Q: How often do you clean your cyclone's filter?

[Mike Waddell]

Evenin' Everyone -

I took the time recently to empty and clean the filter of my cyclone. I had been emptying the bin regularly, but when I noticed a decrease in suction from the unit, I knew I had been remiss in cleaning the filter. Long story short, the filter was about half full because I had let my bin overflow.

If you are not remiss in letting your bin overflow into the filter the way I did, how often do you clean (not just empty) your filter?

I have cleaned mine twice in a year (emptied the lower pan many more times), and my cyclone doesn't normally see more than two hours of use in a week.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Mike

[Brent Harral]

for me...more if I happen to "forget" to peak at the drum during heavy planing sessions and the chips starting building up past the drum into the cyclone :rolleyes:

[Jim Becker]

Infrequently, but then again, I don't get much shop time these days. I'll say that "normally"...about twice a year as a weekend warrior and frankly, they really don't need it that much at that point.

[Stu Ablett in Tokyo Japan]

Clean the filters..........why would you need to do that? ;) :D

My cyclone gets rid of almost all the dust before the filters..

One day I very nearly overfilled the unit.....

http://www.ablett.jp/workshop/images/cyclone/cyclone_full1.JPG
But still the clean out is clean.

Since then I've run over 2000 liters of sawdust through that cyclone, and I tapped the filters, then used compressed air (at about 60 psi) to blow the filter back, and tapped again, I got less than a tablespoon of dust.

I built my cyclone from the Pentz plans, it works very well.

I'd say if you have to really clean your cyclone twice a year and you have a cake of dust on your filters, then your cyclone is not working well, which is too bad, but maybe it is fixable.

Got o Mr. Pentz's site and read up on it, I can't post a link, so just Google "Bill Pentz Cyclone"

Cheers!

[lou sansone]

I think it depends on what types of machines you have hooked up to your system. I have a 3 hp oneida system. It used to have 6 nine foot tall filter bags, but now has the oneida canister filter system. I use my widebelt sander quite a lot which generates a lot of very fine dust. that dust does seem to really pile up on the inside of the cartridge. I usually find myself cleaning it 2 times per year
lou

[Andy London]

Lou hit the nail on the head with his post.

I have the Oneida super Gorilla, in the past year I have overfilled the bin perhaps 6 times, when I do, I clean the filter but only twice was there any significant amount in it.

On average I produce in the area of 90 gallons of dust a week when I work only evenings and weekends. Last week I was off and "we" generated a drum a day, one one day three drums.

My son works with me (15) in the shop spending most of his time at the bandsaw or lathe, the lathe generates a lot of super fine dust. Most of my time is planer, jointer, tablesaw and router cabinet. The cyclone also sees around 20 hours a month or drum sander dust, also super fine.

Assuming I remember to empty the bin on time which we are far better at, I clean the filter every three months, I get maybe a cup full of super fine talc like dust, if that.

To some extent it depends on the wood also, some wood dust is super super fine, others not so bad.

Andy

[Frank Pellow]

Are you supposed to clean the filter? I have used my Oneida 2hp Commercial for a little over a year and have never cleaned th filter.

Seriously, I know that you are supposed to clean the filter with comprssed air but I don't have a compressed air uinit. I have dumpend the 35 gallon drum six times and checked the pan under the filter each time. But, there is little or nothing there. Maybe, I really don't have much fine dust in the iar. Certainly, all my sanding dust and about half of my sawing dust is gathered by my Festool Shop Vac at source. I expect that I really should clean the filter and I will get around to renting a compressed air thinhy and going so one of these days.

[Stu Ablett in Tokyo Japan]

Frank, you have to be very careful with the compressed air, low pressure, and keep the nozzle from getting too close, you can blow a hole in the filter if you get too close and or use too much pressure.

I have a plastic, somewhat soft and flexy stick about 2' long, (handle from something) I use this to lightly (and I mean lightly) beat the outside of my filter stack from top to bottom, then I use the compressed air, and check the filter clean out. I usually get next to nothing in the way of dust at the bottom of the filter stack.

I've not checked it or cleaned it in nearly a half a year now, I'm waiting on the one half year mark, after a lot of saw dust gone to the local temple for composting, to see how much fine stuff I do get. If I get about 100 ml, from 2000 litres, what would be 0.00005% of the dust that went through the unit (really?) but I bet I get way less than 100 ml.

Cheers!

[Mike Waddell]

Thanks to everyone for your feedback. The problem I was having definitely came from allowing the chip bin to overflow. When that happens, the easiest place for everything to go is into the ol' filter.

When I cleaned it, I used compressed air then lightly tapped the outside from top to bottom as someone else mentioned. After that, I took out the hose and hosed 'er down, let it dry over a couple days, then hooked everything back up and let it run for 20 - 30 minutes.

I'm back to sucking up small rodents!

Thanks again,

MW