Seeking Opinion On Chip/Dust Collection/Removal

[Max sawdust]

OK, I know I call myself Max Sawdust, but enough is enough    I am finally ready to break down and do something, so I can be Min Sawdust.. My lungs will thank me.

I currently spend about 15 hours a week taking rough sawn stock down to S4S boards (15" planer, 8" Jointer, table saw and chop saw) are the tools I am using.  Planer and Jointer creating the most volume of chips, with the Planer producing the "bad" fine stuff that gets too your lungs.  The area these tools operate is about 24 x 20. 

I see two options. 
The first being getting a smaller 2-3hp blower and just blowing the stuff out the side of the shop.  The blowers seem more expensive than the entire dust collection systems.
? Any one know where to get low cost blowers?
? Does this method get rid of all  the fine dust particles in the shop too?

The second option is to get a "dust collection" system. 
I am leaning twords the Grizzly G1029Z 2HP with 1150CFM.  It costs $295.  I fear I would clog the filter bag frequently.
The second model that is interesting to me is the Grizzly Go548 2HP with 1700CFm and a pleated filter cartridge that can be cleaned.  This one costs more, $498.  With either of these systems I will need to empty the bag at least once every session  

I am guessing I do not need the HP you guys running 4 head planer molders do. 
?Do you think these 2HP systems will work for my usage?
?What are your experiences?

I plan on having manual blast gates at each machine with the blower/collector being about 15' from the machines.

Thanks in advance for your opinions and experiences

Min Sawdust

[Larry]

I’m running a home made blower to dump it outside from the planer...course half the time the doors are open and there is a big dust cloud.  Sometimes the wind blows it back in...guess if you blew it far nuff away it couldn’t get back in.  During warm weather I run a 36" fan to keep cool and dust outside.  Rest of the machines are on a conventional DC so they don't creat much problems...except for the chop saw.

Another sawyer up the road bought one of the bigger Grizzly DC's at there yearly scratch and dent sale.  His idea was to just sit it outside without the bags on.  He had to patch up the fan couple of times cause it wasn’t heavy enough to take heavy hits from knots or chunks of wood.  The motor gave out after couple of years.  Our motor guy said it was beyond repair so he gave up and bought a real blower.

[flip]

I got your Griz right here.  Dad bought one for his shop does a good job if you are doing small jobs but you will be emptying it about as much as you are working.  The filter bag must be shaken, beat, blown out or washed to be effective.  For what you are doing, it ain't gonna be worth it, you need more.  We even have the cyclone do-hickey hooked up before the machine.  If you do any amount of planing, you will be emptying 2-3 times for an hour of planing.  Go bigger or get a blower.

Flip

We have a 20" Griz planer that is about more than the collector wants and we had to, don't tell, knock the guards out of the inlet of the blower because shavings kept clogging it and this is just using a 10' 4" hose dedicated to one machine.

[karl]

Ya need bigger than the small Griz
I have one of the old 3 hp ones ModG1030(2300cfm)- they still make that one. I tossed the bags the first week and created a Frankencyclone out of plywood with 55 gal drums for the shavings to fall into and bought real filter bags from Onieda to keep my heat in the building. The motor fried within a year or so. Since then it got  belt driven with a 4 hp and speeded up to 4000 rpm- now it will handle a 25" planer on 20' of 10"duct.
If you create a bin/cyclone make sure it is on the vaccum side of the blower- that way the knots and crap doesn't go through the blower, just the fine dust

Oneida has a catalog with some good info on sizing blowers and duct for your needs

[Dave Shepard]

I am interested in cyclones. I just got our vacuum hooked up this week on our sawmill and it works great, inside anyways. Outside is another story however. I haven't tried it yet, but we have the exhaust from the blower shooting into a 48' trailer, and I don't think it is going to do much for the fine particles. Although it should work well for the shavings from the planer. I would like to hear from anybody that has any ideas on building a cyclone. We are using a blower on a 25 hp tractor, and it has a 10" inlet.


Dave

[brdmkr]

Not trying to steal the thread, but I thought that a DC was just a blower with bags.  Could you not just disconnect the bags and shoot the exhaust outside?  That was what I was planning on doing when I finished my shop.  Maybe I should rethink

[Don P]

Yup at its simplest its a radial fan, a suction and a discharge tube. From there it can go to a cyclone where most of the debris drops out. Then the air can continue to a baghouse where it is filtered and dishcarged back into the shop.

I have worked mostly in the south and most shops just ran a blower and outdoor cyclone and forgot about heat in the winter. I was happy to get the first job in a shop with a baghouse, it meant warm winters. In one shop the suction was so strong I turned on the blower one night and didn't open a door, I couldn't open a door until I shut it off.

Dave Gingery's book from Lindsay publications on centrifugal fans has cyclone building info, as well as fans and some good metal tricks for figuring out the transition pieces.

Check the auction sites. I just watched a dozen industrial dust blowers go from 100-300 each

[Dave Shepard]

Thanks Don P, I have heard of Lindsay Pub. before, a long time ago. Our biggest concern is not filling the yard with dust. All we need is to get it into a pile so we can scoop it with the loader. The blower really moves some air though.


Dave

[Max sawdust]

Check the auction sites. I just watched a dozen industrial dust blowers go from 100-300 each

 
I saw a slightly used 5hp blower listed for $450.  I am checking on that one.

My shop is unheated.  So I will not worry about lost heat   I looked at the harbor freight 2hp 4" blower for $195.  I could just throw out the bags and run a pipe out the wall, and dedicate it to the planer.  Or keep looking around for a good used larger size that could take a network of pipes.

I am enjoying all the experiences and info
Thanks
max

[treenail]

Have a 1600cfm dust collector for my grilly 20" planer and my wh moulder/planer that works extremely well except for all of the time spent dumping the bags. Will probably just run the 4" collection hose directly out the wall and into some sort of outdoor collection bin of sorts to keep dust down.

[slowzuki]

Here is the best webpage I have encountered on dust collection in a shop.  Scroll way down to read his pages.

http://billpentz.com/woodworking/cyclone/Recommendations.cfm

[brdmkr]

Have a 1600cfm dust collector for my grilly 20" planer and my wh moulder/planer that works extremely well except for all of the time spent dumping the bags. Will probably just run the 4" collection hose directly out the wall and into some sort of outdoor collection bin of sorts to keep dust down.

Hey treenail, if you get a chance, run that pipe through the wall sooner rather than later.  That is exactly (even planning on using the same DC) what I am planning on doing and I'd like to hear how it works

[Max sawdust]

Here is the best webpage I have encountered on dust collection in a shop.  Scroll way down to read his pages.

http://billpentz.com/woodworking/cyclone/Recommendations.cfm

Thanks
That fine dust thing scares me especially when working with certain woods.  I can feel it in my lungs when working cedar or birch

I am nearly 100% convinced that I will blow everything outside the shop, and not mess around with filtering. 

I lost an ebay auction for a Dayton 19" 5hp blower. :  That would have been perfect..

Thanks everyone for the good info
Max

[Kelvin]

Howdy!
I got the 3hp grizzly and chucked the bags.  Blow it straight outside with 6" pvc.  Keep the bends smooth and use very little flex pipe and i have it running my whole shop.  20 powermatic w/ byrd shelix, 8" griz jointer, chop saw, table saw, bandsaw, all w/ manual gates.  I still run a overhead filter that used furnace filters.  The best thing about the 3hp blower is that i can use their remote control and the thing sits in the basement.  Hard to tell its on. 
Cheap filter for in the shop is to lean a couple of big furnace filters up against a box fan.  They really work well!  The worst for me is the table saw, as the fine stiff comes off the blade and right in your face.  I built a pvc box that hangs down from the ceiling like a Vega fence type dust pickup for the top of the blade, and the main one under the saw. 
Blow outside, and filter the fines inside with another filter is a must.  Its the fines that will kill you!
Also tape up all the open parts of your saws and what not that are hooked up to the blower.  Like the table saw has all sorts of gaps that i've tapped up for added suction where it counts.  Can't beat blowing outside.  I make mountains of sawdust.  You got to be crazy to try bagging it!  Doesn't effect my heat too much anyways. 
KP

[slowzuki]

I should rig mine up to blow into the induced draft fan on my furnace    Get some heat value out of it.  (BTW this a dangerous/bad idea, if you get a clog and drop in airspeed it could back puff on me)

[Max sawdust]

Good sales pitch Kelvin   Sounds good too me
Slowzuki, sounds like you plan needs some work
Been following the thread on the pellet maker over in general woodworking, need to hook dat blower right up to the hopper on the pellet maker then have it feed into the shop heater
Thanks again
Max

[solidwoods]

Dust collector from auction web site.
Yes 3ph - yes 3ph no problem.
Some are with cyclone.

To blow mass qty of chips from a shop,  use the bag set up as normal but cut out the stitches holding the bottom of the bottom bag.  The *ring can be mounted so a truck/cart can roll under and out for haul away.
Some one may have a trailer or truck to haul/trade a little something for loads.
Once the chips are slowed down by the ring and flapping bag bottom they fall easy.
I use a salvage boat trailer with 4 x 8 , 3/4 CDX sheet bottom, 4 sided ribs (a square like a pic frame) (lap joint with screws 1x6)  4ea of these ribs (front back and 2 in mid),, sheet metal roofing sides laid horizontal (height of chip bin box was determined by the width of 2 metal sheets width,, around 6' high inside),  metal ring is on top , full size opening door on the end.  I run a weinig moulder+all the usual so I have to haul that out a bit.  Blowing chips out a few feet could lead to just having to clean up the mess and making a FrankenCart or FrankenWaggon.

*add sheet metal cone under this + top with hose flange = cyclone (read the book on construction to get proportion dimensions- a must for proper ops.  but real easy to do)  bought one for the shop small vac system from ebay, real nice made less than 200, very very much one of the best deals for cyclone.

Chipps go to:
Concrete footer 4x8
Block wall 3'h with firebrick lineing
Top is either- water jacket or fire brick valt (do it,, I dare you,, no realy looks reasonably easy even if you leave out the wood fired bake oven)
1" steel tub water heat pick up tubes in side at roof (this most important design easy to do right,, just must be not too long a run untill it rtns to main)
NO block wood into this design because of fire brick breakage.

Hot water puts an amazing speed reduction on your elec meter and the house is finnaly warm (mines 3500sq' 1890 original)

need no smoke from the unit?  Water filter.  smoke through water, water picks up heat for    (another subject)

by the way I'm jim

[Max sawdust]

Thanks for the great idea's Jim.
max

[scsmith42]

Jim - great ideas.

Max - Ditto the comments about the bags being a pain to dump.  I like Jim's idea about hanging the bottomless bag on the end of the pipe.

If you have some rural land, one thing to consider is park a manure spreader under the dump chute/bag, and fill it with the shavings.  This makes it easy to distribute them along trails, over a garden, etc, and it's very quick.

Scott

[Max sawdust]

I am very rural, and in the woods
I figure I am going to push the mountain of chips off the hill and into a small valley that is filled with old junk someone left behind.  Cover it up and level things off a bit in the process

[Dana]

Max sawdust, if you can get to the bottom of the hill to retrieve the junk metal its now worth 140 to 200 a ton. A scrap yard near me is paying $200 a ton for tin like car fenders, hoods, etc. When I had my bodyshop, they would take it off my hands for free, if I hauled it to them.

[Max sawdust]

I here what you are saying   Is'nt that something when they know you got scrap they do not want to pay .  My stuff is all actual JUNK,  old paint cans, plastic tarps and so forth   No good old farm equipment..
Max

[Max sawdust]

Thanks everyone for the assistance on this project   After lots of study I decided to go CHEAP.
I bought a $180, 2HP 1phase 110V Central Machinery "dust collector"  Tossed the bags and stand in the trash, mounted the blower high on the wall,  and blow out the side of the building.  Simple and Works great!  
I needed to cut off the tabs on the intake port, which were designed to prevent large chunks from hitting the fan, because planing NWC caused frequent plug ups. 

Next I need to put a furnace filter in front of a box fan as suggested.  Dat ought to take care of the fine stuff.

Max

[pineywoods]

Max, I put the same blower on my sawmill. Like you tossed the bags and mounted the blower high up on the wall blowing through 6 inch stovepipe out into the woods. A 20 ft piece of flex 5 inch hose connects to the woodmizer. Like it so well I'm gona buy another to put on my woodmaster planner..