Help me spend my Dust Collection money!!!

[Chris Lee]

After much negotiating(read begging) I have covinced the LOML to let me purchase a Dust Collector. I am leaning towards the Oneida Cyclones but I am open to other options. That new Gorilla from Oneida is waying heavy on my mind, though the top 2 right now are the 1.5hp and 2hp component systems. I really am trying to keep this at about a grand. I will most likely just be mounting the cyclone in the corner and running flex hose to the machine being used, as I am in my garage so everything gets wheeled to the center of the garage when it is to be used.

Do any of you have any suggestions or comments. I talked with Oneida and they think that either of their systems should work for me. Any one with similar situations or experience with these machines, I would appreciate any help to push me over the edge.

Thanks
Chris

[Jim Becker]

All three Oneida systems are great, but IMHO, you should stick to the 2hp systems. And there, no question, the 'Gorilla is the best buy since it has the same performance and shares most of it's component with the 2hp Commercial system. I think that yellow beast is going to be a very hot seller...for good reason.

[Andy London]

If you are not in a big rush, I am picking up the Oneida Gorilla next Monday and will initially use existing piping until I can get under the shop to finally run it where I have always wanted to.

After speaking with Oneida, I have decided to keep my 6" main and simply run 6" branches rather than the current 4", I have a few stations and tools that I will cut the current 4" dust port out and install 6".. I was going to run a 7" however they said there would be little benefit....has something to do with air flow and the restriction of some of the dust hoods I have.

Having said that, I should be able to give you feedback my next Wednesday.

[Steve Cox]

The Gorilla looks like it will be a hot seller but I would also take a look at the Woodsucker. It has been a very good machine for me and I ran it just the way you are proposing before I installed permanent duct work. It has an american motor and is still priced as low or lower than the Oneida.

[Jim Becker]

Andy, you'll use 7" for the first few feet of your installation, but a 6" main is appropriate from there.

[Andy London]

Andy, you'll use 7" for the first few feet of your installation, but a 6" main is appropriate from there.

Yes, I will come out four feet, up through the ceiling, another 16 feet then reduce to 6", from there it will go down a wall and under the floor. At this reduction site, there are two X 6" Y's to other areas so I am of the opinion that I will never have a perfectly sealed system and it the main is being starved of any air to get the FPM up, it should be able to pick it up from the other two areas.

I was thinking this morning, how will I ever get the current 6" apart that has to be moved as I went a little overboard with that Alunimum tape (I get it free:)).....any ideas?

[Jim Becker]

I was thinking this morning, how will I ever get the current 6" apart that has to be moved as I went a little overboard with that Alunimum tape

I also get mine "free"...

Just run a utility knife around the joint. They then pull right apart. They you decide if you want to peel off the old tape or not... ;) THAT's the hard part if you do!

[JayStPeter]

I'd go for the "Dis-Gorilla". :D

Most people don't remember the follow up to "Disco Duck", but that's what comes to my mind every time I hear "Dust Gorilla". :cool:

Seriously, I wish they had this thing out back when I bought my 2HP commercial system. Same performance, less money, what's not to like. Well ... OK, I like the color of mine better :p

Jay

[Chris Lee]

Andy,
I will anxiously await to hear how you like your machine. I am pretty well convinced that the Gorilla will be in my shop soon. We are refinancing the house so I am not allowed to make any major purchases until the 28th. Though as soon as the papers are signed i will be on the phone.

Can anybody recomend any good flexible ducting? Bill Pentz talks about Oneida having smooth interior flex hose, but Oneida says that is not so and their hose is rigis like most flex hose. Anybody know a source for 7" smooth flex hose if such a thing exists?

Chris

[Andy London]

Andy,
I will anxiously await to hear how you like your machine. I am pretty well convinced that the Gorilla will be in my shop soon. We are refinancing the house so I am not allowed to make any major purchases until the 28th. Though as soon as the papers are signed i will be on the phone.

Can anybody recomend any good flexible ducting? Bill Pentz talks about Oneida having smooth interior flex hose, but Oneida says that is not so and their hose is rigis like most flex hose. Anybody know a source for 7" smooth flex hose if such a thing exists?

Chris

The #1 thing I am looking forward to is not having to clean my filters three times a week to keep the CFM up, I generate about 45 gallons of dust a week, a lot of it fine.

Good luck on the pipe, I have seen it 6" but I find this stuff so rigid. I have a post over on another forum asking what the guys suggest, if I find something I'll let you know.

If you decide on the Gorilla, you might want to call and reserve one, when I spoke with Jeff Hill at Oneida last week, they were a hot item...If you have a CC I believe they will at least hold it and not charge your CC until it's shipped, probably a max waiting time though.

Congrads on the new house, does it have a shop also?

Andy

[Jim O'Dell]

I can't give you any testimonials yet, (mine is on order, but will be several months before I can get it up and running), but you might take a peek at ed Morgano's Clear Vue cyclone. It is built on Bill Pentz's design, Leeson 5hp (3 continuous) motor, their own designed impeller with some very good numbers. It's not quite as good of a deal as it was last month, but is comarable to some of the others you've mentioned. Worth a look-see. Jim

[Chris Lee]

I sent an email to Oneida to ask if they will charge my card now or will wait until I close in 2 weeks. They told me it takes about 2 weeks to get one ready to ship so we will see. But I am pretty sure the Gorilla it will be. I am a hobbyist and I can not seem to find anything that better fits the bill.

I am not moving, just refinancing. Things were a little tight when we had our house built a couple years ago so we got an adjustable rate mortgage. It was great until rates started to creep up. But with me and the LOML having much better jobs it made since to refinance while fixed rates were still low.

Chris

[Steven Wilson]

Given the choice I would go with the Gorilla. As for flex hose, I wouldn't go with it for the entire run. Take a piece of 7" metal, run it for a few feet and then use two adjustable elboes (these are fairly inexpensive) to get it to the ceiling. Then branch to two 6" main ducts, one running into the middle of your shop space (to service machines that you roll out) and the other possibly to a wall. Then use a couple of 6" adjustable elboes to make the turn from the ceiling down and finish off with a small piece of 6" pipe (maybe longer on the wall) terminated to a couple of blast gates, or maybe reduce to 5" (an extra fiting but the flex hose cost will be less). The total ducting bill will be fairly small and will provide you with a very low resistance path to your DC. From the blast gates run 6" flex hose (or 5") from Onedia in whatever length suites your fancy (try to keep it under 15') and then transition down to 4" fittings at the machines if you have to. You'll probably find that your flex hose cost will be more than the metal. I wouldn't run a 30' piece of flex hose from the DC to your machines; the resistance will just kill your effective CFM

[Allan Johanson]

I just use flex hose where I need it. This pic doesn't show too much, but I have a main duct of solid pipe on the wall that turns down to go under a bench. When that 7" main duct gets split into 6" and 4" branches, the 4" uses flex hose to go to the Excalibur overhead guard. The 6" uses flex to go to a 6 foot piece of solid pipe at the base of the saw, then a couple feet of flex to make the turn to the hood. I chose to use the 6' piece of solid pipe to help reduce resistance instead of running flex the entire way. In theory 1 foot of flex hose equals the resistance of 3 feet of solid pipe. All the reason I needed to do what I could (within reason) to limit flex hose usage.

BTW, the 6" flex hose I'm using is the clear stuff and I think the distributor/importer is Woodstock International. I got it on sale for $5/ft CDN funds from a local store. This stuff is soft and flexible, but the internal ridges are deeper than the more firm grey stuff you may have come across. Mind you, that grey stuff flows lots of air, but I think part has to do with the relatively smooth interior and the other part has to do with the fact it feels like petrified flex hose and doesn't bend! :eek:

Cheers,

Allan

[Jay Knepper]

I hate to bring this up, but don't forget the ducting cost. I spent nearly as much on ducting as my 2hp Oneida machine cost.

But I don't know how I got by without it.

[Jim McCarty]

I just went to the Oneida web site and it looks like the free shipping is over. $138 east of the Mississippi, $188 west. Jim:(

[Corvin Alstot]

. . . so does any one know what the differences are between the Dust Gorilla
and the 2HP commercial/component system.
How do they get the costs down while maintaining quality?

[Andy London]

I hate to bring this up, but don't forget the ducting cost. I spent nearly as much on ducting as my 2hp Oneida machine cost.

But I don't know how I got by without it.

Jay, I think it pays to shop around a little. I was at a website yesterday just looking at DC assoc. I was shocked at the price of elbows and Y's, nearly 4 times as much as I can get them for locally(this was spiral), at an HVAC place that makes it's own pipe.....But you are very correct, the pipe can be very expensive by the time one is done.

[Jack Wood]

After much negotiating(read begging) I have covinced the LOML to let me purchase a Dust Collector. I am leaning towards the Oneida Cyclones but I am open to other options. That new Gorilla from Oneida is waying heavy on my mind, though the top 2 right now are the 1.5hp and 2hp component systems. I really am trying to keep this at about a grand. I will most likely just be mounting the cyclone in the corner and running flex hose to the machine being used, as I am in my garage so everything gets wheeled to the center of the garage when it is to be used.

Do any of you have any suggestions or comments. I talked with Oneida and they think that either of their systems should work for me. Any one with similar situations or experience with these machines, I would appreciate any help to push me over the edge.

Thanks
Chris
Chris, you say that you are going to move your hose from tool to tool so you don't really need ducting so your cost will be much lower than most. I also move my collection hose from tool to tool as I really only run one tool at a time and my shop is only a 20x24 so that's not a big deal. But I would advise you to look at some alternate ways to do this other than a top of the line DC costing BIG BUCKS:eek: I was able to get the 2HP DC from Harbor Freight on sale for $139 at my local HF. I have it in one coner of my shop and cut a hole through my garage door for the exhaust hose that goes to the bag stand to exit out. I have a covered porch where I then placed the collection bag with a simple two sided weather protector around on the outerside. I use the cheap bags that came with it. I use 4 inch hose currently to connect to my tools but I am going to buy 5" as the inlet on the DC will take that. This setup reduced the noise and blowby dust that you get with the bag type DC's. You can buy shaker felt bags that will greatly increase the capibility if you need to keep it inside. So total spent on my set up is around $150. Now I haven't seen this DC at HF again at the price I got it at but they still aren't that bad of deal. So that's my 2 cents worth, but think long and hard about how you could spend that extra cash you drop on a cyclone. If I were I pro or had a bigger shop that made it impractical to move the single hose around, a cyclone would be the way to go, but I'm not and I can better spend the saved cash on MORE TOOLS!:D

[JayStPeter]

Jay, I think it pays to shop around a little. I was at a website yesterday just looking at DC assoc. I was shocked at the price of elbows and Y's, nearly 4 times as much as I can get them for locally(this was spiral), at an HVAC place that makes it's own pipe.....But you are very correct, the pipe can be very expensive by the time one is done.

There are a few ways to save money on duct work. When I got my duct quote from Oneida, it was the little things that added up. Little adapters, blast gates, etc. I think each blast gate plus all the associated adapters came out to be something like $30 - $40. I made my own gates. Made 6 6" gates for around $20. I also used PVC for my ductwork. In total, I spent just under half of my Oneida quote and came out with a very similar system. But, the cost was still significant at around $700.

The borg also sells thinner metal 6" stuff. The reason I've always heard not to use it is it will collapse under the pressures generated by DCs. But, things like adjustable elbows have seams and folds that make them plenty strong. They aren't large radius, but using 2 of them to make 90* is still around 1/4 the price. I used them in a couple places where I had difficult angles to make.

Jay

[Steve Roxberg]

Purchase your pipe and fittings from www.Spiralmfg.com they have the best prices on pipe and fittings.

Lee Valley has a great price on 6 inch self cleaning blast gates, metal for around $14.

[JayStPeter]

Chris, you say that you are going to move your hose from tool to tool so you don't really need ducting so your cost will be much lower than most. I also move my collection hose from tool to tool as I really only run one tool at a time and my shop is only a 20x24 so that's not a big deal. But I would advise you to look at some alternate ways to do this other than a top of the line DC costing BIG BUCKS:eek: I was able to get the 2HP DC from Harbor Freight on sale for $139 at my local HF. I have it in one coner of my shop and cut a hole through my garage door for the exhaust hose that goes to the bag stand to exit out. I have a covered porch where I then placed the collection bag with a simple two sided weather protector around on the outerside. I use the cheap bags that came with it. I use 4 inch hose currently to connect to my tools but I am going to buy 5" as the inlet on the DC will take that. This setup reduced the noise and blowby dust that you get with the bag type DC's. You can buy shaker felt bags that will greatly increase the capibility if you need to keep it inside. So total spent on my set up is around $150. Now I haven't seen this DC at HF again at the price I got it at but they still aren't that bad of deal. So that's my 2 cents worth, but think long and hard about how you could spend that extra cash you drop on a cyclone. If I were I pro or had a bigger shop that made it impractical to move the single hose around, a cyclone would be the way to go, but I'm not and I can better spend the saved cash on MORE TOOLS!:D

I tend to agree that a large cyclone is overkill if you're going to move a single hose from machine to machine. Given the choice, I would never go back to a bag filter ... ever. I would definitely look at one of the 2HP cartridge filter DCs though. Then I'd upgrade it with a collection bin in place of the bag on the bottom.

I have to say, once you pipe the DC system, life is good. I don't care how expensive your system is if you keep saying "forget it, it's only a couple little cuts, I'm not moving the hoses for that". But, I understand that a hard piped DC system is a luxury for the home hobbiest.
It's the same with the bin vs. bag. I hated emptying the bag on my old DC so much that I would go without DC for some little stuff just to avoid it.

Finally ... yes, I could have quite a few other tools for the cost of my DC and ductwork. But, I personally prefer the choice I made. There are still days where I come out of the shop and blow nasty brown dust boogers. But, they are very infrequent, and there are far more days where I don't even have to sweep up. It just makes the hobby more enjoyable.

Jay

[Rick Schubert]

The Lee Valley 6" steel/aluminum self-cleaning blast gates are $12.70 each for 4+, $14.50 each for 1-3.

Has anyone had any experience with these? I wonder how they would fit with 6" S&D pipe.

Rick

[Jack Wood]

I tend to agree that a large cyclone is overkill if you're going to move a single hose from machine to machine. Given the choice, I would never go back to a bag filter ... ever. I would definitely look at one of the 2HP cartridge filter DCs though. Then I'd upgrade it with a collection bin in place of the bag on the bottom.

I have to say, once you pipe the DC system, life is good. I don't care how expensive your system is if you keep saying "forget it, it's only a couple little cuts, I'm not moving the hoses for that". But, I understand that a hard piped DC system is a luxury for the home hobbiest.
It's the same with the bin vs. bag. I hated emptying the bag on my old DC so much that I would go without DC for some little stuff just to avoid it.

Finally ... yes, I could have quite a few other tools for the cost of my DC and ductwork. But, I personally prefer the choice I made. There are still days where I come out of the shop and blow nasty brown dust boogers. But, they are very infrequent, and there are far more days where I don't even have to sweep up. It just makes the hobby more enjoyable.

Jay
Well I do agree that the cartridge is the way to go, in fact I was just about to order one when I brainstormed placing the collector OUTSIDE of my shop. As to moving the hose around, practice makes habbit and as I want to keep doing this for a long time I crank up the DC and place that hose on when I first get out there and then it's not a big deal to move it. I also have 2 airfilters that I use. One is a 220v whole house blower fan in a large 25x25 box with 3 normal prefilters and a Filtrete filter under those. The other is a 16x20 in the other corner of the shop hung from the ceiling using an attic exhaust fan. It has a prefilter and a filtrete. I know that this will get a large amount of argument from some folks but it works for me. I usually turn them on as I leave the shop for the night and then turn them off the next day. When I look at the filters and they are thick with dust I have to think that at least it's not laying around in my shop. But then since I moved the DC collection bag outside of my shop there's not a lot of dust any more. :)

[Andy London]

The Lee Valley 6" steel/aluminum self-cleaning blast gates are $12.70 each for 4+, $14.50 each for 1-3.

Has anyone had any experience with these? I wonder how they would fit with 6" S&D pipe.

Rick

I picked up 4 - 6" and 6 - 4" at lunch today, they are better quality than some of the other metal ones I have seen and cheaper than me building my own.....I have snap lock and spiral for the most part but can check to see if the 4" one fits some 4" PVC I have. Once I get my new cyclone in place next week, I'll let you know if they leak but it doesn't look like they will.

[Rick Schubert]

I picked up 4 - 6" and 6 - 4" at lunch today, they are better quality than some of the other metal ones I have seen and cheaper than me building my own.....I have snap lock and spiral for the most part but can check to see if the 4" one fits some 4" PVC I have. Once I get my new cyclone in place next week, I'll let you know if they leak but it doesn't look like they will.
That would be great if you'd check the 4" gate on some PVC and also let us know next week how they work and if they leak.

[JayStPeter]

Well I do agree that the cartridge is the way to go, in fact I was just about to order one when I brainstormed placing the collector OUTSIDE of my shop. As to moving the hose around, practice makes habbit and as I want to keep doing this for a long time I crank up the DC and place that hose on when I first get out there and then it's not a big deal to move it. I also have 2 airfilters that I use. One is a 220v whole house blower fan in a large 25x25 box with 3 normal prefilters and a Filtrete filter under those. The other is a 16x20 in the other corner of the shop hung from the ceiling using an attic exhaust fan. It has a prefilter and a filtrete. I know that this will get a large amount of argument from some folks but it works for me. I usually turn them on as I leave the shop for the night and then turn them off the next day. When I look at the filters and they are thick with dust I have to think that at least it's not laying around in my shop. But then since I moved the DC collection bag outside of my shop there's not a lot of dust any more. :)


Sure wish I could spew my dust outside. But, the layout of my shop/house and my climate make it less than ideal.
I was only speaking for myself when I spoke of being lazy about moving the hose from machine to machine.
The reason I don't like bag is that I think I looked like one of your filters after I would change them :)
BTW, I also use a filter system. There are just some tools that don't lend themselves to DC well. So, dust is gonna happen.

Jay

[Chris Lee]

I ordered up a Gorilla today!:D It will be a few weeks before it arrives. Thanks for all the advice.

Chris