Oneida 1.5hp Mini Gorilla

[Darren Brown]

Does anyone have any experience with this? I'm considering upgrading my current Steel city 1hp dust collector to this. My quandry is that the Mini Gorilla is 600 cfm while my current collector is 700 cfm "max". I know everyone who has a full size Gorilla is thrilled with it. I like the idea of a high quality, portable collector as I have a small shop and no room for a large collector or miles of ductwork. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Darren

[Steven DeMars]

Does anyone have any experience with this? I'm considering upgrading my current Steel city 1hp dust collector to this. My quandary is that the Mini Gorilla is 600 cfm while my current collector is 700 cfm "max". I know everyone who has a full size Gorilla is thrilled with it. I like the idea of a high quality, portable collector as I have a small shop and no room for a large collector or miles of ductwork. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Darren

I too am in the same quandary . . . I spoke with Oneida's tech guys . . . The first one assured me that the Mini could handle a table saw, jointer, planer or a lathe . . . one machine at a time . . .

The second guy told me it would not have a chance coupled to 12" Jointer/Planer & would probably choke on a table saw . . . .

If they designed one a little larger & a little more powerful, I would buy . . .seems kind of expensive for a Dremel Tool or a scrollsaw . . .

[Howard Brown]

Well this is my first post and I would certainly put myself as a newbie. I purchased this to put on my sears contractor saw and it has worked very well even without "plugging" up other openings in saw. I have not used it with my jointer or planer yet but it really "sucks" hooked up to the saw I'm pretty sure it will handle what the other two put out.

I would like to have a bigger model mounted to a wall with ducts ran to everything but I'm operating out of 1/2 of a 2 car garage right now and this works for my needs.

It comes packaged very well and goes together easily. I would highly recommend it I don't think you will be disappointed with the volume of air and material it will move.

As a side not I had the dust deputy hooked up to the saw previously. Did not work great but after the mini purchase I hooked the deputy to the ROS to finish a cabinet. Wow now that works great to capture the dust. It was almost a pleasure to run the sander.

[Jim Becker]

The second guy told me it would not have a chance coupled to 12" Jointer/Planer & would probably choke on a table saw . . .

Believe him. When I bought my MiniMax J/P combo, it was the singular reason for upgrading from my original 1.5hp cyclone to a 2hp Commercial that could flow a LOT more air.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Well this is my first post and I would certainly put myself as a newbie. I purchased this to put on my sears contractor saw and it has worked very well even without "plugging" up other openings in saw. I have not used it with my jointer or planer yet but it really "sucks" hooked up to the saw I'm pretty sure it will handle what the other two put out.

I would like to have a bigger model mounted to a wall with ducts ran to everything but I'm operating out of 1/2 of a 2 car garage right now and this works for my needs.

It comes packaged very well and goes together easily. I would highly recommend it I don't think you will be disappointed with the volume of air and material it will move.

As a side not I had the dust deputy hooked up to the saw previously. Did not work great but after the mini purchase I hooked the deputy to the ROS to finish a cabinet. Wow now that works great to capture the dust. It was almost a pleasure to run the sander.

Hi Howard! Been waiting to see you post about your Mini Gorilla, glad it's working well. How big is the drum on one of these, and how big is the inlet?

[Howard Brown]

Hi Howard! Been waiting to see you post about your Mini Gorilla, glad it's working well. How big is the drum on one of these, and how big is the inlet?

Hi Steve, the drum is 17 gallon and the inlet is 5" it came with a 10' hose. I like it so far. Just haven't got to use it enough

[Carl Babel]

I understand Jim's point about air volume and I know that is very important when you have a lot of high-volume saw dust producers or a lot of permanent duct work or want to run several machines at one time, but...

I would think that for a small shop, if:
a) you plan on hooking it up to one machine at a time,
b) your machines' dust ports are 5" or less, and
c) you are going to wheel it next to the machine and use a short hose,

it should do just fine (other than possibly having to clean out the collection can frequently). At least that's my plan - LOML saw the sale price and said I should go for it (stealth gloat). Mine hasn't shipped yet (apparently, they are backed up from end-of-year orders), but as soon as I get mine, I will give you a report.

As an aside, I don't know why you are hearing info to the contrary from Oneida - after all, you can only squeeze so much air through a small pipe/hose: I think that it is 400 CFM for a 4" port and a little over 600 CFM for a 5" port. Maybe they have a lot of bigger Cyclones sitting in the warehouse ;-)

[Jim Becker]

Carl, in general I agree with you. But I also experienced nasty plugs after getting the J/P and jointing/planing wide material, especially with species that the shavings come off "fluffy". The specifications of the J/P clearly state a substantial CFM requirement for dust collection, too. The hood ports are 120mm (close to 5"), BTW. The (circa 2000) Oneida 1.5hp unit just didn't move enough air to keep that from happening. The design and increased performance of the Oneida 2hp Commercial (equivalent to today's 2-2.5hp Gorilla) solved the problem immediately. Now, I only get "plugs" when I fill up the 55 gallon bin without noticing and blow though into the filter......'can't blame that on the cyclone!