Clear View Cyclones - Dust Collection

I bought all my 6" S&D fitting from the local Locke Supply. The only 1/4 bends (90 deg.) available from them were very tight - almost square corners - and unusable for DC ducting. I wound up using two 1/8 bends (45 deg) and a short length of pipe to make my 90's. If you found sweeps or large radius 1/4 bends, you might post the name/location/url of the supplier.

Tom Veatch Wichita, KS USA

On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 01:04:12 GMT, Big John wrote: pardon the top post.. you sort of wrote a novel there..

I may be mistaken, but I believe that the purpose of the cyclone is to separate the larger particles, like sawdust and wood scraps.. your DC filter bags are your main filters, usually followed by an air filtration system..

if you design the layout right and work on the machines and do the modifications you don't need a dust fan to blow the dust around. my setup catches almost all of the dust. the only two tools I batter is my edge sander and the jet belt sander. I have catchers on each end of the edge sander and still sometimes sawdust gets past. but I use very fine sawdust making tropicals and they are far worse then American woods.

I have one Bill made himself. it works very well even with my poor pipe layout ( I changed from a really close to the machine dc to the cyclone a ways away) and I could not afford to redu all of the lines. the hardest part is fixing the machines so you get good pickup. most of my tools needed two hoses to really good pickup. but you can smell the sawdust by mine (G) padouk and bloodwood make the air smell like they do no matter what. my clear hoses are all stained from them.

a good cyclone will separate almost everything out. all but the finest sawdust. when I clean my filters I get this extremely fine sawdust that will float for a very long time in the air. but that's all I get. I would get little of that if I did not work some pretty bad tropicals. if you need a air cleaner afterwards you have a poor setup. you want to catch the sawdust before it gets in the air not afterwards.

I will be using 2 ea., 300sqft, 0.5 micron cartridges for filtering and will return the air to the shop.

I cannot afford to exhaust to the outside here in Chicago and do not want my furnace and hotwater heater exhaust being sucked into the wood shop.

I got the same tight bends you have.

I am going to experiment with heating and bending. This will need to be done outside due to the release of dioxins when PVC is heated significantly.

Bill P. shows how to bend PVC. My inlet to the cyclone will come up through the floor and then need to make a 115 degree turn to enter the cyclone at the correct angle. I plan to try and make this special bend by heating and bending outside of the house and use a 24" radius.

this is what I have and they work very well. though you should be able to go longer between cleaning then I can.

it would be nice to be able to though. I could if I could get a vent to the outside. I am in a underground parking lot and I can't get to the outside. but if you can put in hose from the filter outlet to the outside with a cap you can blow out the filter with the dc running and get rid of the fine stuff easily. I have to use a air hose and let the fine stuff catch in a endcap. takes about 8 times to get most of the sawdust. if I could run the dc it would just blow right out and not have any get in the shop.

though a bit spendy get some smooth wall 6" hose. it works petty well and you don't loose much flow.

fill it with sand to prevent collapsing it when bending