Measuring Dust Collector Performance - Fan Type Anemometer

[Larry Frank]

I am bumping this up as it seems to be a current topic.

[Jim Dwight]

I respectfully suggest that measuring airflow is looking at the wrong thing. I have used a little airspeed meter too, I was curious, but I would trust it more for relative data (how much more airflow if I use solid pipe, for instance) than an absolute value.

But what we really want to know is what the dust level is in our shops with the machines running and our DC on. Hood design can reduce how much dust escapes without an increase in airflow. I need to complete the installation of my 2hp HF DC and then plan to get a Dylos and start measuring how it does controlling dust. Next will be hood changes, especially at the CMS/RAS, to see how much difference it makes.

We care about airflow because more reduces airborne dust. But why not measure the dust particles instead of the airflow?

As an example of why think of festool sanders and other tools. Peter Millard has an interesting youtube where he compares a Festool sander to a Bosch and shows the Festool gets more of the dust. The same vacuum is used for both. I am no big Festool fan boy but they have done a lot of work to reduce dust using just their fancy shop vacs. Not much airflow in even a good shop vac. But in a well designed system, they seem to do pretty well.