Another dust collector question

[Dale Cruea]

I have a small shop in 1/2 of my 2 car garage. I have the common equipment - Table saw ( contractor style) - 6" jointer - planer - band saw - radial arm saw. All the things I need to make good dust.
I have a small 1 1/2hp dust collector now. Great for getting the chips on most of this equipment. However, I have started to notice a lot of dust coming from somewhere. It is everywhere in my shop and is getting into the house. I think most of it is coming from my power tools as they are running and from the collector top bag.

My question is: What type, size and brand do you have. Are you satisfied with what you have? What size of duct work are you using.

I have read until I have blurred vision and a giant headache and I still ain't got a clue about what I need as far as brand and duct size.
I have read the web page from Bill Pentz I think is his name. Lots of good information, no answers for me. Just confuses me more.

Thanks

[David Kumm]

Dale, Keep reading, it just takes time. I'm a cyclone guy and if you go that route I'd look at the 3hp 14" impeller or the Pentz 5 with a 6" main- or 7" if the cyclone intake matches until you go around the first corner or make the first drop and then go 6". Leaves you capacity to add as your shop evolves. If that is beyond what you can do now look at an overhead cleaner and turn it on when you work. Will at least keep the airborne dust moving towards it and not entering the house. If the house has a negative pressure the dust rolls in when the door opens. Bags and filters make a difference as well. The better the filtration the bigger your blower and motor need to be to compensate however. Dave

If you add square foot capacity to the filters you help the filtration without hurting the cfm so that is a better solution than just adding a better filter of the same size.

[David Wong]

I am also in 1/2 of a small 2 car garage. I have a 2.5hp Oneida Super Gorilla that I use with a 12" jointer/planner, and a 21" bandsaw. Because of the overhead garage door, I do not use ductwork, but use a 25 ft - 6 inch flex hose from Wynn Env. The cyclone provides more than enough suction for my needs. I do not have any dust to speak of gathering in the garage. My biggest complaint is the space taken up by the cyclone, and the mind numbing noise it generates. I may build a free standing closet for the cyclone, but that would eat up quite a bit of my precious space.

[Dale Cruea]

David, What brand of cyclone do you have? I am thinking about replacing the whole mess I have now. It was OK when I worked and was in the shop just a few hours a week. I am retired now and spend most days out in the shop.
I not have the time and money but just lacking the knowledge of what brand and type to buy. I looked at Oneida and got the impression that they were one machine collectors. I don't have the room to move a collector around. I want something I can stick in the corner and let it work.

[Jeffrey Makiel]

Here's my two cents...

Use a 2hp dust collector. It doesn't matter if it's single stage as long as it has good bags or a canister (1 micron). Just be prepared to maintain it more. Otherwise, get a cyclone (two stage)...but this will cost more, take up more room and be louder.

Use all 6" duct on the main run. I like 6" PVC S&D stuff, (aka "thin wall" PVC). Lowes, Menards or Home Depot by you may have it in stock. If not, an irrigation supplier may have some. McMaster-Carr is a default source (mcmaster.com). Install it with tape and/or screws...no glue.

If your machine has a 4" port, use 4" branches. Woodcraft has some nice, clear 4" flex duct. Avoid going any smaller. I like their thumbscrew duct clamps too.

Make your main run and branches as direct as possible. Minimize elbows. Also, try to have about 24" of straight duct prior to entering the dust collector.

Focus your system on good hood design. For example, if you have a radial arm saw, make a thoughtful shroud. If your machines can be modified to support a 6" port, then make the modification and use 6" branch duct. Making effective hoods is very important....capturing dust at its generation point is imperative.

Forget the floor sweep. Just use dust pan and broom...or vacuum with a shop vac. You never know what you may be sucking up.

My opinion...and in closing: The subject of dust collection seems to have gotten overly complicated for the home shop person. I understand its importance, but it's just gotten too complicated...and I use to be an HVAC engineer! So, I'm probably banned from the HVAC engineers' club now! :)

Jeff :)

[Maurice Ungaro]

Dale, everything that Jeff said, PLUS get the canister filter from Wynn Environmental. Don't waste your money on the paper cartridge one, go for the at least the spun bond version (about $155) - that way, you can wash it out with a hose when necessary. You won't believe the efficiency you will can with this filter. The machine breathes better, and therefore, it sucks better. In your size shop, it is not worth spending in excess of $1,200 for a cyclone, unless of course, you have money to burn and a wife who doesn't hassle you about purchases. (DAMHIKT)

[Dale Cruea]

Thanks for all the help guys. I did receive a few pm's that helped a great deal also. I think I am getting a handle on the monster. Thanks Maurice for the advice on the filter. Jeff, I did not know a cyclone was louder. Thanks for that info. I don't want anything screaming in the shop. There is enough noise out here all ready.
You all have been a big help.
Thank you. Any more info I will listen.:p

[Rod Sheridan]

Thanks for all the help guys. I did receive a few pm's that helped a great deal also. I think I am getting a handle on the monster. Thanks Maurice for the advice on the filter. Jeff, I did not know a cyclone was louder. Thanks for that info. I don't want anything screaming in the shop. There is enough noise out here all ready.
You all have been a big help.
Thank you. Any more info I will listen.:p

Hi Dale, if you read the post linked below, I made noise measurements on my cyclone, it's very quiet.

I have a small basement shop with an Oneida cyclone, I wouldn't go any other route, I tried the single stage type and wasn't satisfied at all.

I purchased a Dylos particle counter and have numerical proof, as well as the empirical proof that I don't need an air cleaner with a cyclone with a good filter.

I also have two floor sweeps for chips from the hand tools and the lathe..........Rod.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?106423-Cyclone-Noise-Measurement

[Ole Anderson]

I went with a 2 hp Oneida Super Dust Gorilla, in a sound deadened closet, and 26 gauge metal duct. Small basement shop. Works great for me. Here are a couple of links:

http://www.oneida-air.com/inventoryD.asp?item_no=XGK020105H
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X8qwMqm3Ek
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?158878-DC-Steel-Duct-Install&highlight=
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?159135-Shop-Tour-New-DC-system&highlight=

[Maurice Ungaro]

Great video Ole!

[Jeff Bartley]

Dale,
I'd encourage you to also check ClearVue Cyclones. There's a DIY aspect to these but they're very easy to assemble. And I also vote for a silencing cabinet if you go with a cyclone; they sound like a jet engine! I used 6" S & D (thinwall) and it was very easy to set up, I also used the clearvue blast gates.
Keep reading! I must have read Bill Pentz's articles 3 or 4 times!
Jeff

[Kevin W Johnson]

Dale,

Read Bills website a couple more times. The theory is want you want to take from it. Basically, the idea is to get the fines (fine dust) at the source as its produced. To do this, you need to maintain sufficient CFM's at the tool. This is where Bill points out that you'll need 6" ducts to do this, and you'll need a system powerful enough to pull the correct volume of air fast enough. Then you have to decide whether your going to vent it outside, or inside. Both present challenges. Outside vent means loosing heated or cooled air, and the need for make up air coming back in to the shop. Inside vent, requires removing the dust from the air. Either a cyclone or dust separator, coupled with a Wynn filter, etc.

[Dale Cruea]

I intend to read Bill's web page several times more.
With the information from your posts and a few pms from others I am getting some what of an idea of that I need.
I am at the point of how and with what equipment I need.
It is getting clearer... a little.

Thanks to all that replied. Been a big help.
And thanks for the pms. Lots of good information in all.

[ian maybury]

+1 on reading Bill's pages, but expect to have to dig a little to get to the gems. I'm just finishing installing a DIY system along Pentz/Clear Vue lines. Some have been said already, but the critical factors in any system as I see it (thanks Bill) are:

1. The system has to pull enough air (pull enough cfm i.e. 850 to 1,000 cfm on your set up - even with some debris in the filters) if it's to create a large enough low pressure volume to do a decent job of gathering dust fine dust at the point where it's produced.

2. Even at this machine hoods often need modification. So that they don't choke airflow (at our pressures even short restrictions lower the CFM through the entire system), and so that high velocity dust thrown off the cutting tool is intercepted.

3. Fan HP is a good indicator of capability, since most low pressure centrifugal impellers (the type used on dust systems) are of similar efficiency. Since HP and cfm figures are often massaged by manufacturers plated full load amps may be a better indication of true capability.

4. Presuming correct duct design (6 in, smooth bore, large radius bends, good machine hoods, no other undue restrictions) the total length of ducting run in the system is a pretty good indicator of required fan HP. Bill 'Blower Fan Table' in section 5. on this page http://billpentz.com/woodworking/cyclone/DCBasics.cfm sets it out - he reckons it takes about 3HP minimum to run a cyclone system with about 10ft of 6in dia flexible hose, increasing to 5hp for a typical system in a 3 car garage sized shop. You could probably do OK with 2hp+ with care to keep the hoses very short on say a portable system, and good machine hoods.

5. Short hoses (the exhaust probably can't be extended enough to get out of the building) and high cfm tend to force the need for recirculation of the air, in winter anyway to avoid too large a heating load. This requires high quality filtration to HEPA standard (99.97% efficiency at 0.3 microns particle size in the US) to capture the very fine sub several micron dust that our lungs can't cope with, and that presents the greatest health risk. Bill discusses this at length on the above page. He also links sources for the required filter cartridges from his page.

6. It seems that high efficiency cartridge filters like these will block too quickly to be economic for most people if used alone - fairly quickly dropping the cfm too low to do a decent dust collection job. This is why a cyclone is advisable. Well designed cyclones (and not all are - many are compromised to save height, material, whatever) as well as capturing chips also capture the vast bulk of the fine dust before it gets to the filters. Clear Vue post this information from testing a Pentz format cyclone that suggests that it gets pretty much everything down to about 2 micron: http://www.clearvuecyclones.com/content/5-johns-hopkins-university-test

As the guys say Bill's pages are worth reading so that you can form a view of what you are looking for before deciding on a given system.

ian

[Dale Cruea]

I just got my anemometer.
Checked most of my blast gate openings.
CFM is way down from what I thought it would be.

My Delta is a 650 CFM I bought several years ago.

It is a wonder it picks up chips let alone any dust.

Thanks to David for the pms to get me started.

My advice to anyone setting up a DC system, spend the little extra to get an anemometer.
Guessing can be way off. I would have never thought I was losing CFM as bad I am.
Shutting of all blast gates and I still read 10 CFM on the outside of them.
5 blast gates and I am losing over 50 CFM.

Up a short wall and across the ceiling about 12 - 15 feet. I have lost almost all CFM.
I go from about 550 at the DC to about 45 - 50 at the RAS.
Duct can't be over 20 feet.

Thanks again for all of the advice guys.

[ian maybury]

Good going Dale.

It's a bit scary just how much leakage there can be with typical spiral metal ducting. Blast gates leak quite a lot too. It's no problem to find a clearance of up to 1mm on a given slip joint. If you work out the open area this may lead to (duct circumference x 1mm = open area in mm2), and multiply this by the number of joints in the ducting run it's possible to find that you have maybe half of the total cross section of the duct in open area - even in a fairly small garage shop.

It's important to tape the joints not with duct tape which apparently degrades and falls off pretty quickly, but with e.g. a good quality UL approved mastic backed foil duct tape. I've used this one, but have no long term experience of it: http://www.venturetape.com/product.php?productid=1137&cat=0&page=1