DIY Dust Collector

Hello,

I have abandoned my plan to use the central vac as a dust collector. However, my wife's late father was a pipe organ builder, and left a blower in the basement. The unit has been, uh, collecting dust for about 45 years, and I was wondering if it would be suitable for a homemade shop dust collector.

I'll try to describe the unit, and my plan.

The blower specs are:

CFM 500 Pressure 3.6" The intake and exhaust ports are 8 inches in diameter.

The GE motor specs:

1/2 HP ball bearing motor 115/230 V AC 7.8/3.9 Amp.

This sounds like something that I could make into a DC. I haven't been able to start it yet, since it seems to have a 220 plug on it (but not the same size as the dryer).

I have two questions:

1.) Can this thing be used for this purpose?

2.) How should I set it up?

I'm not sure how a DC works. I envision the following setup:

machine blower ____ ____ ______ _____ | |=====| |==| |==| | |____| |____| |______| |_____| dust bin filter bag

air flow ------------------>>>>

I'd put some sort of screen on the dust bin to keep the big stuff out of the blower.

Alright, you can stop laughing now. As I said, I really don't have a clue as to how these things work. Anyway, if anyone can help with this, I'd appreciate it.

Curt Blood Amateur Furniture Builder

Reply to
CBlood59
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Way too small to bother. My 16a DC is strickly marginal.

Reply to
toller

It is also strictly marginal.

Reply to
toller

snipped-for-privacy@aol.com (CBlood59) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mb-m06.aol.com:

Curt, your first stop should be here:

formatting link
's an awful lot of information in those pages, and it's where a bunch of us folks learned at least some of what we think we know.

Patriarch

Reply to
Patriarch

Would you like a free 20" Jet dust collector center section, and top bag?

The metal is brand new, the bag comes pre-caked. Pay the shipping and it's yours, I'm going to toss it if nobody wants it.

Email me directly if you're interested.

Barry

Reply to
Ba r r y

Way too small to bother. My 16a DC is strickly marginal. It is also strictly marginal.

So, if I were to switch out the motor for a more powerful one, would this work? Assuming the blower has the capacity to be driven by a bigger motor, the CFM (500) and static pressure (3.6) should be adaquate, from what I've seen of manufacturers specs.

Curt

Reply to
CBlood59

More HP will not give you any more CFM or static pressure. More RPM and HP will, but I would be wary of increasing th RPM of the blower, the fan may not take it and come apart.

Using as it is will give you some dust collection capabilities, but very limited. Greg

Reply to
Greg O

Curt, those specs indicate a capacity less than 50% of the smallest dust collector available commercially - one that sells for about $200. I think you would be wasting your time.

Now that we have sufficiently discouraged you, the general setup of a dust collection system:

  1. Pipe from tool to inlet of the blower.

  1. Outlet of blower exhausts into dust filter bag.

I left out some pieces normally included but your blower doesn't have a hope of handling things like a trashcan or cyclone separator. Just don't let big chunks of wood get into it.

Bob

Reply to
BillyBob

Reply to
Phisherman

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