thein baffle seperator, issues

[cody michael]

I have a thein baffle seperator that a built a few years ago, it seemed to work fine, my last planer had no dust collection so I haven't used it much. I went to use it the other day on my new planer (grizzly 20 inch) and it just jammed up in the cyclone area. then stopped working. I am assuming the planer put out to many big chips for it to handle, the bottom part of the saperator that has the cut out around the edge I just made from osb, is that okay? or will that being rough not smooth like mdf-plywood cause issues? or do I just need to make the cut out bigger around the edge?

the boards I was planing were about 10-12 inches wide and seemed to have big long chips.

my dust collector is a grizzly 2hp unit, running 4 inch pipe from dust collector to trash can, to planer.

one other question my dustc collector has a 6 inch opening, going into a y with 2 4's right now I just keep the second 4in shut. on my 32 gallon trash can could I put 6 inch fittings? or would the bigger size mess up the cyclone? is there anything other then a trash I can use that is cheap but larger?

http://www.jpthien.com/cy.htm


(http://www.jpthien.com/cy.htm)

[Phil Thien]

It works best with a thinner baffle. That is why I use 1/8" and 1/4" hardboard (smooth side up). How long are your shavings? Have any pics of the shavings?

[Lee Schierer]

I was sucking up planer shavings from a hand plane the other day and they clogged my Thein Baffle. The shavings hung up on the rods holding the baffle to the bottom of the dust collector top. Long shavings will tend to hang up on any thing sticking into the air flow path. OSB tends to have a very rough finish on one side and a smoother finish on the other. You can sand the OSB and apply a couple of coats of polyurethane if you think the shavings are hanging up on the OSB.

Phil Thein is a member here so perhaps he will chime in on your question as well.

[John Donhowe]

A couple of things come to mind. First, you get better collection when the baffle (the bottom part with the slot cut into it) is thin. Many builders seem to use 1/4" hardboard; some even use metal. One thing you can try with your OSB baffle is to bevel the bottom edge of the slot at the far end of the slot, so the leading edge is a thin almost knife edge- that should help some clogging. Keep the top side of the baffle smooth.

Second, you might need to widen your slot width. IIRC, 1-1/8" is the more or less standard width that Phil Thien suggests. Narrower slot widths are more efficient at collecting small dust particles (sanding), but more prone to clogging. OTOH, a wider slot clogs less, but will have more bypass of small particles.

I'd certainly recommend removing the 4" Y fitting, and replacing with 6" ducting as much as possible. Even if you have to reduce to 4" at the connection to your separator or planer, you'll get better performance from your system, due to the decreased resistance to air flow with 6" pipe. The only caution is not to run your DC with the Y adapter off, and nothing connected to your DC, i.e., running standing alone, and with no filter. Since there's a direct relationship between air flow (CFM) and amps, if there's nothing to restrict air flow (no resistance), the motor might draw too many amps and burn itself out. Not an issue is you have it connected in a system.

With larger ducts, you can support a larger separator, which you can put on a larger can- say a Rubbermaid Brute 44 gallon. All other things being equal, wider diameter Thien separators have better separation performance, and can allow larger duct sizes, if your DC has the power to support (yours should).

Since planers tend to produce mostly large particles, you wouldn't necessarily need the fine dust performance of your Thien separator. So, as a temporary alternative, you might just have one arm of your Y connector connected to your separator, and open the other arm and connect directly to your planer.

My final (and best) suggestion, as you're already aware, is to go back to the Thien website and do some more browsing. Good luck :)

[cody michael]

thanks, for the information. I think I will redo my baffle I have some 1/4 luan board type plywood that sounds like it would be better.

I like the seperator because it is easier to empty then the dust collector, but I did end up with just using dust collector for now till the seperator is figured out