I am trying to decide between three dust collection routes for the community shop I am in the middle of opening here in Las Vegas.
1) A large external baghouse
2) 4 Laguna 3hp cyclone units, outside the shop, under cover
3) 4 Laguna 3hp cyclone units, inside the shop
The back story is this: When I started the process of opening this business, a couple years ago, I tried to do my due diligence, which included talking to the county fire department. Together, we decided on acceptable dust collectors - Laguna tools 3hp units. 4 of them, wich gives me over 8000cfm total. I potentially need this much, because as a community shop, I will have many people working at one time. These collectors are quiet, as far as dust collectors go, and filter very well. Additionaly, by locating them inside, near the tools, I can get away with doing the plumbing myself, rather than hiring a contractor, which is expensive, or worse yet, a dust collection engineering firm, which is crazy expensive. I got a good deal from Laguna, and ordered them.
The real pain is that since talking to the fire department, many months ago, they have since come up with a new regulation: any dust collectors INSIDE a building must have a sensor installed, which will shut the collector off if the filter gets torn, removed while running, or if someone tries to start it without the filter. Ugh. I called Laguna, and they do not have this built in to any of their units, or a recomended method of installing such a sensor. So, to do that, I have to figure out how to modify them myself.
So now I have to re-evaulate everything, and decide what to do and to that end, I need help with the following questions:
1) Does anyone know how to modify the dust collectors to auto shut off when needed? Ie a magnahelic gauge, bag rip detector, or something like that?
2) If I choose a big external baghouse (1 is coming up for auction near me), or park the Laguna units outside, will it hurt my climate inside? I am worried because it gets stupid hot here in the summer, and if I suck all my cold air and exhaust it outside, my customers may not find the place so enjoyable... I have swampers for the warehouse, so I guess any air being drawn into the building is at least being drawn across the swampers.
3) How is the maintenance on baghouses? I know very little about these suckers (ha, no pun intended...)
And in general, what is everyone's advice?
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