What to look for in a cyclone dust collector?

[Ole Anderson]

Are the mods getting nervous about moving threads? This one should be in the Workshop forum.

[Allan Speers]

I bought my Oneida Smart DC 3hp and I'm thrilled with it. I don't yet have my ductwork set up, just using 5" flexible hose that's 25 ft long and going machine to machine. My shop is small so most of the time, my flex hose has more than one turn in it. I get about 700cfm under my TS blade. This DC is basically a model that comes with all the bells and whistles, therefore its a bit more expensive than most. Just turning on the machine cleans the air in my shop.

That's the one that monitors CFM and adjusts it's speed accordingly?

That's such a cool design. I bet there's a way to build your own, using an anometer and a VFD. (So folks could retrofit an existing system)

[Ian Moone]

There's a lot of CFM figures and ducting size advice here...

I always understood the minimum to aim for was 1200 cfm in a minimum 6 inch diameter duct.

http://billpentz.com/woodworking/cyc...clone_plan.cfm

In essence the figures are all there in the link above.

People can make up their own minds.

I think these a min FPS speed below which dust drops out f suspensions and can build up / block the duct etc. Nothing worse than having to clean out ducting.

[Cody Colston]

I wouldn't burn up any brain cells trying to absorb everything on Bill Pentz' site. Basically what it says is that unless you buy a cyclone of his design (Clearvue), you will soon die from inhaling fine dust particles.

What I recommend is to get the biggest cyclone you can afford. Oneida would be my brand recommendation. If you have questions, they are happy to answer them, too. They are solidly built, no mdf or plastic and have great service after the sale in my experience.

I have an older Oneida 2 hp commercial and it has worked great for years. It's plumbed to every stationary tool with 6" pvc and shop-built gates with short 4" flex hose connected to the machines. The only rant I have is that the 35 gallon collector drum seems to fill up every time I turn around. I work almost exlusively with rough-sawn lumber and generate a lot of shavings from the jointer and planer.

[Alan Lightstone]

What I recommend is to get the biggest cyclone you can afford. Oneida would be my brand recommendation. If you have questions, they are happy to answer them, too. They are solidly built, no mdf or plastic and have great service after the sale in my experience.
(snip)...
The only rant I have is that the 35 gallon collector drum seems to fill up every time I turn around. I work almost exlusively with rough-sawn lumber and generate a lot of shavings from the jointer and planer.

+1 on the Oneida. I have the 5HP model.

It is really annoying having to empty the 35 gal drum so frequently (and the way mine is setup, I have to take out one section of ducting every time I empty it, so my bad there.)

If you have a combination jointer-planer, I would strongly recommend going with the 5HP model, as it seems impossible to have enough suction for those machines in jointer mode (planer mode works much better).

[Jeff Bartley]

Roger,
I have a clearvue, you're more than welcome to come over anytime and check it out. Jeff

[Rod Sheridan]

[QUOTE=Alan Lightstone;2489935]+1 on the Oneida.

It is really annoying having to empty the 35 gal drum so frequently (and the way mine is setup, I have to take out one section of ducting every time I empty it, so my bad there.)

QUOTE]

Well Alan, I felt the same way until I sawed a ton of particle board. By the time the bin was full, I couldn't lift it, forget about carry it up the stairs

I do agree however when planing or jointing it sure fills up fast.........Rod.

[John K Jordan]

Here's a picture of the inside of the box. I mounted the circuit board for the bin sensor along with its relay and power supply and the wireless remote receiver in an 8" box. It was a tight fit, some surgery required. The box lid holds the bin sensor control switches and alarm. The switch with the pilot light enables the whole system.

electrical_DC_controller_box_ces.jpg

This is in the closet. The box in the middle contains the contactor (relay) activated by the remote receiver. The switch underneath is a heavy duty 220v disconnect rated for 5 hp motors. (Amazon) The pilot light switch to the right is in series with the one in the main shop so both have to be on for the cyclone to start. The other boxes are breakers, etc.

electrical_closet_s.jpg

Doing it this way gave me more flexibility for mounting the controls and bin sensor unit than the instructed installation without a mess of wires everywhere. My box is probably 30' from the cyclone as the electron flies. It is mounted so I can see the alarm strobe from all major power tools.

Figuring out how to wire this was tricky until I drew a schematic of the whole system to figure out exactly what it was doing. Taking the bin sensor controller apart and rewiring will void the warranty of course, but I wasn't worried about that.

I found the exact remote switch that ClearVue was selling and bought a couple of spares in case it went out some day. That also gave me a couple of extra wireless transmitter fobs to turn the thing on and off. A new receiver/transmitter was less than what ClearVue wanted for just a spare transmitter fob.

If you decide to do some variation of this holler at me and I'll dig up my wiring diagrams.

JKJ

[John K Jordan]

>so what REAL need for clear plastic?. Answer = non!

I found the clear plastic quite useful when setting up the system to assure myself that everything was working properly. In fact, I did have a small vacuum leak in the bin seal which was easy to fix. Could I have found that without watching it? Sure, after perhaps filling up the filters with chips. After that, it probably isn't that useful except for an occasional health check and the educational value of showing others how a cyclone works.

BTW, to keep the inside of the plastic clear instead of frosted, don't vacuum up a bunch of cat litter. Don'taskmeHIKT.

[mreza Salav]

I have a clearvue for a number of years. I set it up in my (old) basement shop and made a closet around it.
Now I'm almost done setting it up again in my new shop with a high ceiling (12'). To reduce the noise I made again a closet for it.
I have various machines machines (such as 37" drum sander, 14" J/P, 24" bandsaw, etc) and finally got an anemometer to measure the actual CFM at the machine hoods. Some are after 15-20 feet of ducting with fittings/Y's in between I'm getting close to 1000-1100 CFM on most machines which is good (given the static pressure added due to ducts, y's, closet, etc).
Note that the CV1800 although with a 5HP motor, it actually runs about 3.7-4HP with the 15" impeller. If you get the CV-Max which has a 16" impeller then it will use the full 5HP of the motor and delivers more CFM.
For a one man shop that is not huge, I think CV1800 will be adequate.
Oneida is also another good machine. One thing to take note though is the surface area of the filters on Clearvue is substantially more than that of Oneida. This means better filtering and less frequent cleaning of filters.

[Ian Moone]

Remembering of course that filtering your air, (rather than venting to atmosphere), if your cutting man made boards MDF Melamine chip/particle board are all manufactured using Urea Formaldehyde glues and the outgassing of the formadehyde is carcinogenic and probably will kill you.
Yes you will retain your heat in your shop, by returning filtered air to your shop, but any formaldehyde gas will pass straight thru the filters, so you will die of cancer in a nice warm dust free shop!