Using your DC to clean the air the shop

[John Michaels]

81802

How effective is taking off the 4" hose that runs over to my planer and letting the DC clean the air in the shop after dust making activties. I was thinking of getting an overhead air cleaner like the JDS but with my 1 micron felt bag on the Delta 50-760 will this do the trick?

[Monroe Brown]

A true air filtration unit works by creating a sort of whirlpool or circular current in the atmosphere of your shop. Particles are sucked into the current and eventually go through the filters in the unit. Bad air goes in, good air comes out. Continuously.

In my shop when the filter is running and I sweep the floor I can see the dust that I kick up getting drawn into the current, even when I'm on the far end of the shop in a corner. Amazing. DCs do not make a current and are more like big vacuum cleaners. Two different things really.

Regards,

MB

[Art Mann]

The only way to know the answer to that question is with measurements. A few people who ordered the Dylos particle counters recently have reported that their dust collectors do, in fact, reduce the particle counts a lot faster than just letting the dust settle. Do a search on "Dylos" and take a look at their data. I use my DC like that, but it is a distributed system with 5 ports to different machines throughout the shop. I just open all the gates at once to pull in air from several different places.

I would caution you about running your DC with no pipe on it. It loads the motor more that way and may cause the motor to draw excessive current. Check your owner's manual.

[David Parker]

Hi John,

I have wondered about that very same question. In fact, I plan to buy the same top-rated Delta DC that you have. I have seen at least two posts that show a significant drop in particle counts when you run a DC by itself. From an air volume point-of-view, this DC should move similar amounts of air as a room filter.

My plan is to experiment with an air intake, probably through a furnace filter based intake box. I would try this box in various positions and measure the resultant rate of change in particle counts. Once I find out what positioning arrangement of the intake box and DC output bag works best for general shop air filtering, I could just mount the box and connect up the DC hose to it whenever I wanted general filtration (such as at the end of a sawing session).

If you have enough hose / ducting length between the DC and box, I see no problem with overtaxing the blower motor. It'd be no different than hooking it up to your power tool.

Dave

[Greg Funk]

I've used my DC to clean the air in my shop but I have a feeling that one of the dedicated air cleaners would do the job just as well if not better. The advantages of the air cleaner are that they run quieter and take very little power.

Greg

[Joe Chritz]

I will sometimes open the downdraft table (which is fed with a 5") and let it run to clean to air. It works fairly well, subjectively, since I don't have a meter.

A 4" hose doesn't draw that much CFM compared to an overhead cleaner but it couldn't hurt.

On my set up the exhaust (cyclone) is back in the shop so it stirs up the air some, plus I have a small fan running all the time.

Joe

[glenn bradley]

Before I made a simple and cheap ambient cleaner I would hook a "Big Mouth" to my DC and let it run after routing MDF and such. I would still leave the room, it just cleared the air a little faster.