Dust Collector Gloat

[George Skinner]

If I did it right here are some pictures of my dust collection system that my brothers and I built over the holidays.
It is a completely custom system composed of a 24" dia. cyclone ( Bill Pentz type), "Dayton" 15 5/8" blower, 10 hp motor, and steel support frame.
The light gray box has 3 cartridge filters from "Wynn Enviromental" inside.
It will be easier to clean the dust from the outside of the filters.
We chose to weld the cylcone together and it worked very well.
To save money we used 26 gauge HVAC pipe and made our own wye fittings out of 24 gauge flat sheet metal.
There is a 10" main duct and 6" branch ducts to each machine.
This system works great and we can easily run 3 machines at one time.
It is also much quiter then the 2 hp. "Grizzly" we were moving from machine to machine.
After filling a couple of drums only the lightest of dust gets past the cylcone, there is not one piece of dust bigger then fine powder in the filter box.
This is a project we should have done years ago.

[Tyler Howell]

Serious shop there Geo. Is this your etching business?

[John Miliunas]

Wow George! Major league cyclone, dc system AND shop, as a whole! Let me guess: You do more than just cutting boards, right? :D Very nice. And you even made your own wye's? Man, I had all I could do to just get my straight pieces of "SnapLock" cut the right size, much less tackle something like that! Very impressive and thanks for the post! :cool:

[Jim Becker]

That's a big sucker...literally and figuratively! Great job. The shop is nice, too...wish I had space like that.

[Terry Hatfield]

George,

Very, very impressive!!! Excellent job.

Terry

[Steve King]

George,

WOW --- What a setup.

Compaired to yours, my cyclone looks like a ShopVac.

Great job!
Steve

[Jack Diemer]

Looks great.

Was the home made wye easy to do? Can you give us a close up of one?

What did you use for Blast Gates? It would be really neat you could get some CFM readings off that system. Got to be 3000 CFM?

[Michael Shier]

I don't see any floor sweeps otherwise you would have to have signs warning against the presence of small chilren and animals.

Michael

[Bill Pentz]

George,

A well done on the cyclone and I have a few questions for you:

1. What is the rated amperage of your motor and what are you drawing with two or more gates open? The reason I ask is you might want to go with a bigger diameter impeller with that sized motor. That would give you even better airflow at little additional cost.

2. Do you have a manometer or Magnehelic gauge? If so, have you measured the pressure and FPM in your main? You should have plenty of airflow to prevent clogging, but with a 10" main, you also have plenty of capacity to support a larger impeller and more blast gates open at once.

3. With the use of 26 gauge HVAC piping did you consider building a self opening damper at the end of your line? These are known as barometric dampeners. What they do is automatically open if the pressure gets too high in the main to either ensure ample airflow if you are using an airfoil impeller, or to ensure the pressure does not go so high that you cause your ducts to collapse. With a 15.5" impeller you are real close to the roughly 9" to 11" that will collapse HVAC pipe. You can buy one ready made (see my Measurement Page (http://cnets.net/~eclectic/woodworking/cyclone/measurement.cfm)) for a source of these ready made. If you do get a bigger impeller, for sure add one of these. http://cnets.net/~eclectic/woodworking/cyclone/BarometricDampenerSm.gif

I'm sure others would like an opportunity to talk to you about making a similar setup. Let me know if you would like referrals.

Again, good job.

bill

[George Skinner]

Bill,

The reason for the size impeller I used was a really good deal on Ebay.
It is a belt drive blower and I have it set up for approx. 3,200 cfm.

I checked the amperage on the motor with mutiple gates open and at most was about 23 amps, I have overloads in the starter for 27 amps and the motor can handle 29 amps.

To keep airflow up in the 10" main and to prevent someone from closing all the gates and crushing the pipe there is no blast gate on the table saw. The saw is at the end of the 10" main and is used so often the blast gate would have been a bother anyway.

I am no expert at this but I would answer any questions I can.

Thanks for your website as I would have never thought to do this myself or even known where to start.

I will post a picture of the wyes later tonight.

[Scott Coffelt]

might suck Virginia into WV. That is one big A Cyclone.

[Mark Singer]

George,
Looks great! Wow! Great shop.

[Bill Pentz]

George,

It sounds like you have it handled well with the pulley setup and open direct connection to your tablesaw. I put a variable pulley on one and then adjusted the pulley diameter watching the amp meter until I hit about 85% of rated amperage on a Baldor 5 hp motor. Sounds like you are pretty close to optimum. Thanks for sharing and again, good job.

bill

[Fred Voorhees]

IMPRESSIVE shop George! I am as green as a cucumber with envy at the layout and size of such a place. Impressive collection system to boot! I am looking forward to my first cyclone collection system within the next few months.

Fred

[George Skinner]

Here are some pictures of the wye fittings we fabricated.

We used 24 gauge flat sheet as we could not locate any 24 gauge pipe and slip rolled it ourselves in a crude homemade slip roll.

The design was done in Autocad and a pattern was printed for the cuts.

The pipe was spot welded with a mig welder.

We used some auto body seam sealer to seal all the seams.

After the first one they went very quickly.

[Jack Diemer]

For those who haven't built the DC systems, you can save a LOT of money by making your own wyes. Sounds like if you get can figure out what shape to cut the branch off, you can save a minimum of $20 per tool.

[steve johnson]

Hi, I have the same Dayton blower/cyclone.(not yet installed) Grainger says using 6 inch pipe with a 1.5 horsepower motor will produce a static pressure of 3700 cfm.
In your experience, will motor be big enough?
I will only use one machine in the shop at a time.
thanks,
Steve

[Jim Becker]

Steve, just in case you didn't notice, the last post in this thread previous to yours was back in early 2004.

Granger apparently hasn't a clue about dust collection...there is no such thing as "static pressure of 3700CFM". Fan curves for blower/motor combinations measure CFM "at" various static pressures. Speaking plainly, about the best "real world" CFM you can get through a 6" duct is likely centered around 1000 CFM with relatively low static pressure. (2-4" SP) And that's with a kick-butt motor driving a decent fan design. 1.5hp isn't going to cut it---the "good" commercial cyclone systems from Oneida and others typically have 3-5hp motors driving 13-14" diameter impellers to deliver 1100-1400+ CFM through real duct work.

[CPeter James]

Here are some pictures of the wye fittings we fabricated.

We used 24 gauge flat sheet as we could not locate any 24 gauge pipe and slip rolled it ourselves in a crude homemade slip roll.

The design was done in Autocad and a pattern was printed for the cuts.

The pipe was spot welded with a mig welder.

We used some auto body seam sealer to seal all the seams.

After the first one they went very quickly.

Any chance of sharing/selling the patterns for the wyes in various sizes? I can get lenghts of 24ga snap lock stove pipe and figure that I could cut one end off and then weld it into a hole and seal it. But if I had the pattern fot the end and the hole it would be a big help.

CPeter

[Bill Pentz]

Jim: Be a little careful on quoting vendor supplied numbers as most share maximum possible rather than working airflows. If you do the calcuations or try some actual measurement you will find the typical dust collection and cyclone blowers are hard pressed to move more than about 785 CFM through a standard 6" duct and we really need either a far higher pressure blower like I use in my cyclone design or to use 7" duct to move 1069 CFM.

CPeter: If you check out my Ducting Page in the Fittings section (http://billpentz.com/woodworking/cyclone/Ducting.cfm#Fittings)you will find a link to Stan Harder's pages that explain how to make your own plus has templates

[Todd Solomon]

George,

That's quite a cyclone and shop! What do you make?

Todd

[steve johnson]

Jim, thanks for the reply.
Did I mention that the blower sits separate from the cyclone and has a 15 inch impeller and is not attached on top like the ones others have built?
Are you saying that it won't turn fast enough? This unit was operating in a school shop with a 3hp, 3 phase Dayton motor and had several stations operating at the same time( I was told).
I do not have three phase so I needed to change out the motor and since I would be using only one station at a time, assumed(perhaps incorrectly) that I could use a smaller motor. The decal on the blower says it can even operate on a 1/3 hp motor!
Here is the blower:3C073
http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/wwg/productIndex.shtml
And here is the motor they recommend: 5k565
http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/wwg/productIndex.shtml
I appreciate any more advice you can offer.
Steve

[Jim Becker]

Bill, I didn't quote anything... ;) My comments were off the cuff and very general and I indicated so. The OP can certainly access your site for more specifics.
------

Steve a 15" impeller is an unlikely match for a 1.5hp motor based on years of commentary by folks like Bill and others...if it worked in its previous environment with a 3hp 3ph motor, just replace it with a 3hp 1ph or 5hp 1 ph motor. To develop the air flow you need for dust collection, you need to be able to turn that impeller with efficiency under load...in this context, "under load" means with a maximum of air moving through it.