Clear Vue and fine dust?

[Jeff Murphy]

I have been considering a cyclone, but have a few issues. The 1st is that my shop is in the basement and the 2nd is I do alot of sanding with a drum sander. I currently use a 2hp G1029, with a custom made/huge double bag from AFF. It seems to work okay, but emptying it can be a PITA from downstairs. Anyways, I have 4" pvc gated runs to the Performax, TS, jointer, router table, and an aux. due to the 7' ceiling and furnace ducting(I snake the mains inbetween the ducting and joists). Capturing planer shavings doesn't impress me ;) .........so what would I expect with a cyclone, ie: Clear Vue, as far as capturing very fine dust and not clogging up the filter?

[Jim Hinze]

jeff,

I've had my clear vue in my basement for almost a year now and absolutely love it. I have not cleaned my filter stack yet, but from the outside everything is as white as the day I hooked it all up.

I think it gets darn near all the fine stuff that gets trapped in the vents.

I would suggest though that you upgrade some of the runs to 6" instead of 4", it works much better that way. I have 6" runs to my jointer and tablesaw, 4" to planer, bandsaw, router table and TS dust shroud... signifigantly more air moves off the 6" ducts.

At some point I'm going to attempt an upgrade for all to be 6".


I have been considering a cyclone, but have a few issues. The 1st is that my shop is in the basement and the 2nd is I do alot of sanding with a drum sander. I currently use a 2hp G1029, with a custom made/huge double bag from AFF. It seems to work okay, but emptying it can be a PITA from downstairs. Anyways, I have 4" pvc gated runs to the Performax, TS, jointer, router table, and an aux. due to the 7' ceiling and furnace ducting(I snake the mains inbetween the ducting and joists). Capturing planer shavings doesn't impress me ;) .........so what would I expect with a cyclone, ie: Clear Vue, as far as capturing very fine dust and not clogging up the filter?

[Art Mulder]

Jeff,

Stu in Japan built a Pentz-designed cyclone for himself and started a thread (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=42818&highlight=dust) a few months back where he showed the results of cleaning his filter stack after a lot of use. He reports very good results. And if you visit his web page to tour his shop you'll see that his "basement shop" is literally a dungeon, so dust is a concern.

[Jeff Murphy]

I could upgrade to a 6" if I worked around a few things. I really haven't heard too much about the guys who run a drum sander, as that creates ALOT of talcom-like dust. I do have a seperator/can, which collects the large stuff, but I can fill a good sized felt bag up with the powdery dust. Here is a very bad pic of what I am now running.
http://pic14.picturetrail.com/VOL544/716354/1398349/18093116.jpg

[Jim Becker]

A well-designed cyclone should deposit almost no "visible" fine dust in the filters, even when doing heavy sanding. The ClearVue should perform well in that regard as will most of the major cyclone brands. My Oneida system has been in place for two years now and I've only dumped a tiny bit of flour out of the filter clean-out bin once. (And I actually use my drum sander a bit these days...)

[Jim Hinze]

FWIW, i don't have a drum sander yet but have seen a delta 18x36 hooked up to a 2hp oneida with a 4" connection and it got all the dust. The clearvue with the larger impellar and higher Hp motor in theory should do just dandy (and separation should be in the very high 90% range).

I'd give Ed Morgano a call over at clearvue adn discuss with him. He may be able to arange for you to talk with a clearvue owner is using the cyclone with a drum sander... give you an honest opinion.