Cyclone Lives!

[Ed Moehlenpah]

Last year sometime, I embarked on a journey to build a cyclone. I couldn't have done it without some help from a lot of people. My cyclone is a Bill Pentz design/Clark Echols manufactured kit/Sheldon Impellor/Leeson 5hp motor/custom blower housing combination. I got help from Jay Albrandt and Steve King, with templates for the blower housing assembly, and many pictures from Jay. Mike Tirri (not on this forum) constructed a custom metal plate for the blower housing (for the motor to rest on) and sheared/curved/did custom work on some old galvanized sheets that I had for the blower housing. Chris Padilla volunteered 10 hours of labor to help me build the cyclone body from the kit. Tim Holder (not on this forum) scavenged an old semi truck air filter for the filter enclosure.
Joe Venuto (not on this forum) helped me wire in a 50 amp subpanel for the electrical. Using various posts and some more email help from Chris, I built a wireless contactor switch to power the cyclone on & off. Thanks to everybody for a lot of help!

Pictures are the whole cyclone, the custom air filter enclosure (old plexiglass from a bird cage, recycled), the overarm blade cover hooked up, the dj20 jointer with the 6" flange, and my OSH 20gallon can. I'm having to use 6" flex as my garage is pretty small, and all the tools are on wheels, and thus move about a lot.

Ed

[Ed Moehlenpah]

addendum:
I was very worried about how loud this was going to be. I don't have a way of measuring it, but my decision to mount this to 2 4x8 sheets of plywood, not attached to any walls or ceilings has helped the vibration. It's not as noisy as a saw, and isn't as loud as a late model stock car (thank goodness). But, it does make noise. Outside the garage, with the doors closed, you can hear a hum. But, it's not bad. I'll let Chris decide the db level when he comes to visit.

Ed

[mike malone]

hi ed
looks good!!!
have you come up with a dollar figure and labor hrs involved?
thanks
mike

[Ed Moehlenpah]

I think about ~$1400 for everything, including cyclone kit, motor, ducting from oneida (adapters, blast gates, wye, elbows - some of which aren't even being used yet), various blast gates sourced locally (CB tools), contactor (grainger), remote & breakers, SquareD box for contactor, SquareD homeline breaker box (home depot), tap, drill bit, impellor (Sheldon's engineering), plywood & 2x4s, trash can, mdf etc. I already had some 4" flex that I had obtained from Post Tool & CB tools which I am putting to use until a bigger shop comes into play.

Labor - I'm guessing somewhere between 30 and 40 hours at least. I thought I was near completion many times, until I got to the wiring. I was not electrically prepared, so, I had a lot of work to do. If you had all of the electrical already in place, you could cut 15 hours off of my time easy. I had a 30 amp circuit, which I originally thought would be enough. I was convinced that it wouldn't be, so I had the subpanel put in, then I had to run 3 220 circuits off of there (welder 30A, doubles for jointer, 20A for jointer & planer, shaper 30A for cyclone), plus my 110 circuits.

If my labor is nothing, I'm ahead, if it costs, then - well, I should maybe have looked at a commercial system from Oneida, or gotten the less expensive Woodsucker.

Ed

[Peter Engelmann]

I can see the hours you spent...Good job to you and your crew, I hope many years of dustfree woodworking are ahead. BTW where did you pick up the 6" flex hose?

[Ed Moehlenpah]

I got the flex hose from Oneida Air. They had free shipping over $100 and I needed nearly 20 feet.

Ed

[Ted Shrader]

Ed -

Nice work! Thanks for the pics. A DC is the next addition to my shop and every little bit of data helps.

You might want to get the wire nuts and the BX cable end into the junction box before too long.

Regards,
Ted

[Chris Padilla]

Hey, I also cost you a half-dozen KrispyKreme doughnuts. That is like $3!

Looks good, Ed. I need to get my butt over there and check it out.

[Scott Parks]

What is the minimum amp / circuit rating for the Leeson 5hp? I will be building the same cyclone, but I'm trying to decice on the 2hp delta vs. 5hp leeson. BTW, my only power option is a 20 amp 110v circuit.

[mike malone]

Nice job Ed!!!
BTW...nice jointer too!
regards
mike

[Chris Padilla]

Scott,

I think that 5 HP Leeson is really more like 3 HP continuous/load. I think a 20 A circuit would be fine for it but you need 240 V for this particular one.

[Ed Moehlenpah]

motor draws 20.8amps at 230V.

[Chris Padilla]

Okay, I stand corrected on the motor but those numbers don't seem right.

20.8 A * 230 V is 4784 W which is about 6.4 HP. If you toss is 75% efficiency of the motor, we get something like 4.8 HP. That seems more correct but do they list if those numbers are at some kind of load?

Ed, I know you don't have a clamp-on voltage/current meter but it sure would be nice if you could see how many amps you are drawing when you fire that sucker up!

[Scott Parks]

Thanks guys,
Sounds like I'm going to have to go with the 2hp Delta and the airfoiol impeller instead... I just don't have a way to run another 220v line to my breaker box...

[john blanchard]

I just got my clarke echols cyclone kit together but no ductwork yet. Have the leeson 5hp with clarkes all steel blower kit, very nice. I closed off the intake and the bottom end, clamped on the amp meter, saw a spike of almost 90amps for a split second, it ran at 13 amps at full speed. The motor is rated at 20.8, is this for 1 side of the 220 circuit or the total of the 2?

thanks
johnny