Starting cyclone project

[Julio Navarro]

I am finally on my way to start my Pentz Cyclone project.

I have had the motor, impeller and blower housing and I finally scored some nice thick steel to marry the motor to the housing securely.

I bought the motor at HF 5hp(3hp rated) and the impeller and housing from Ed Morgano of clear view.

I had seen a few links of how the motor had fitted onto the housing and here is my version of it.

The motor:
http://www.pulterfi.com/images/motor/motorDSCF0310.jpg
The 12 ga steel plate(scrap from the place I bought the 22 ga sheet good) the hole is already cut into it. The biggest problem I faced was making hte drill holes precise.

(Note the saw dust on the floor , hence the need for the cyclone)

How the plate will fit on the motor:
http://www.pulterfi.com/images/motor/motorDSCF0312.jpg
The housing mouting "lid"
http://www.pulterfi.com/images/motor/motorDSCF0313.jpg
Making the bolt holes (this was the hardest thing for me, my eye sight is not the best in my old age but the magnifiers helped)(note the clamps I would hate to have this thing spin around while my hand was near by)
http://www.pulterfi.com/images/motor/motorDSCF0322.jpg

Tight fit but but turned out well
http://www.pulterfi.com/images/motor/motorDSCF0333.jpg
Shameless gloat: My son and his "girl friend" on his birthday that day (yes, we sort of had that "talk" sans the details)
http://www.pulterfi.com/images/motor/motorDSCF0340.jpg
All ready to be assembled
http://www.pulterfi.com/images/motor/motorDSCF0347.jpg

Attached the plate to the motor with the help of a few washers to clear the small 'nubs' on the motor housing.
http://www.pulterfi.com/images/motor/motorDSCF0353.jpg

All assembled, The shaft is in fact centered but the shadow makes it look off. I made the hole large enough to allow the flow of air into the motor as there is a fan in the housing.

The darker line between the hole and the edge of the wood ring is the smudge made by my wood hole cutter (what was I thinking) I used a bimetal hole cutter to make the hole.
http://www.pulterfi.com/images/motor/motorDSCF0357.jpg


I replaced the housing plate retaining blocks with washers.


The unit fully assembled:
http://www.pulterfi.com/images/motor/motorDSCF0364.jpg

I bought a mig welder yesterday and I hope to start work on cutting the sheet metal this weekend.

(PLease forgive the border around the pictures and I hope there arent to many in this post)

Thanks for viewing.

[Kyle Kraft]

WOW! That's great! I'm glad to see that there are individuals out there who opt to build their own stuff even when there are similar, expensive, commercially available options. Sometimes it's not all about instant gratification and there is pleasure in the design and engineering of shop-built stuff. I find there are valuable lessons and challenges in building your own equipment, and if you have plenty of time and limited resources, it's the way to go. Not to mention a good excuse for a little dumpster diving!!

Keep up the good work!!!

Kyle in Kzoo

[Julio Navarro]

You should see what Stu Ablett has done, I have gotten enough gumption to do this project inspired by his stuff. He makes it look easy and fun. And its turning into a lot of fun, and if the impeller doesnt shake itself from its shaft and flies across the room at supersonic speeds I will have considered it a success. Thanks for the encouragement.

[Stu Ablett in Tokyo Japan]

Hey Julio, I thought you were just a young punk, I did not think you were OLD ...... ;) :D :D

Nice job on the blower housing, you have one on me, as I bought that part of the whole deal :o

Love the pics, looks like you are doing a great job, just take it in small bites, and you will be fine.

I sure did have fun :rolleyes: building mine, and if I were to build a second one, I'd do it in half the time, for sure!

I can't remember, did you get some air powered snips to do the sheet-metal cutting? That is one tool I really do regret not buying, my hands hurt for a week (and the blisters too) but pain only sucks temporarily, while the cyclone will suck for many years to come :D

Great report, keep adding to this page, so it will remain in one long thread, easier to read for newbies coming after looking for advice or inspiration on doing the same!

Cheers!

[Julio Navarro]

Hi Stu

Only a young punk at heart, lol.

The housing I bought from Ed Morgano at Clearview as well as the 14" impeller.

Yes, I have an air shear that I plan on using, I tested it on some 24ga stuff and didnt seem to work well but perhaps I was using it wrong. I'll have to give it another shot this weekend.

I cant wait to use the welder. I'll build the break soon following your design.

[Allan Johanson]

Nice job, Julio.

For cutting the 22ga metal for my cyclone I used a jigsaw with a metal cutting blade and a full face mask because little bits of metal go flying. Wear gloves and use a file to smooth the edges when you're done.

Stu, try that next time and your hands will thank you. ;)

Allan

[Julio Navarro]

The jig saw with a metal blade had crossed my mind, now I will try it since it worked for you, thanks for the suggestion.

[Allan Johanson]

Hi Julio,

I forgot to mention one trick about cutting sheet metal with a jigsaw - make sure the metal is supported by wood very close to the line you want to cut (some folks place some wood underneath the metal so you're cutting through metal and wood at the same time). If you don't support the metal somehow the metal will flex (or droop) and the jigsaw blade could catch on the metal and the jigsaw will go bouncing! You'll see. :)

Take it easy and you'll be fine.

Allan

[Jeffrey Makiel]

Allan provides a good tip. To add to it, make sure the orbital setting on your jigsaw (if it has one) is turned off. That is, the blade simply moves up and down. And use a very slow speed.

I also recommend cutting oil, however, it gets a little messy. If you do use cutting oil (that is, oil made just for cutting metal) make sure you don't drip any of it on a concrete floor because cutting oil will eat into concrete real quick. I learned that the hard way.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention. Cutting thin metal with a jigsaw is very loud. Make sure you take protective precaution.

-Jeff :)

[Julio Navarro]

Good tips, thanks all

[Scott Parks]

Julio,
Looking good. Keep up the progress pics.... Is the Morgano impeller made for the 5/8" shaft of the HF motor? Or, is it universal to adapt to another motor with a bigger shaft? Or vise versa? Thanks...


Also, I've been wondering..

For anyone whom has built their cyclones with a HF motor, has it been reliable? Anyone have one burn out? BP comments that the HF motor is not a long term soloution. I bet there are guys out there who have been running them for at least a couple years. Are they still running? Anyone have a failure?

Please respond... I've been considering the Morgano impeller, but when I add in the cost of the leeson motor, it breaks my budget... Thus the HF looks more attractive...

[Julio Navarro]

Scott:

Actually your question about the impeller is a good one, I received my impeller with the universal expansion bushing. I emailed Ed and he sent me the 5/8" bushing, cost me 15 including shipping. Be sure to request the 5/8" one when you order the impeller! I think if you look around locally you could find it somewhere. But I like to give Ed the business since he is associated with Bill Pentz and I think Bill might get a portion of what Ed sells, not sure though.

I also have the HF motor, and I expect it to last all of a week as most anything from HF has lasted me so far. I bought it for 60$ including the 1 year extended warranty so I expect to use two motors from HF till I buy a real grown up American one, leison. Any way, good luck.

[Scott Parks]

Scott:

Actually your question about the impeller is a good one, I received my impeller with the universal expansion bushing. I emailed Ed and he sent me the 5/8" bushing, cost me 15 including shipping. Be sure to request the 5/8" one when you order the impeller! I think if you look around locally you could find it somewhere. But I like to give Ed the business since he is associated with Bill Pentz and I think Bill might get a portion of what Ed sells, not sure though.

I also have the HF motor, and I expect it to last all of a week as most anything from HF has lasted me so far. I bought it for 60$ including the 1 year extended warranty so I expect to use two motors from HF till I buy a real grown up American one, leison. Any way, good luck.

Julio,

Thanks for the tip. At least if the impeller uses a bushing, I can upgrade later. But for now, I need DC.

[Bill Pentz]

Julio,

Looking great! Stu reminded me you were working on one of these..

Nice to see a few building cyclones from my plans still. My son, daughter, and I have built a bunch of these over the years and really got the act down with a laser cutting firm, our own roller, forming machine, and spot welder that can take a cyclone from a 4'x10' sheet of metal to a finished and soldered up cyclone in about four hours work.

Unfortunately with both them off at college and my not having enough body to either do that work or oversee someone else doing it, we don't make these galvanized metal units anymore. Ed with Clear Vue is getting rave reviews though from turning them out in extra tough plastic. We get a kick out of watching ours he made in plastic. The plastic shows that a few wood shavings that have just the right height and weight spin round and round. In fact, one of the big problems I had with my first commercial cyclones I replaced is so many of these chips would not drop that anytime I used my planer the cyclone would plug. I built Mt. Cyclone in my backyard testing theories and designs to stop that plugging. I see that most of today's cyclones now use my modifications that have long been shared on my web pages to cure those problems.

I continue to hear a lot of nonsense that it is cheaper and better to build a ready made cyclone than building my design from my plans or buying a Clear Vue unit. Sorry, but no sale as I am not convinced on the airflow claims and continue to see serious problems with fine dust separation. I’ve lost contact with WoodSucker, but only that cyclone and mine really targeted fine dust separation.

All other small shop cyclones are either exact or slightly modified copies of the early Delta outdoor “chip collecting” cyclones. Although the current cyclones do require a little less horsepower and better separation by using Jim Halbert's “neutral vane” or my tilted inlet with my air ramp implementation, the best I've seen still puts over half the fine dust into the filters. This makes a great working cyclone if you do like Delta did and use a 5 hp motor with the fine dust blowing away into the outdoor air. Bringing these inside with a tiny motor and the same wide open filters raises our airborne fine dust levels to dangerously unhealthy. Worse, bringing them inside with even fine filters often still turns them quickly into “dust pumps” because the fine filters are soon destroyed. If you don’t believe me and have one of these units grab a laser pointer that will highlight this fine dust so it can be seen.

A major part of what pushed me into making my own cyclone design was all existing small shop cyclones put so much dust into the filters they soon plugged and self-destructed. A plugged filter can easily add 5" more resistance killing the airflow needed for good fine dust collection. As the filter plugs the air pressure increases enough to force the fine particles to tear their way through the filter pores soon turning even top quality fine filters into sieves that pass most of the unhealthiest dust. Cleaning also kills these filters, so it is very important to have ample filter area to minimize how often they need cleaned. I just got off the phone with Rick Wynn of Wynn Environmental and he cannot understand why people keep buying tiny filters as the CFM and pressure quickly ruins these units, plus if you double the filter area you square the airflow getting one quarter the resistance and four times the filter life. That’s why I have long used and recommended a pair of the 300 square foot poly-cellulose filters, or pair of the larger spun bond all polyester.

In terms of the work to build your own cyclone I continue to get lots of emails from people asking why so many on the different woodworking forums keep saying building your own is so hard, because they built a cyclone from my plans and did not find it either that difficult or expensive. Recently a local friend decided to build his cyclone from my plans starting from scratch. He figured he spent about four hours doing the layout and metal cutting including blower sides, four more hours bending the metal by hand forming it over 6" PVC pipe, and then about three hours of soldering to build the cyclone. He said he could do another in about half that time now that he has a little practice. He routed the blower from heavy Baltic birch no-void plywood in about three hours. He built the blower doing as you did buying his impeller from Clear Vue with the needed Harbor-Freight 5/8" motor shaft. As suggested on my web pages he used a long insulated duct and simply sent the air outside instead of buying filters. It took about an hour more to hang the cyclone using the heavy brackets from Home Depot I suggested. He figures the total cost was less than one of the better rated Delta or Jet dust collectors and it took him less than twenty hours total including his couple of trips to buy the local materials.

Another local family friend also just built one of our cyclones from the few cut kits my son had lying around after he left for college. This fellow is a sharp machinist with more toys and a most enviable shop. He went with a 14" Jet DC-1900 Impeller and did his machining to make a nice compression arbor that will work with his 5 hp Leeson 7/8" motor shaft. We both agree that a heavy steel impeller is the only way to go because any time the dust bin gets full, all goes right through the blower, so using a light plastic or aluminum impeller is just asking for trouble. He figures the entire project only took about fifteen hours and much of that was spent in designing and building his own improved ceiling mounting system. It looked so good I talked him into making one for me.

I was over at his home the other day and tested the airflow on that unit. It pulled so hard it would lift the empty trashcan off the floor and flex that poor lightweight trashcan lid inside out. He uses dual filters but will soon add a a diverter valve that will let him either blow the air outside or direct it inside in the hot summer when he does not want to loose the air conditioned air from his shop. Most think heat loss in the winter is a big problem, but it is not as a radiant heater dish is more than enough to make up any air loss. I did suggest he use an open door or window for makeup air, plus install a carbon monoxide detector in his shop because he uses a gas furnace and the cyclone pulls so much air it could suck backward down the flues without that makeup air. Just as an aside, he also scolded me for calling the Leeson and HF motors really 3 hp as they actually do pull ample amps so they are 5 hp motors.

Oh yes, and in terms of testing both of these units move a real over 1100 CFM at under 10.5 maximum amps motor draw and pull more than 800 CFM all the way up to 7.5" of back pressure. What makes that impressive is that 7.5" is what is left after all the overhead for the cyclone, blower, filters, etc. With even the largest shops and most complex ducting rarely drawing more than about 4.77", these units are going to not only collect the fine dust, they are going to do a great job separating it so the filters will really last.

Anyhow, keep of the good work and let me know if I can answer questions.

bill

[Stu Ablett in Tokyo Japan]

Hey Bill, nice to see you dropped in on Julio's thread.

Looks to me like he is doing a great job, and now that he knows you are watching, I'm sure Julio will make double sure he does it right.

I do not remember exactly how many hours my cyclone took, but it does not matter, as it is worth it every time I use it.

I figured out that I've run nearly 2000 liters of sawdust through my cyclone, and when I do the filter tap, and check the clean out, I've got the lightest dusting you can imagine. OK it is not "Zero" but it sure is not a lot. I'd guess if I put it in a tablespoon measure it would not fill it.

Really guys, these are not hard to build, take it in small bites and at your own pace, the reward is worth it.

Cheers!

[Julio Navarro]

Can you say pressure, and I dont mean cyclone dust collection pressure!

So, now that I am under this kind of pressure to perform I will defenitely have to do a good job.

So far I have layed out Bill's plans and dimensions on Autocad and will print out full size plots of each component so I can use it as a template layed over the sheet of 22 ga gal. steel. Ive actually plotted a mini paper model of the cyclone from the autocad drawing so I know it will work! I will post it here tonight.

I will start to cut the steel this weekend or even as early as Friday. I put together a 4'x10' table in the shop and I have the pneumatic sheers ready to cut.

I will be sure to keep an updated photo journal of my progress.

Thanks for your words of encouragement Bill and Stu, they go along way, belive me.

Hows your turning going, Stu? We gonna see pretty stuff soon?

[Sam Shank]

I like the PETG plastic, and was wondering if anyone has any experience with it? How would it be to try to use that stuff instead of sheet metal and cold form it yourself?

Thanks, Sam

[Don Baer]

I like the PETG plastic, and was wondering if anyone has any experience with it? How would it be to try to use that stuff instead of sheet metal and cold form it yourself?

Thanks, Sam

Sam;
I wouldn't try cold forming it but I am sure with a hot air gun you could bend it pretty redily.

[Julio Navarro]

Donbt forget that the seams and how smooth they are are very important to the cyclone. If you can get smooth interior seams you can use any material as long as it is strong enough to withstand the vaccume pressure. I havent seen this size cyclone run but I think that with a 5hp motor at 3450 rpms and a 14" impeller that it will create a great deal of pressure internally.

[Eric Shields]

Julio,

Thank you for starting an updated thread on the Bill Pentz style cyclone. Though I am no where near ready to begin building mine, I will be keeping a close eye on your progress. It looks like you are off to a great start.

Eric

[Bryan Cowing]

I recently built a Pentz cyclone. I didn't buy a motor and fan, just using my old 3 hp 4 bag collector as suction. I purchased a Porter Cable air powered shears for $90, and must have took all of 10 minutes to cut out the metal parts out of the 4x10 sheet. I took the metal parts back to the HVAC shop where I bought the 24 ga metal. Took about 15 minutes to have the parts rolled and folded. I found that some 40/60 rosin core solder I had worked best for soldering the metal. I think I spent 8 hours fabricating the cyclone. Never had so much suction out of the old DC. Having the air shears and then having the parts folded & rolled took all the hard work out of building the cyclone. There is a knack to soldering. As soon as the solder starts to melt, I would back off the propane torch.:D

[Julio Navarro]

Hi Bryan:

Why did you go with soldering as opposed to welding? Any reason beside the obvious (cost)?