This was no boating accident

[Alan Lightstone]

Had an interesting / frustrating / incredibly dirty afternoon in the shop. I was flattening some boards in my jointer (been working on a project so I've used my jointer, planer, and drum sander a lot in the past few weeks.)

That being said, after planing a board, I took a look at my Oneida cyclone, as I found it odd that I hadn't seen the full bin detector light go off. When I looked at the cyclone, the clear tubing that attaches the cyclone to the bin seemed full of sawdust.

So I took off the bin, and then about 10 gallons (at least) of sawdust and shavings came down from the cyclone onto the floor. Thankfully I was wearing my dust mask, as I always do when emptying the bin. So now there is an overflowing bin, and gallons of shavings all over the place.

So I take out my Festool CT-22E vac, and vacuum up the shavings / sawdust. After sucking up a bunch of it, I figured it must be time to empty the Festool bag. So I open it up, and it is massively overflowing with sawdust, and the filters are totally clogged with sawdust.

So now I need something to suction out and clean out the Festool vac. So I drag the hose from my whole house central vac into the garage (fortunately the vac is in my workshop.) So I suction out the Festool (although I think the filters are now trash) best I can. So now I go look in the central vac, and it looks like no one has cleaned that out in months and it's totally clogged and disgusting in there, so I have to clean that out.

Then, after totally hosing myself down in a shower, I'm at a loss:

1.) Why didn't the warning light for the full bin go off on the Oneida cyclone?

2.) Why didn't the Festool vac stop sucking when it was obviously overflowing?

3.) Why did my cleaning woman not clean out the central vac. OK, perhaps I don't need answers to the last one, but how about the first two?

[Jesse Busenitz]

Wow.... that's just about all I can say. Murphy was striking hard today.

[Roger Pozzi]

You have a cleaning woman???:eek::D:confused:

[Alan Lightstone]

You have a cleaning woman???:eek::D:confused:
Sadly, she doesn't clean the workshop. Could've used that yesterday.

Any thoughts as to why the dust bin alarm didn't light?

[Rich Engelhardt]

Any thoughts as to why the dust bin alarm didn't light?
Maybe the butler didn't change the bulb........




:D Just kidding......;)

[Hoang N Nguyen]

I had the same exact thing happen with my 2hp dust gorilla when I first thought it. I was jointing a few hundred feet of 8" wide thermo treated poplar and never noticed the full bin sensor go off. I only stopped because I noticed my motor sounding different so I shut down the DC and pulled the bin. Unlike you thought, I didn't have saw dust fall out of the cyclone body, instead it was jam packed in there as well as my filter. I mean, all 36" of the filter body was packed in saw dust and wood chips. After hours of cleaning and trouble shooting, I found out that the gasket provided to seal the bin sensor doesn't created an air tight seal. I e-mailed Oneida and after a few e-mails back and forth they decided it was a problem on their end and sent me a new filter as well as another set of gasket/washer to help solve the problem on my bin sensor.

The bin sensor only comes with 2 tiny gasket that's suppose to go on the inside of the bin, that only wasn't enough to create an air tight seal. I noticed an air hiss coming from the sensor and that's what I told Oneida. They sent me another set of gasket to put on the outside of the sensor as well as inside and that seems to help. To be more on the safe side I sent ahead and added a bit of silicone in between the gasket as well so this doesn't happen again.

The old filter was pretty much trashed, I spent over 2 hours blasting it with compressed air inside and out with no luck. Since the wood I was working with was thermo treated, you can see black/brown stains on the inside of the filter and they never went away. That's when I contacted Oneida and the girl I spoke with didn't seem to know what she was doing. At first she said it was my fault, but I argued how it was my fault when the bin sensor leaked after I installed it per their instructions? It's almost impossible to hear a tiny air leak hissing over the loud 2hp motor that puts out over 80 db noise level. After a few more unhappy words, they decided to send me a new filter. I just hope it didn't cause any damage to my motor.

I hope you find out what's causing the issue with your DC.

P.S. for what it's worth, my cleaning ladies doesn't dump out my shop vacs or clean my filters either. They do however do my dishes if there are any in the sink. :)

[Susumu Mori]

Hmmmm, strange.
My Dust Gorilla Portable's sensor always blinks no matter what I have in the bin after few seconds of usage. Always. From Day 1.
I tried to adjust the sensor several times. It can be calibrated and starts working, but then, after few seconds, it goes off (sigh...).

After a while, I contacted Oneida. They asked me to readjust it. I did. Nothing changed. Because I contacted too late, it was out of warranty and would cost several hundred dollars.

For their credit, they were very responsive and called me several times to see if it got fixed. They seem genuinely concerned.

I suspect that the sensor gets saw dusts and mistakenly thinks the bin is full, but not sure.
It seems nobody here experience the same thing, maybe it is just an isolated bad copy of the sensor.

It is interesting to hear there are more people who experience the opposite (doesn't blink even if the bin is full).

In anyway, I learned not to trust the sensor and periodically check the bin.

Is this the moral of the story?

[Hoang N Nguyen]

Hmmmm, strange.
My Dust Gorilla Portable's sensor always blinks no matter what I have in the bin after few seconds of usage. Always. From Day 1.
I tried to adjust the sensor several times. It can be calibrated and starts working, but then, after few seconds, it goes off (sigh...).

After a while, I contacted Oneida. They asked me to readjust it. I did. Nothing changed. Because I contacted too late, it was out of warranty and would cost several hundred dollars.

For their credit, they were very responsive and called me several times to see if it got fixed. They seem genuinely concerned.

I suspect that the sensor gets saw dusts and mistakenly thinks the bin is full, but not sure.
It seems nobody here experience the same thing, maybe it is just an isolated bad copy of the sensor.

It is interesting to hear there are more people who experience the opposite (doesn't blink even if the bin is full).

In anyway, I learned not to trust the sensor and periodically check the bin.

Is this the moral of the story?

Have you tried to adjust the sensor while the DC is on and running? I noticed that if I back off on the sensor (less sensitive) and turn the DC on and then adjust it to the 1/4 turn mark, the bin sensor doesn't go off on me and stays that way from there on. I also had the problem with my sensor going off on me right when the DC is turned off when I first got it, this happened even when I wasn't sucking in any dust, just a dry run to make sure the DC was working. I played with the sensor for a bit and found that solution helped.

[Susumu Mori]

Hoang, great tip.
I'll try it. Thanks.

[Jamie Buxton]

I have a CT-22 vac. It has no provision for automatic stop when the bag is full. It can't suck any more dust when the bag is full, but the motor keeps running.

If you get massive sawdust in the filters, the bag has broken, or the bag opening has pulled loose from the vac.

[Peter Aeschliman]

Alan, are you using the "Dust Sentry" add on, or some other built-in implement?

I know some guys use a unit from ClearVue, which has a commercial fire alarm style strobe light and will actually shut the cyclone down when the bin is full. From what little I've read, it is more reliable than the dust sentry as well, but I have no personal experience.

http://www.clearvuecyclones.com/supporting-products/50-bin-sensor.html

It's a bit spendy though.

Peter

[Robert Payne]

Alan, are you using the "Dust Sentry" add on, or some other built-in implement?

I know some guys use a unit from ClearVue, which has a commercial fire alarm style strobe light and will actually shut the cyclone down when the bin is full. From what little I've read, it is more reliable than the dust sentry as well, but I have no personal experience.

http://www.clearvuecyclones.com/supporting-products/50-bin-sensor.html

It's a bit spendy though.

Peter
I make the Bin Sensor system sold through ClearVue Cyclones and can vouch that it is very reliable. While some might consider it "spendy", it protects very costly canister filters that can easily be ruined by bin overflow like the OP described. It has been installed on several Oneida cyclones although most are on ClearVue CV1800 units. It has an automatic control circuit that can shut the cyclone down, but also features a bypass mode to allow a short term job (like finishing a planer pass on a long board) to be completed even though the alarm is triggered. It can easily be fitted to new or retrofitted to existing systems.

[Tom M King]

I sucks when sucking stuff doesn't suck anymore.

[Jeff Duncan]

Hmmmm…..no shop broom and dust pan?

Using one vacuum after another to clean up a pile of sawdust seems like over thinking it. Sometimes the simplest solution is the best;)

good luck,
JeffD

[Alan Lightstone]

Hmmmm…..no shop broom and dust pan?

Using one vacuum after another to clean up a pile of sawdust seems like over thinking it. Sometimes the simplest solution is the best;)

good luck,
JeffD

The shop broom and dust pan was what I used after the festool vac, and after the whole house vac. It was plan D. Should have been plan B, I guess.

[Alan Lightstone]

Alan, are you using the "Dust Sentry" add on, or some other built-in implement?

I know some guys use a unit from ClearVue, which has a commercial fire alarm style strobe light and will actually shut the cyclone down when the bin is full. From what little I've read, it is more reliable than the dust sentry as well, but I have no personal experience.

http://www.clearvuecyclones.com/supporting-products/50-bin-sensor.html

It's a bit spendy though.

Peter
I use the Oneida Dust Sentry add on (if that's what it's called. It's the sensor that is in the top of the drum cover, pointing down.)