it's not like a computer and it is dirt easy. I would not worry about it. the worst that happens is you have to clean your filters more often. but you still have to put the system together no matter what brand you buy. that's the critical part.
In my shop in the summer there is. Drywall on the bottom of the joists and
1/2" plywood on the top does a fair job of insulating. On a typical July day the shop is hot and muggy, but attic is like an oven.-- Mark
well lots of time you can start with the 2hp off your other dc setup. that's what I am doing. I get pretty good flow with it. You need a couple of filters though. but you can use a metal trash can. 6" flex hose is easy to find and you need it for hooking up tools anyway. but with two cartridge filters you will get more air flow then anything else out there.
This is kind of what I'm thinking, start out _real_ cheap, as in:
- get the cyclone kit and a metal trash can
- make a blower unit
- use the 1.5HP Jet motor from my existing DC (it's only a DC-650, but it would pull more with a better volute)
- use the inexpensive Jet 14" impeller, since it will probably fit my existing motor's shaft without a problem
The only remaining part is how to filter the cyclone exhaust inexpensively.
"Kevin P. Fleming" wrote in news:I80Db.10707$gN.7725@fed1read05:
This sounds like a good way to burn up your motor. Unless you have a very restrictive inlet to the blower, or restrictive ducting, this is going to put too much load on the motor, overheating it and/or continuously throwing the breaker. For the 14" impeller, you need a solid 3 HP. You could restrict the inlet enough to make it safe for your motor, but that seems kind of counterproductive.
Sorry if this is on the site and I missed it.
Can a filter be mounted inside the cyclone to save space for those of us will small shops?
-- Mark
I had considered that as a possibility... it may mean initially just using the impeller that came with the motor and living with the CFM increase that a better volute/cyclone get for me.
OTOH, the current DC that this motor/impeller are located in do not begin to draw as much current as the motor is rated for, so obviously the existing 4" inlet and dumping into a bag are restricting the airflow quite substantially. I could try the new arrangement just to see what amperage the motor (tries) to draw, and ramp down the inlet size until it's running safely.
Oneida sells such a model. (It may be patented). It looks to me like one big disadvantage of that design is having to take the cone off to get to the filter. I can barely get to the cone of my cyclone!
Bob S
The cyclone works on the principle of centrifugal force. The dust is thrown to the outside of the cyclone where it follows the cone wall down to the dust-bin outlet at the bottom. Meanwhile, clean air is stripped from the inside of the vortex (whirlwind) inside and is pulled out the top center through the outlet tube.
A quality filter that traps 99.97% of the fine dust down to 0.3 microns in diameter (0.3 microns = 12 millionths of an inch) requires a very large surface area in order to pass large air volumes (the cyclone kit with recommended blower and filter packages can handle over 1400 CFM at typical shop real-world working conditions), and you cannot physically place real-world filters in the cyclone and get that kind of capability. The cyclone already removes as much as 54-15/16 gallons of sawdust out of 55 gallons (1 cup of fine dust left over to be trapped by the filters) from the air stream. You need large-area filters to get that last little bit and not get plugged with the fine dust too quickly while keeping static pressures down for better air volume which is the major key to effective dust elimination from the shop atmosphere.
You're going to have a tough time improving on this design because there is too much research and engineering that went into designing the product, on top of the research and engineering that was done by various industrial associations on cyclone design and operation before this one was developed. This product is not based on somebody tossing a fancy plastic lid on a trash can and calling it a "cyclone".
Clarke
Mark Jerde wrote:
You really need a 2hp motor. 3 even better. you can get a cheep motor to hold you over. best to sell the 650 to buy the motor and filter.
about 140 for two cartridges. you can get a really big cloth bag for about
100.00. it would work well as long as you keep it clean and don't cut a lot of tropicals. but you won't get the same airflow.
That's what I'm thinking as well, there's just no good way to use what I've got. I'll probably just get a cheap HF or equivalent 2 or 3HP motor and be done with it.
Well, I don't cut as much tropicals as you do (), but I do like to work with them. The filters are less expensive than I expected, but this still means around $500 for the least expensive system I can build (cyclone kit, home-built blower housing, filter cartridges and motor). And then there's new ductwork :-) Not a cheap project.
True. But people ask me why I drive big cars that burn so much gas (my 1986 Lincoln Town Car cost me $1400 six years ago and I've put near 100,000 miles on it since with negligible repair costs (it had
112,000 miles when I bought it; it gets 21 mpg at 75 mph, Denver to LA, and 16-18 around town). I tell them I can buy a lot of gas for the price of a hospital stay. (A fender-bender moved my front bumper 2" sideways and put the driver of the little Plymouth that hit it into the hospital. No other damage except a little minor stuff like a broken turn signal lens and cracked grill.)A good cyclone system will cost around $1K if built from a kit with add-on stuff. How many days not working due to asthma or other dust- related illness will it take to make that a good investment. I was cutting some MDF and could tell the stuff was creating problems in my lungs in mere minutes. I went looking for a cheap dust collector. Found Bill Pentz's site, concluded I was being stupid if I didn't build a cyclone. Now I'm building kits and shipping them all over North America. And I had no intention of getting into the dust-collector business. A lot of household vacuum cleaners sell for a lot more than a cyclone and some are junk. Others are good or OK. We bought a cyclone vacuum 20 years ago and I was amazed at how much dirt it pulled out of the carpet and how much cleaner the air in our home became. Not nearly as much dust on the furniture, etc. When you filter the air before putting it back out to breathe, the dust goes away. You can't avoid that fact.
But to collect dust, you have to have enough air volume moving to create the wind necessary to trap and eliminate the dust.
CE
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