Which cyclone

[Steve Sowden]

I have read with great interest many of the posts on the neccessity of GOOD dust collection. I am now ready to retire my Jet cannister DC and go for a cyclone. It appears that many (if not most) of you think the Clear-Vue is best.

Is the Clear-Vue a no-brainer purchase or should I be looking at Oneida, JDS etc?

In reading Bill Pentz's site I see he has hade some problems with "a major DC manufacturer". Considering his amazing help to the woodworking community, I would like to avoid this manufacturer. Any idea who it is?

I also see that Bill's site has ads for another DC company (Baghouse) - any thoughts on this company?

Thanks

[Jay Brewer]

Hi Steve, welcome. I am not going to pretend to know 1% of what Bill knows about dust collection, if he says its the best, then I tend to believe him until he is proven wrong. Did I buy a clear vue? No I bought an Oneida, and am very happy with it. Probably as happy as the Clearvue and Grizzly people are with thier machines. Most of the people that own one of these 3 machines, love them. I had no way to compare the 3 machines in person. I just had to weigh the pros and cons of each machine IMO. I didnt even consider the JDS because the footprint of the base was too wide for my situation, also I thought it had a clear bin ( which I thought was a great idea), but come to find out it is just a bag with a metal frame inside. I bet it is a pain to get the metal frame out when the bag is full. Maybe someone that owns one can chime in.

I like the Clearvue, being able to see the material, and when it was time to change the drum. The cone geometry is supposes to seperate better, but I dont know. The only thing I didnt like much was the MDF ( or wood in general) used in the construction. Looks to homemade to me, im sure it works fine though. I also here that Ed at Clearvue is a wonderful person to deal with.

[Jim O'Dell]

Jay, sounds like an ad for Clear Vue! I'm one with the Clear Vue, and it does a great job. But like Jay said, I have no way to say if one is better than the other, because I haven't been around the other units. I think the 3 "biggies" are Oneida, Grizzly and Clear Vue.
As far as which company Bill has had trouble with, I'm not going to say that any more in a public forum. It should be easy enough to search the forums and find out that information.
Good luck with your decision. For me, the only "tool" for the shop that was harder to decide on was the bandsaw! Jim.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Keep in mind,

on the internet you often find a single person's perspective and not both sides of the story.

I'd get both sides of the story before making my decision if that's what you are going to base a decision on....


Other than that,

I'd find out which company's product best suits you needs and meets your specifications and budget.

[Steve Sowden]

So much for the perfect, easy answer (seldom found). I understand and appreciate your comments. I was leaning towards Oneida until I started reading Bill's site and good feedback on Clear-Vue.

It sounds like there are at least a couple of good options that many SMCer's are happy with. I will determine my needs with the help of the many past posts on the subject and go from there.

Thanks,

[CPeter James]

There used to be a saying in business that " no one ever lost their job for buying IBM". They might not be the best, but they were good and consistant and service was there. The same can be said for Oneida. It may not be the best, but you won't be disapointed. The others may as good or better, but all three are going to work good. The differences in performormance will be hard to detect in actual shop conditions. Buy what you are most comfortable with and don't look back.

BTW: I have a ten year old Oneida and am still happy with it.

CPeter

[Steve Roxberg]

I just went through the whole process and picked the Oneida Super Gorilla. I looked at the Grizzly, JDS, Penn State, Clearvue, and Oneida.

Yes, I've read Bill's site, and have been thinking about a cyclone for years.

I will vent inside during the winter, and outside the rest of the year.

So far, I'm still running pipe, I'm very happy and the suction is impressive.

[Rick Gifford]

When I was looking for a dust collector I ran through almost every option. I finally decided a cyclone was the way to go.

I read Bill Pentz website. I looked at the others. I believe he knows what he is talking about and has contributed a large amount of time and resource doing his research. He basically did the work for us.

Seeing how others have copied his design told me his work must be good. ClearVue used his most recent design which is more efficient than the earlier one that was copied.

I read reviews on all the cyclones. I found only one negative on the ClearVue, the others had various responses.

In the end I decided to go with Mr. Pentz and buy one from ClearVue.

My opinion of it is positive. It sucks like crazy. My only negative is sometimes a part/plastic isnt cut right and will need trimmed during installation. I think for the money it should be 100% right.

With ClearVue you will need to put it together yourself and build your own hanging bracket and get your own filters. Some of the others come complete.

[Jim Becker]

In 2000, I bought a small Oneida system for my then-smaller shop. When I expanded my shop a few years later to its current size and upgraded to much larger tools with more demanding dust collection requirements, I bought another Oneida. My original one is still working just great in another SMC member's shop and my 2hp Commercial system is everything I expected it to be. One other thing I did was to tour the Oneida facilities when I picked up the newer, larger system...it was a good opportunity for a road trip. Their design, manufacturing and testing facilities were both impressive and also concentrated specifically on small shop dust collection.

What's nice at this point is that there are a number of good choices available to you...much more than there was back in 2000 when I bought my first cyclone. And as Ken said, be careful about "what you hear on the Internet". We all need to weed out the good factual information from other things.

[Jim Andrew]

In '05 I bought a 2hp woodsucker. It is a great machine, very similar to the others, and I use a 50 gallon drum to catch the sawdust. It keeps my shop pretty clean, but to keep up with my planner the filter needs to be clean. If I was able to start over, would get a 3hp with 2 filters. Most of my lumber is rough sawn, and it only takes a few minutes to make 50 gallons of chips. Jim

[Tim Marks]

When I spend $1000 or so on a cyclone, I am not going to buy something made out of plastic and mdf, regardless of who endorses it. I will buy something made out of steel that will not break when the movers lean on it wrong.

Oneida has set the industry standard, and has been improving their product ever since. You can't go wrong with them, or with the grizzly. Both have demonstrated performance comparable to the Clear-vue in independant tests, and are being sold for similar prices to the Clearvue despite being solidly constructed out of steel and not being offerred as a "kit" requiring alot of assembly by the end user.

Do a search here for cyclone to find frequent heavily debated threads on which cyclone is the best. It is a popular topic, and debates get so hot and heavy that you would think politics and religion were involved.

[Tim Quigley]

I spent a good two years contemplating my recent purchase. Read all of the stuff on this board, Bill's site, and each of the manufacturers. In the end, it seemed that the units from the top few brands (say Oneida, Grizz, Clearvue, and maybe even PSI) all performed in the same general ball park. So, two weeks ago when I decided to pull the trigger I went with the Griz 2hp model. Main reason was the fact that I could drive to the showroom and pick it up this saving a bunch on shipping...that and it was on sale at the time for $675!

What I took away from all the research was that I should spend even more time carfully designing and running my pipe from the cyclone to each machine. Screw that part up by just a small percent and you will wipe out any potential gain by somehow picking the cyclone that has just a few percent better performance.

What have I learned? Well...run the widest pipe you can for your machine...for me that means a 7" main trunk cause that's what the inlet is on the Grizz G0440. Though tempted to go with cheap and more available 6" pvc, I spent the few extra dollars to get 26 guage metal pipe in 7" (can't get 7" in pvc). Also, despite the cost, I also pickup up some laterals designed for dust collection. With curves that are less harsh than standard HVAC parts, this ought to boost performance of my system.

As an FYI...the Penn State Industries site has some lower cost metal parts. If you want to go that route, check out their site.

Good luck...and to echo the earlier post...pick the one that, in your mind, fits with your budget and needs, and don't look back. Spend the rest of your time figuring out the piping.

Best,
Tim

[Brian Ross]

Keep in mind,

on the internet you often find a single person's perspective and not both sides of the story.

I'd get both sides of the story before making my decision if that's what you are going to base a decision on....


Other than that,

I'd find out which company's product best suits you needs and meets your specifications and budget.

A very good point. Cyclones have been around for a long time and I find it hard to believe that Bill Pentz is the only expert in this field and that all the others should be considered second rate because they do not have his endorsement. Just my opinion.
Brian

[Andrew Thuswaldner]

I'm in the process of fixing up my garage with a sub-panel, new electrical outlets, insulation, gas heater. When this is done I'll be buying a cyclone. At this point I'm planning on getting the ClearVue. While it's a little more work getting it set up I believe it's the best design on the market. I don't really care if there is a bit of MDF and assembly required. From researching Bill Pentz website and reading a lot of dialog on the subject I believe ClearVue is based on the best design by Bill Pentz. Bill Pentz would seem to know more and certainly be willing to share more about dust collection than anyone. Ed Morgano (ClearVue owner) has spend a crazy amount of time replying to my relentless email questions. What's not to like? I would love to be convinced that I'd be better off buying an "out of the box" easy to install solution from one of the big guys (Griz or Onieda) but at this point the little guy seems to have the best design, and awesome customer service, the only draw-back being more work to install the product. That's my take.

[Cody Colston]

Like many have said here already, you will likely be satisfied with any of the "big three" manufacturers...Oneida, Grizzly, Clearvue. That's even more true when you consider someone spending $1000 on a cyclone is hardly going to admit they made a purchasing mistake.

What I do find humorous is that on any other tool, the absence of plastic and cheap materials like mdf is a major plus for most everyone. Steel seems to always equal quality. On cyclone collectors however, evidently the reverse is true for many.

Oh yeah, I've got an Oneida 2hp Commercial. I don't get mesmerized watching the chips swirl but it will last longer than I will be around.