Is My Cartridge Filter OK?

[John Nordyke]

About a year ago, I upgraded from a top filter bag on my dust collector to a Winn Cartridge Filter - the tall cage with pleated filter material. I was blowing off the outer shell today and on a whim decided to detach and look inside...as expected there was a healthy coat of fine dust, but I also noticed the pleats are no longer uniformly distributed - in several places the pleats have "spread apart" and were packed full of dust. Is this normal performance for pleated filters, or has something gone wrong?

[Bruce King]

Normal since the flow and pressure around the pleats is not equal. Just rotate it 90 or 180 and move on.

[Michael W. Clark]

Just keep an eye on it. After you clean it, if you notice less airflow, it may be blinding and you will have to replace the filter to get back to normal performance.

Cartridge filter is not always an upgrade IMO. Wood dust can be hard to clean as it gets embedded in the filter media and won't come out if driven in far enough.