DC through wall into dumpster..

[Keith Outten]

This is a picture of my 3000 gallon steel tank that I use for a chipbox. At the time we were covering the tank in vinyl siding so I wouldn't have to paint the exterior every few years. You can see the 4" PVC inlet on the end of the box, its below the top edge just enough so the chips and dust settle in the tank. I have never seen any dust or chips on the grass around the tank even though it does not have a top, its completely open. Currently the tank is about one third full. There is a one inch pipe at the end of the tank near the bottom. I shoved a piece of carpet foam inside the pipe so the water can drain out when it rains and chips stay inside.

My dust collector is a very old Grizzly 1.5HP model that originally used bags. I removed the DC vac and discarded the metal cart, the bags and all of the other hardware, the vac now sits directly on the concrete floor in the corner of my shop. I can't find a picture of the vac, I rarely see it anymore because it generally blocked by other machines I park in front of it at the end of my panel saw.

Without the bags the performance of the little 1.5HP vac has increased significantly.

I used a similar setup for the sign shop at Christopher Newport University. I purchased a Harbor Freight 2HP collector, scrapped the bags and installed the vac very close to the back wall of the shop. On the opposite side of the wall just outside I used the original shipping box that the ShopBot CNC Router came in, just painted it white and installed a vent at the opposite end of the inlet. I had to use the top on the box because it was small and located just a few feet from a walkway that students used to get to the main campus from a large parking lot. I stapled a baby diaper inside the box over the dryer vent. This system worked great for several years while I was employed by the University and it still being used today.

Don't make rocket science out of a chip box installation, keep it simple and it will work just fine.

[Kevin Cackler]

Thanks Keith! I'm just suffering from a bad case of analysis paralysis right now, wanting to make sure that we don't blow a ton of money on a solution that only halfway works. It doesn't help that the internet is chock full of conflicting information....

I think we're going to move forward with an implementation like you have suggested. We'll repurpose one of our portable DCs to see how it handles the load and up its size if necessary to one of the industrial blower suppliers' products.

[William Hodge]

If you aren't cutting plastic (counter tops, etc.), the sawdust and shavings are worth something if you can keep them dry. I have a 4' w x 8' long x 4' high box on a boat trailer. One end is open, under cover, and the 10" and 6" pipes aim up one wall. I have 2'x 4" framework on the inside of the box, every 18" on the walls and roof, , to act as baffles to slow the air and chips down as they swirl around the trailer. The finest dust comes back out the infeed end and falls on the ground. The result is dry shavings, with less fine dust. A farmer neighbor comes and hauls the trailer away when it's full. The shavings are worth a lot to him, because they are dry and free. His service is worth a lot to me, because I don't have to pay to haul shavings away, or try to sell them to people who will take up my time, smoke near my shop, etc.

A small amount of shavings and dust spills on the ground, about half a cubic yard a year. I shovel this up once a year and compost it.

The trailer box is made out of four sheets of pressure treated plywood and a bunch of pressure treated 2" x 4" wood. The trailer was free. I added a good hitch, safety chains, and a lift for the tongue. The total cost was pretty cheap.

[Keith Outten]

Years ago when I built my first chip box I lived in Hampton in a neighborhood. I purchased six 30 gallon trash cans that I used to haul all of the chips from my chip box to a local horse barn. They paid me 5 bucks per can and several trips per month paid my electric bill for my workshop in those days. My Dad and i used to laugh about being so efficient in the shop because we sold the dust off the floor

Oh yeah, no walnut chips or dust for horse barns.

[Martin Wasner]

I keep hoping somebody will stop by wanting my sawdust, or even better, buy my sawdust.

[Ronald Blue]

Here is a link to a company that makes material handling blowers. airprofan.com/industrial-fan-applications/material-handling/

This brings to mind a couple things. When I was MUCH younger and we picked most all the corn in the ear and put it in cribs. Then in the spring or summer we would empty the cribs and all ear corn was ran through a mobile (truck mounted) corn sheller. The by product of this was corn cobs and shucks. The shucks were ejected with a blower through a round duct into a pile. This was usually 40-50 feet away.
I later worked at a bearing manufacturing plant and all the metal shavings after being ran through a crusher to insure they were all small chips were blown into a outside hopper. This hopper was mounted overhead and semi's would pull under it and load much like at a grain elevator except it was with metal chips. The point is you can definitely do what you are wanting to do. However research it well.
We have a piece of machinery with a cyclone on it that collects the waste from adzing the railroad ties and runs it through a cyclone. The dust is discharged out of the cyclone at the top. At the bottom there is a rotor with three flaps that rotates at possibly 60 RPM's that drops the heavy waste out the bottom. So in effect the system is sealed but this gives the waste an exit. I'm linking a video of a similar machine but it doesn't have the sealed sysyem with the bottom rotor. So it's possible to not have it sealed.

youtube.com/watch?v=d5CCICZsXCE

[Bill Dufour]

Years ago when I worked in a lab. we had a dc that blow sawdust into a big dumpster 30yard?. It had special lid that contained the input and vents. The lid had to be designed to lift off vertically and hold itself up so the truck could pull the dumpster out. I do not remember the specifics.
Bill D

[Mike Cutler]

I keep hoping somebody will stop by wanting my sawdust, or even better, buy my sawdust.

If you have any horse boarding facilities nearby, you might have an opportunity.
A 30 gallon garbage can will hold two compressed "bales" of bedding. Each "bale" is ~6.00 at Tractor Supply. Each horse in the facility will go through a "bale" every 2-3 days.
The saw mills around here sell the dust and shavings by the pickup bed load. Every weekend you see the same folks out there shoveling shavings into their trucks.

"Used" shaving and bedding is worth $$$$ also. I hauled enough of it to Bandini Fertilizer company as a kid.

[Tim Bueler]

4. Is there a better option? Our floor space is tight so we really need a solution that doesn't take up a ton of room. At the same time, we are only going to be in this shop for, at most, another year, so we want to do this as cheaply as possible.

Reading through all this I guess I would take a different approach. If you know you're going to be moving into a larger space very soon perhaps it might be prudent to get a dust collection system that will work in your new space. Doing a system now "...as cheaply as possible..." means you will be spending $$$ on another system relatively soon. Of course there may be extenuating circumstances like space or electrical restrictions but if not too insurmountable, and if you're going to spend the money anyhow, why not spend the money once and move the system when you move your shop. It would also give you a good trial run to better understand what will work, and often just as importantly, what won't work in your new shop.

[Mike Heidrick]

I read portable collector dumping outside. Id do some math on ductwork size and distances and fittings impact to cfm and static pressures you need to overcome.

Horses and walnut shavings may not mix either. Advise the potential buyers of wood species in the mix.

[Jim Becker]

If you have any horse boarding facilities nearby, you might have an opportunity.

True, but there are certain species that cannot be part of the shavings...such as walnut and some others. These species are dangerous and even deadly to equines. Most shavings used for stall bedding for horses are pine.

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi, are there any legal requirements for your dust collection?

For example do you have to meet a certain indoor air quality?

Are there regulations requiring the design and certification services of a professional engineer?

Where I live, beyond a small hobby size, you need a P Eng. to design and certify the system.

Any fire code or outdoor air quality regulations?

regards, Rod.

[Mike Hilden]

This may not be workable, practical, feasible or smart but couldn't you add ducting after the blower and then just have 3-4 outlets with blast gates? Just open the one you want to exhaust too and that spreads the exhaust out? I'm thinking along the lines of a large manifold, open gate 1, exhaust near. Close 1, open 2, it exhaust at the mid point of the dumpster. Etc..

Please let me know if this isn't sound because I'm still learning about dust collection.

[Ken Grant]

I have been down the same road you are on. Cyclone-style DC with air locks seem to be the industry standard in the commercial world, and the bigger ones (20hp or more) are pretty cheap on the used market. If you are serious about setting up a bigger shop, and will have higher cfm requirements in the future (straight line rip saw, widebelt, moulder, and cnc are usually 'next on the list'), I would be looking hard for one of these on the used market. You can often get a bunch of pipe with them as well. I have never heard anyone complain about having too much suction from their dust collector, so keep this in mind when shopping.

In the mean time, (as in tomorrow) i would go to home depot or wherever and buy a big metal trash can with a lid. Then take the 1 hour required and turn your metal trash can into a thein separator. google how to build it, they are super easy. It has an inlet and outlet, and goes between your dc and the tool. Instead of fiddling with emptying bags on the dc, you can just dump the trash can when it is full. It saves time and is a lot more pleasant. I ended up having about 1/2 inch or less of sawdust in the bottom of the dc bag for every trash can load in the separator when I was using mine.

I eventually set up a permanent system in my shop. I tried blowing through a dc blower directly into a container outside. It worked okay but dust leaked out around the lid and still made somewhat of a mess, and I got tired of emptying the container. You can absolutely run material through a blower; it just has to be rated for that (material handling). One thing to watch out for if you go this route is to not overload your blower motor since there are no filters. Running the blower 'wide open' (no inlet or outlet restrictions) will pull the most amps.

It takes quite a bit of time to set up a system, and if you are moving in less then a year, I don't know if you would get your money back out of hard piping your current shop.

[Robert Engel]

True, but there are certain species that cannot be part of the shavings...such as walnut and some others. These species are dangerous and even deadly to equines. Most shavings used for stall bedding for horses are pine.

The shavings you use in horse stalls are bigger than what we produce. I've tried using shop shavings in horse stalls but its too fine + has sawdust in it, too. The wet stuff falls through the rake and get very heavy.

That being said, some people will probably use it since it has the word "FREE" in it.

Jim is correct re: walnut shavings are toxic to horses.