calling the companies can often provide you with performance curves as well as exactly how they did the testing.

[Andy Giddings]

Carl, I wouldn't necessarily agree that the Laguna is going to be better than the modded Grizzly. In the end, I think its going to come down to a few factors - impeller size, air inlet (to the impeller) size and motor size to determine the best possible output. Almost everything else (cyclone, filter, duct) then starts reducing the performance. For example, if I look at the size of the Laguna filter (100-120 sq ft) and compare it to a Wynn (220 sq ft) then I would argue the pressure drop from the Laguna will be higher than the home made mods for the Grizzly - therefore the Grizzly might end up with better performance than the Laguna for much less cost - assuming impeller, air inlet and motor can be made equal. Also, if I was going to shell out $1500 for a DC I would save another few hundred and go for a CV-1800 or V-3000/5000

[Joe Shinall]

Thanks again guys for more info. I am in the process of relocating the Grizzly DC to the opposite side and ordered a Super Dust Deputy XL and I am just going to go with my gut and vent outside. By doing this it will also allow me to hopefully be able to run 6" pipe since it will be in a different location and easier to get central to the shop. My shop is a 16x20 carport that we enclosed and studded in then a 16x10 addition on the back so it's hard to figure out how to run the pipe through the smaller shorter addition up high enough to be out of the way in the other shop without making too many 90 degree bends. Going to have to be creative and take my time on it, but all in all from this thread and another one where I was having problems with my new bag, I think this is the best solution.