Cleaning the filter on a single stage dust collector

[paul cottingham]

So how do people clean their filters on their single stage collectors? Do you wash it ? with a hose? in a machine (?!?) Hang it to dry? all I am doing now is hitting it with a stick to get the dust to drop into the collecting bag. Any suggestions would be most welcome.

Thanks

[mickey cassiba]

If you're talking about a 'bag' filter...over cleaning is not so good. The cake inside will actually improve the air quality in your shop. Holds the fine stuff. Clean bags let a lot of big stuff out.

[Dale Cruea]

I wash mine every few months. I just throw it and the lower bag in my washing machine with very little soap.
Dry on med or low heat.

[glenn bradley]

I run an American Fabric Filter oversize top bag and just shake it a bit (while still attached to the machine) prior to emptying the lower solid bag. I also run a cyclone but, still got a dusting of 'fines' out of the bagger till I ditched the stock bag. I would leave plenty of cake on the stock bag, or an after market for that matter. But, that's me.

[paul cottingham]

I understand the need for leaving a coat of dust for optimum filtration, but I think I have enough cake now that it is affecting the efficiency of my collector. I am not sure where the balance is.

[Thomas Hotchkin]

Paul
I built a round steel hoop, that I clipped the inside-out upper dust bag to. With additional steel up-right in one of my pickup's bed socket hole. The bag with hoop was standing about cab height. I would just drive around the neighborhood till the contrail is gone. Tom PS I now have cyclone and filter, have not made the slow drive in more then a year now. But it was a lot better the washing, or shaking.

[paul cottingham]

You, sir, are very clever. I almost wish I owned a truck now.

[Rick Dennington]

I have an old Delta 50-850 d.c. that's about 15 years old....About 2 years ago I replaced the top bag with a Wynn 35A canister filter, and have never looked back...Best move I ever made on filtration. As Mickey pointed out, do not wash your original filter at all, in any way.....hose, washer, etc. And do not throw it in the gryer, as it will shrink up (I leraned this the hard way by doing it). If you use the original, just take it off, shake it out, or thump it pretty good to get rid of the bigger dust particles. But I would highly recommend a Wynn canister filter...you can't go wrong with one......

[ian maybury]

:) The truck sounds like a good move! The one I had seemed to offer the choice of not filtering, but moving air freely - or of not moving enough air...

[Ben Hatcher]

A leaf blower works reasonably well, too. Before I got my canister, I'd turn my filter inside out, beat it with a bat, then run the leaf blower against all of the interior surface area. This worked well on the dust, but the chips still tended to remain stuck to the fibers.

[Steve Jenkins]

when I wanted to give my bags a good cleaning I just turned them insideout layed them on the floor and ran the vacumn cleaner over them.

[Curt Harms]

I use a Wynn 100% spun bond canister filter. They ain't cheap but they are washable. I vacuum mine out every 2 or 3 bags of chips and wash it out once or twice a year. I would recommend a separator to keep most of the stuff out of the filter. I have a Thien baffle in the bottom of my D.C. funnel that made a huge difference in the amount of stuff getting into the filter. I still get some sanding dust/flour in the filter but virtually no jointer/planer chips or sawdust.

[Greg Peterson]

+1 on the canister filter. More filter surface area means better performance. There bags that will capture the particles we are concerned about, but the Wynn filter just provides a better, lower maintenance solution IMO.

Plus, the top of the canister provides yet another horizontal surface to place stuff!

[David Hostetler]

I spent the extra $$ for the Wynn Spun Bond Poly. Like mentioned above, they aren't cheap, but they work very well... I have a separator on my system, and have only cleaned my filter once. And that was because I thought it was time, not that it was all that dirty. I just put the brush end on my shop vac and cleaned it out...

I should mention my separator is a Thien side inlet type in a 55 gallon drum, I get very little bypassing the separator, including very little wood flour. There is of course some, but not a lot... When I connect my sanders to it, I tend to leave another blast gate partially open, reducing your air flow by necking down to the 1" port size on my sanders is a guarantee I will simply bypass the separator and clog my filter... I learned that trick striaght from Phil Thien... Not sure why it works that way, but it does... Maybe he can explain it better...

[paul cottingham]

So how many of you are using a separator? Which kind? Does it significantly affect airflow? (mine sure does) I am thinking of buying the Oneida Super Dust Deputy, and fancying it into the mix, probably by mounting the fan from my DC right above it. I might vent straight outside then. So many choices.... Right now, I use a Veritas lid, but only for my planer, as it produces the most chips, but I sure would like to improve on that.

Thanks again...

[Alan Lightstone]

Paul
I built a round steel hoop, that I clipped the inside-out upper dust bag to. With additional steel up-right in one of my pickup's bed socket hole. The bag with hoop was standing about cab height. I would just drive around the neighborhood till the contrail is gone. Tom PS I now have cyclone and filter, have not made the slow drive in more then a year now. But it was a lot better the washing, or shaking.
Where's the video when you need it?

[David Hostetler]

So how many of you are using a separator? Which kind? Does it significantly affect airflow? (mine sure does) I am thinking of buying the Oneida Super Dust Deputy, and fancying it into the mix, probably by mounting the fan from my DC right above it. I might vent straight outside then. So many choices.... Right now, I use a Veritas lid, but only for my planer, as it produces the most chips, but I sure would like to improve on that.

Thanks again...

Paul,

Mine doesn't impact airflow THAT much. I have no way of measuring the air flow difference, but I didn't notice any drop in suction... I did go to great lengths to reduce the impact all the hose / bends would make by building my Thien separator with a side inlet. I have my DC on a stand that puts the inlet just above the center port of the separator and very close, so I have less than 2' of flex hose between them...

[Tom Hargrove]

I know the OP asked for info on cleaning bags - my strong advice is to get away from the bags as quickly as possible!

I first upgraded from cloth bags to a Wynn filter with poly bag on the bottom. Big difference in performance! The Wynn filters can be cleaned with an airhose while the machine is turned off - all the dust falls into the bag below. Once a year or so on a Friday afternoon, I take the filter to a local body shop and use their unlimited supply of air to really clean it. Total cost - one six pack of the shop owner's favorite recreational beverage. I built and added a Thien separator this summer - total cost was less than $25 including the 20 gallon steel garbage can. The performance is down some, but it seems like 99% of the stuff falls out of the airstream before it gets to the filter/bag. Since then, I have emptied the 20 gallon can several times, but the bottom of the poly bag is still not covered with dust, and most of that is fall down from when I blow out the filter. I'm not sure I will have to visit the body shop for quite awhile.

[Curt Harms]

So how many of you are using a separator? Which kind? Does it significantly affect airflow? (mine sure does) I am thinking of buying the Oneida Super Dust Deputy, and fancying it into the mix, probably by mounting the fan from my DC right above it. I might vent straight outside then. So many choices.... Right now, I use a Veritas lid, but only for my planer, as it produces the most chips, but I sure would like to improve on that.

Thanks again...
Like David, I don't see any huge impact on airflow with the Thien baffle. I'm sure there's some but that reduction is likely offset by keeping the filter cleaner. There seem to be two ways to use a separator. Having the separator before the blower will likely keep any metal (sparks) or bigger chunks from hitting the impeller. I got from Bill Pentz' site that push through separators (cyclones) are somewhat more efficient moving air, you'd need a somewhat more powerful blower to move the same amount of air in a pull through design. Either one works.

[Kevin W Johnson]

I built a separator for my dust collector and added the Wynn filter along with an ugrade in impeller size and 6" duct. HUGE improvement to say the least. I haven't done a lot of turning yet since doing my upgrades as I was awaiting to see what my pulmonologist had to say about my paralyzed left diaphragm and resulting lowered lung capacity. There isn't any lung disease, so I'm ok on that, I just have to be uber careful about exposure to dust, etc as what goes in to my left lung is hard to expel and the irritation causes bronchitis, etc. I have restarted my turning now, and turned 4 pens Thursday. All that was collected from the sawing of blanks on the BS, drilling and turning on the lathe, there is nothing in the collection bag. I couldn't be happier with how it turned out. The separator works amazingly better than I could have imagined.


For me, I know the dust that doesn't get to the filter, can't make it thru the filter and results in much cleaner air. My dust collector is also in a separate addition on my shop. I have a filtered air return back into the main shop, thus cleaning the air again. It's all topped off with a ceiling mounted air cleaner to clean what escapes the dust collector.

The main point is, a bag needs some of the cake to filter at its best. But that cake reduces the air flow of your dust collector. The reduced flow means more dust escapes into the air you breathe. Even if you keep the bag filter, a separator would be a very wise edition to your system.