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View Full Version : Confused,mixed up, and baffled by Dust Collection.



Kyle Costlow
03-03-2008, 11:23 AM
I know there have been a lot of threads lately and I am sorry to be adding to the noise.. But I am lost. I have been reading(or trying to read) the more techincal documents and facts about it. Nothing seems to be straightforward. PVC is bad.. static... but its good because its smooth. 6 inch pipe is the way to go... or is it, you might loose velocity. Suffice to say I am not getting anywhere here on my own. So here is my situation.

I am a youngin just getting into the hobby. I will have a small basement shop in my parents house for maybe a year and a half(until I am out of college), then my girlfriend(hopefully wife by then) will be moving in to our own house, and it will be small(I refuse to rent, big waste of money in my book, then again I am young and know nothing, buy I think its smarter to get a house sooner than later.) Anyway, my setup for the short and semi long term will be a small shop.
I have most of my large equipment already. I am trying to do things right. I have an old 2hp grizzly Dust collector, looks like the G1029's predecessor, it has a 5" inlet, and I don't know the CFM's but it can suck. I have a small shopvac for portable needs, and I would wear a respirator. The guy I bought my DC from said he would give me all his duct work, it is all 4". I will have to hook up my table saw, miter saw and I have a floor sweep I would like to put in. All would be within 6-8 feet of the DC and I want to run the pipe along the floor under my workbenches and support tables(that I plan to build). I think 4" ducts would be fine, but I wanted to get a more experienced opinion. When a tested my collector it seemed to blow harder when the 2 way 4" splitter was on opposed to being wide open, but I could tell a big difference when I closed one of the 4" openings. I plan on exhausting outside. What would you do?

Prashun Patel
03-03-2008, 11:36 AM
If I were you, I'd try everything with the existing 4" ducts. Your runs are short so, there shouldn't be much problem. As you discover that you need more, then you can consider upgrading the ducts. Plus, you HAVE them already.

Definitely get a 1micron filter bag or cartridge if you don't have one yet. That's the most important.

<BEGIN OFF TOPIC SOAPBOX LECTURE>:
Some other (nonsolicited) advice:

Buying a house to 'get into the market' or to keep girlfriend are bad ideas ;)

Also, be sure yr gonna stay with said girlfriend for a long time or else unwinding yrself from the baggage of a jointly owned house will make dust collection seem like the least of yr worries.
<END OFF TOPIC SOAPBOX LECTURE>

Tim Thomas
03-03-2008, 11:41 AM
My advice would be to "use what you got". Since you will only be in your current space for a little more than a year, I would recommend that you just stay with the 4 inch piping that you have. You could upgrade to a 5 inch main run with 4 inch branches, but after you move to a new place you might wind up changing everything anyway. Why buy everything twice?

I think the DC and piping that you have will do a good job of getting rid of most of your dust, especially since the runs will be short. Rather than spending more money on upgrading the dust piping, I would make sure you have an air filtration unit to supplement the dust collection. An upgrade to your DC system may help you capture MORE dust at the source, but it will never capture ALL of it, so you are going to need an air filter anyway (I would think that is especially true in a basement).

Bottom line, I think you have your dust collection situation under control, and combining that with the respirator should work just fine for your immediate purposes. I'd save up for a filtration unit as soon as you can, and wait on a more sophisticated DC setup for your NEXT workshop.

Tom Walz
03-03-2008, 11:48 AM
Go with what you got. It is a much better set up than most have.

Remember everyone is giving advice based on their own experience which will never be identical to yours.

tom

P.s. I am still living in the house I bought to keep my last wife happy. She didn’t stay happy with it very long.

PPS Old farts only give advice to young guys they like.

Dave Verstraete
03-03-2008, 12:52 PM
Kyle
I'm sure that you will get plenty of responses, so I will be short. IMO use what you have. Use th 2 way "Y" to 4" to your advantage. You can always reduce the flow into one side of it to get the most advantageous flow. I'm sure someone will "pipe in" shortly that knows the formulas. By my quick calculations you ought to be able to run a 4" and a 2.5" easily off from a 5" inlet.

Paul Johnstone
03-03-2008, 1:13 PM
Exhausting to the outside is good. I agree with the other poster that it makes a lot of sense to just use what you have until you move.

If it's possible to open a basement window and have a fan blowing out, that helps improve air quality a lot as well.

I'm sorry you got a lot of off topic relationship advice. If your financial situation lets you buy a home, then it is a good idea.

glenn bradley
03-03-2008, 1:31 PM
Sometimes we all just need someone to say "do this" and make it easier. DC is a hard area to do that as there are so many variables. It sounds like you have a good start on the equipment so I will chime in with the 'use what you got' folks.

Here's my opinion on floor sweeps and I expect immediate contradiction from some and agreement from others: don't bother. You will not enjoy emptying your dust bag/can so why hurry it toward fullness by sweeping stuff into it.

Take an extra moment to bend over and pick up that stuff with a dust pan. Every 'dust pan full' you don't shovel into your DC is a 'dust pan full' longer between clean outs. If you were an old codger like me and had trouble bending over . . . maybe.

I never did hook mine back up after some recent changes as it robbed me of valuable floor space. Yes, you have to keep the area in front of it open and the path leading to it open or it goes unused as mine did. BUT, YMMV.

Mike Goetzke
03-03-2008, 1:39 PM
Here's my opinion on floor sweeps and I expect immediate contradiction from some and agreement from others: don't bother. You will not enjoy emptying your dust bag/can so why hurry it toward fullness by sweeping stuff into it.



I agree w/ Glenn on this. I put one in in my garage shop and seldom use it. I also once saw a post that it's not the greatest ideas for a DC since anything you sweep into it will hit the impeller - including hunks of wood and worse yet metal screws and the such.

Mike

Dave Verstraete
03-03-2008, 2:14 PM
Kyle,

I'm chiming in again.

I agree with Glenn on the floor sweep. A dust pan empties easier than a DC unit does. Remember to put a good filter on that Shopvac or you'll just be adding to the fine particles in the air.

David Giles
03-03-2008, 3:01 PM
In order of importance,

1. Dusting up the living space of parents or wife is BAD.

2. Venting outside is GOOD as long as you have a source of return air. Some folks think it should be heated.

3. Cross ventilation in the shop is GOOD because no collection system is perfect. A fan and two open windows will sweep lots of airborne dust out of the shop.

4. Bigger is better in dust collection. Bigger ducts, bigger ports and / or a bigger blower improve collection efficiency. Bigger costs money.

5. It is better to spend limited money on your house or wife than on state-of-the-art dust collection. Unless your priorities are different than mine were at that age.

AOF

Chris Padilla
03-03-2008, 7:26 PM
I LOVE my floor sweep...best thing I put on my DC system because I use it CONSTANTLY. Yes, you do need to be careful about sweeping general debris in there.

Kyle Costlow
03-03-2008, 8:34 PM
I think that since I will be exhausting outside, I wouldn't have to worry about the bag filling up faster with a floor sweep, but I cant just send it into my neighbors yard, so I would need a containment box. When the containment box gets full could I just rake the saw dust into my moms mulch?
Either way, thanks for all the input and advice:)

Prashun Patel
03-03-2008, 9:58 PM
I wldn't use it as mulch right away.

1st, if the wood's been treated with anything, it might damage plants.

2nd, decomposing wood actually robs the soil (and hence plants) of nitrogen.

If yr sure the wood's untreated, the best approach is to throw it into a compost pile for a year. That'll convert it into excellent, usable compost - which is about the best thing u can put into any soil.

Kyle Costlow
03-03-2008, 10:18 PM
Good idea, my girlfriend said she would want to make a compost bin... good excuse for more sawdust:D

Mike Cutler
03-04-2008, 5:29 AM
Kyle

It breaks down fairly easy once you stand back from it.

A shopvac is better than nothing

A Dust Collector is better than a shopvac.

A cyclone is better than a Dust Collector.

The larger the diameter piping the better(within the capabilities of the motor and the impeller)

Spiral wound metal duct pipe is better than PVC, which is better than spiral wound flexible. Which doesn't mean that spiral wound flexible pipe is bad.;)

Static discharge on PVC is annoying, but wrapping it up with miles of copper wire doesn't solve the problem. It won't cause your dust collection system to spontaneously explode.

Avoid using 90 degree elbows and Tees. Use 45's and street "Y's". Make sure they are orientated in the piping correctly

Run the largest size piping as close to the pickup point as possible.

The equipment that you picked up sounds fine. Better than what I have right now actually.
I think you're going to be fine.

Mike

Greg Narozniak
03-04-2008, 9:04 AM
I LOVE my floor sweep...best thing I put on my DC system because I use it CONSTANTLY. Yes, you do need to be careful about sweeping general debris in there.

Ditto to what Chris said. I had one when I had my Jet 1100 and I have one with my Oneida. I always run a large magnet that I removed from an old EV speaker over the pile to ensure that there is no metal. i know the cyclone is much less prone to issue with Metal hitting the impeller I just do it out of habit and have never had an issue.