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Dust collection quandry

Started by flip, March 19, 2007, 03:04:51 PM

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flip

I'm getting REALLY tired of emptying the can and bag on our dust collector >:(  We have the trash can cyclone thingy before the machine which catches the majority of stuff (It's not a true cyclone IMHO).  I have been on billpentz.com and doing some reading but am more confused than before.  I'll add a few pics tomorrow to give you an idea what we have to work with but for now please try to follow my ramblings. 

The way we have things situated now is a real PITA.  Machines are on one wall and DC is in the corner.  We use a machine we pull out a 10' hose and hook up, but it's a pain since we just have 10' hoses and little room.  I'm getting to the point where it's time to get the DC and hoses out of the way and run some real dust work.  I haev several ideas but not sure if the machine we have can do the job even after reading Bill Pentz's calculations. 

The Griz unit is a 2 hp with 12" fan rated at 1550cfm and 11" static pressure 2.5 micron bag.  I want to run a full 6" either through the ceiling or a foot or so off the floor around the walls but would perfer through the ceiling.  I would like to pipe the stuff outside the shop into a small wagon where it can be taken away and burned or spread.  I also need to contain the fine dust as much as possible so not to dust down the house.  Any ideas??  Dad is getting some pretty big piles of shavings and dust piled up in his yard. ;D

Flip
Timberking B-20, Hydraulics make me board quick

Ironwood

Oneida Dust collectors are the best by far (read all the tests in the last years). If you are woodworking in a house/ basement 2.5 micros ISN'T even close to what you need for your and your families health. Oneida has filter canisters that go to 1 micron AND REALLY WORK! Unlike the claims of others. I was just at their location in Syracuse N.Y. while visiting my inlaws (my second visit to Oneida in ten years) They continue to DO IT RIGHT.  THey are also helpful in working to upgrade others INEFFICIENT systems if someone mistakenly bought an inferior product from another company (shame shame). Good people GREAT products. See their line of canister style filters with Poly mesh REUSABLE filters (they don't breakdown quickly like paper style filters) and don't take up the space of bag systems. Use the link but go to the "home" site for all the skippy. 

http://www.dustdeputy.com/

                        Reid
There is no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love to do, there is only scarcity of resolve to make it happen.- Wayne Dyer

flip

Here are the pics. of the shop.  After we started packing in machines, cabinets, tables, wood as you can see we are out of room. 

I'm thinking I want to mount the blower next to the air filter high on the wall and run a 6" pipe along the ceiling and end it above the bench.  Will throw the exhaust side out the building into a cart with a filter to catch the fine dust. 

What say you?










Timberking B-20, Hydraulics make me board quick

OneWithWood

I think you are on to something.  Go for it.
One With Wood
LT40HDG25, Woodmizer DH4000 Kiln

flip

The question is though, can the Griz unit we have do the job in getting the inside stuff outside?
Timberking B-20, Hydraulics make me board quick

Burlkraft

I say that shop is waaaayyy too DanG clean.........

Ya gotta let the dust collect on everything fer a coupla months and then worry about where the sawdust is goin.... :D :D :D
Why not just 1 pain free day?

flip

Clean because it's only a few months old and I ain't been working in there enough.  Most of the haze you see in the pictures is from sanding so we is gettin' it broke in.
Timberking B-20, Hydraulics make me board quick

Ironwood

If all you are doing is blowing it outside along with your heat in winter and cool air in summer then no problem. On the other hand if you would like to breathe that air it IS a different story. A Cyclone is a Cyclone but the key is the final filtration in which Oneida rises above all others. If you are going to rebreathe that air at least get your filters from them. Reid
There is no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love to do, there is only scarcity of resolve to make it happen.- Wayne Dyer

OneWithWood

I am using a 5hp unit I got from Timberking and it does the trick for my set up which is similar to yours.  I went with the larger blower because ti also evacuates the saw dust from my LT40.  Put blast gates on all your drops to maximize the draw at any one point.
One With Wood
LT40HDG25, Woodmizer DH4000 Kiln

jdtuttle

I have the same griz unit & setup you have. Used it for several years with the pre separator. I've been doing more planing & molding latley and got tired of emptying the barrel too. I took the griz apart mounted the blower 5' off the ground next to an exterior wall. A 5" metal pipe with a y at the end runs from the planer to the blower & outside. It blows into a 4'x8' ATV trailer. I used 3 sheets of wafer board and built a 4'x4'x8 box and threw a tarp over the top and secured with bungee cords. It sucks more dust than ever and the shop is cleaner. It takes the heat out too but I have lots of coats.
Have a great day

ohsoloco


jdtuttle

No 3 phase up on the hill here. Didn't I see that on e-bay?
Have a great day

flip

I have been trying to convince the old man to punch a hole in the wall and just shoot it into a cart outside.  His contention is that the cart won't be sealed up enough to control all the fine dust and it will get all over the house. ::)  Who cares, we live on a farm I say.  The suggestion he has made is we get another dust collector and move the break down part of it to one of the other empty barns on the property.  Do all of the primary machining in another area then bring the wood to the shop to start working.  He did not like the suggestion that he built his shop too small to begin with and probably should add at LEAST another 20X20 on :-X  He wins for now.  His electricity his rules :)  Now that I have been building furniture for others I am finding out how small the shop really is :(
Timberking B-20, Hydraulics make me board quick

metalspinner

The way I work running between buildings would be a pain.  My shop is tight on workspace as well.  I am forced to stop periodically and pick stuff up just to use some tools.  Casters on tools help, but only if you have room to role them around.

My dust control ( :D ) is similar to what you are considering. I have just come to the conclusion that emptying the bin is all just part of it. ::)
I do what the little voices in my wife's head tell me to do.

Fla._Deadheader


I use a broom and air compressor. What I can't sweep up, gets blown out the back door  ::) ::) ;D ;D
All truth passes through three stages:
   First, it is ridiculed;
   Second, it is violently opposed; and
   Third, it is accepted as self-evident.

-- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

TeenSwinger

    I do the same thing jdtuttle does just blow it into a trailer 4x8 trailer with sides. Sure beats emptying the can out every 10 minuets. 

Jacob
Peterson ATS 827  Nyle L200  Ebac 800  Bridgewood M-562

ohsoloco

jdtuttle, I haven't listed it on ebay...yet.  It may come down to that.  Heck, maybe I will still have it when I finally build my shop  :D  I wouldn't run it on 3 phase, I'd swap out for a single phase motor  ;)

jdtuttle

Ohsoloco, I'm adding onto my shop if you still have it this summer I may want to look at it again. Pa. isn't to far away.
Have a great day

getoverit

I have a hard piped vac system in my shop and I blow the dust outside. The sawdust and chips are scratched into oblivion by the chickens and it seems to dissappear really fast. All of the trees and plants around that end of the shop have a coating of fine dust on them but it doesnt seem to hurt them at all.

I am in the process of building a larger shop. The new shop will have a 6" dust system instead of 4" and I will go with the cyclone and filters to keep the hot or cold air in the shop.  That really isnt a problem for me as much as the changes in humidity when I suck in outside air.

I dont create that volume of chips in my woodworking unless I am using the planer. Any other time it is just fine dust and the cyclone should take care of catching that.
I'm a lumberjack and I'm ok, I work all night and sleep all day

ohsoloco

It may just be sitting out there come summer  :-\  I got a couple calls about it from the local ad, but they were expecting one of those small units that sit in the shop.  I got the same "oh boy" reaction from both guys when I told them it was three phase  :D 

chisel

Here's my setup. The air from the cyclone goes up, over and down into the box where there's an air filter installed. Clean air exits from the bottom and back into the shop.

flip

Here's what we've been up to in the shop.







Have picked up a bunch of suction going straight 6" and doing away with the 4" Y that came with the machine. 

If ya look in the last pic. you see we are using a 55 gallon plastic barrel to seperate the big stuff before it gets to the machine.  One problem we ran into last night when we finally got everything going is that if the barrel is over half full the machine starts pulling the dust and shavings from the barrel.  If you look close you can see a few screws going down the center of the lid where we added a 7" baffle, that didn't help.  Any ideas??
Timberking B-20, Hydraulics make me board quick

leweee

Quote from: flip on March 12, 2008, 07:30:18 AM
Here's what we've been up to in the shop.
  Any ideas??

;D Get a proper CYCLONE ::) :P :D :D :D
just another beaver with a chainsaw &  it's never so bad that it couldn't get worse.

flip

I was waiting for that...  I first need a taller ceiling and a lot more $$ to do that.  Is it possible to blow the chips into the barrel then vent into the bags?  Would be like a poor mans cyclone :P
Timberking B-20, Hydraulics make me board quick

Dan_Shade

some companies are making smaller cyclones these days, you could probably make something work from scratch if your were so inclined.... 

the cyclone system that I've worked with is pretty slick, it's a Bill Pentz design.
Woodmizer LT40HDG25 / Stihl 066 alaskan
lots of dull bands and chains

There's a fine line between turning firewood into beautiful things and beautiful things into firewood.

beenthere

Maybe just empty the barrel when it is half full....or put another barrel in the line...if just emptying 25 gal at a time is too often.  ::) ::)

Or stack a barrel on top of the one you have, and make it so you can empty the bottom one (looks like enough ceiling room for two barrel heights.
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

leweee

flip....sorry for the blunt reply earlier. :( to improve the performance of the system you have to center the exhaust tube in the center of the cover & the inlet at an angle near the outside.(to create the centrifugal force that makes a cyclone work) ;D



PS  the duct work is looking good. 8)
just another beaver with a chainsaw &  it's never so bad that it couldn't get worse.

submarinesailor

Flip,

Looking good.  Good job to all involved.

Bruce

flip

There is a cyclone on ebay for $180 which hooks up and uses your current dust collector.  anyone know much about it?  Looks like it would work for what I need. 

http://cgi.ebay.com/Cyclone-Separator-for-Dust-Collector_W0QQitemZ270218838133QQihZ017QQcategoryZ11704QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Timberking B-20, Hydraulics make me board quick

beenthere

Looks good, and would think for the price it would be worth a try. I like the smaller one too, that should help out with the portable planer.
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

logwalker

There is a plastic cyclone garbage can cover that would work better than your shop built one but may only be available in a 4". You could fab one in the shop if you are clever. Inlet needs to come in on the side at and angle to create a swirl and the outlet comes out the center. Maybe sacrifice a second can that could slip over the main can.


Let's all be careful out there tomorrow. Lt40hd, 22' Kenworth Flatbed rollback dump, MM45B Mitsubishi trackhoe, Clark5000lb Forklift, Kubota L2850 tractor

farmerdoug

Flip, you could put the cyclone outside and just have the the return come back inside to your filter.
Doug
Truck Farmer/Greenhouse grower
2001 LT40HDD42 Super with Command Control and AccuSet, 42 hp Kubota diesel
Fargo, MI

flip

We had the lid deal on a 30 gal can since we've had the dust collector.  It just couldn't do the job as far as air flow (4" in and out) and if you were running the planer you would have to empty it every 15 minutes (big pain). 

Can't put one outside, mom and dad just remodeled and added on don't want the eyesore.  I tried to get dad to just punch an outlet hole in the wall and blow it into a cart but he was worried about dust getting free and coating the house.

So I am pretty much resigned to using what is available.  Can't cut into the ceiling because of the cellulose insulation (heated shop), fire hazzard and serviceability. :(
Timberking B-20, Hydraulics make me board quick

getoverit

that cyclone should work fine. It wont catch all of the "fines" in the air, but your dust collection system should have a filter on it that will catch those. The cyclone will catch 99% of the bigger particles.

Not a bad price on it too!
I'm a lumberjack and I'm ok, I work all night and sleep all day

GHRoberts

It is fairly easy to make a cyclone that works well.

I have a 1-1/2hp Delta chip collector.

I bought a 55 gallon plastic barrel ($40) and cut 2 holes in the top: inlet (machine side) near the edge, exhaust (chip collector side) in the center.

The inlet hole has a 3" PVC pipe coupling on the outside and an elbow on the inside. The outlet hole has couplings on both the inside and outside.

4" flex tubing connects the cyclone to the system.

Until the 55 gallon barrel gets over 2/3s full no chips or dust get to the chip collector.

(My toy planer, Dewalt 735, blows all of its chips into the barrel with the Delta chip collector turned off.)

Lud

This is a good thread.  It got me thinking about my systems.

I use my bank barn as my shop here at the farm and have the dust collector down stairs with a remote starter.  Much more quiet if you can have DC in another room.

No cyclone but I have a stash of 55 gal barrels so I'm thinking after reading this thread about building one.

Seperately,  I had a cart that I tarp over and run the planer directly into.  I found I could punch a hole in the bottom of a plastic bag,  taped it to the end of the flex plastic  that comes from the 13" Dewalt planer to let the"blowthru" decelerate. Seems to diminish dusting a bit.  I pull the cart out of the bottom of the barn with the 4 wheeler to dump.

What I'm wondering about is would there be a way to have the cyclone be ceiling mounted above the cart to make an easy dump for a combined haul out.  I don't think I could seal the cart itself but maybe if I went thru the  bottom of a top barrel I could just unclip a lower barrel to dump into the cart?

The dust bags fill up slower when a cyclone is introduced,  right? ??? ???
Simplicity mill, Ford 1957 Golden Jubilee 841 Powermaster, 40x60 bankbarn, left-handed

getoverit

Here is a picture of my clearvue dust collection system. As you can see, I use a 20 gallon metal trash can for the collection of dust and chips. The planer will fill up the can pretty fast, but normal sanding and woodwork doesnt fill it that fast. It is easy enough to empty out since the garbage can has handles on it.



The way this system works, it requires that you have an air tight seal on the garbage can (duct tape) to keep the chips from being sucked up into the blower and then out of the blower into the filters. The filters are cleanable and will trap dust down to 0.5 microns.

I had an allergic reaction to some of the exotic woods that I build guitars with and this necessitated putting in the beefed up dust collection system. I also have a whole shop air filter made by Delta in the shop to capture any dust that may escape the system and linger in the air. All of this has virtually eliminated the fine dust that seemed to settle on everything in the shop and I have a really clean shop now.

I'm not necessarily a health nut, but the bad allergy I had to wood caused me to go overboard with collecting dust. It has to be a lot better on my lungs too since all of the fine dust particles that were hanging in the air I was breathing are now being captured and eliminated.

This is an 1800CFM system and all of the piping is 6". It has a 5hp Leeson motor on it and sounds like a jet engine taking off. The system I had before was 650 CFM and used 4" pipe.

I still have the 650 CFM system if anybody wants to buy it cheap. It is heavy and shipping would kill any savings. If you are in the area and want to pick it up, it can be had cheap.
I'm a lumberjack and I'm ok, I work all night and sleep all day

Max sawdust

Some very nice set ups! wow :o

Mine is real basic.  1.5HP cheap harbor freight blower, blowing out the side of the building.  Don't care about heat loss cause my shop is unheated.  (Yes I work all day in it even in sub zero weather)

I kept all my runs short and close the gates on the machines not in use.  The DC unit collects chips from the 15" planer, 8" jointer, Chop saw, and table saw. 

The whole set up costs less than $200.00.  (Worthy upgrade from the dust mask, broom and shovel "DC" method.)

I will make several 55 gallon drums of shavings in a session.  So blowing it outside works for me, this way I do not have to stop and fool around with dumping barrels.

My biggest problem is on a windy day the dust gets away from the pile.  Need to make a shed or something for it to blow into.

max
True Timbers
Cedar Products-Log & Timber Frame Building-Milling-Positive Impact Forestscaping-Cut to Order Lumber

Handy Andy

Getoverit, looks like you built all the parts for your cyclone out of wood.  Did you buy the clearview kit?  All the other ones I've seen were built out of metal parts except for the kit.  Jim
My name's Jim, I like wood.

getoverit

That is the way it came from the factory. The only thing I had to outsource was the filters, which were on the expensive side. Those filters catch anything that the cyclone dont catch down to a half micron in size. The system comes in pieces and you have to put it together, but it only takes a few minutes to assebmble everything.
I'm a lumberjack and I'm ok, I work all night and sleep all day

bull

My blower is wall mounted and the blower vents threw the wall to the outdoors and is blown under a tarp for cleanup by FEL to composting area or where ever needed... I use flexable 4 inch hose to my resaw and chop table, I put a peice of 1/2 inch rat wire screen over the flex tube on the chop table to keep out " klinkers" they do a number on the impeler of the blower and make a hell of a racket

Lud

The whole cyclone addition eliminates the clinker problem , right?   Chunks can't get to the impeller, eh.

I can understand that the cyclone has to be sealed to keep vacuum pressure as strong as possible.........but if the lower bag isn't filling up,  is there a greater ability for flowthru?  Thus making up for some leakage?  We all get some stuck gates, right,  and the dust collection still works?

I found an old recip blade bent 90 degrees will clean out the groove in a blast gate pretty good.
Simplicity mill, Ford 1957 Golden Jubilee 841 Powermaster, 40x60 bankbarn, left-handed

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