Question on building a cyclone

[Barry Beech]

On all the cyclones that I have seen, the impeller is attached directly to the motor shaft. Would it not be more efficient to use wheels and a belt? The majority of our tools use wheels and belts. Would the offset motor cause a problem or would the stress from the impeller be too great for the belt.

I not looking to build one right now, I'm just curious.

Thanks,

Barry

[Bill Lewis]

I thinks it just a matter of cost efficiency. Why complicate things with added stuff. Simple works.

Come to think of it, it would actually be less efficient to have the added mechanism. There are frictional losses inherent to belts and pulleys and such.

Ok so why aren't all of our saws direct drive? Well some have tried it in the past (craftsman comes to mind). Not ever owning one, I think they failed in part due to a poor design, lacking power mostly. It's also hard to put a motor directly up next to the blade, and still allow it to tilt and stuff. I think the craftsman was also a flexible shaft drive, which also eats up efficiency.

[Gary Sutherland]

There are belt drive dust collectors. Oneida, for example, offers that option in several sizes, starting at 5HP.

Also, although I don't know for sure, I would think that most "large" (50-200HP) collectors are belt driven.

Pulleys would allow tweaking of the RPM; other than that I have no idea what the advantages of belt drive are in the smaller machines, but am curious. Anyone know?

Gary

[Allan Johanson]

Another advantage: By remote mounting the motor you can reduce the overall height of the cyclone to fit under lower ceilings or to give you a little more room for a larger dust bin.

Cheers,

Allan

[Cecil Arnold]

I seem to recall from my airplane days that tip speed of the impeller may have some effect. Maybe Bruce Page can enlighten us on that, but I do know that you can start to get some real sound problems as the speed increases.