Hi!
As some may have seen, I've been in a table saw wrestling match that has entailed rebuilding a cabinet saw, buying a new cabinet saw, and reorganizing my shop to accommodate the new beast.
Last year, prior to this round of effort, I had taken the time to swap out all 4" PVC piping in my shop for 6" PVC. I looked to make the shortest runs possible, used sweeping bends (rather than 90's) wherever feasible, and reduced as close to machines as possible (or didn't reduce at all such as behind the miter saw).
My longest run is about 25 feet and most of the runs are over 15 feet. I only run one machine at a time, and only open one blast gate at a time.
I also built a Thien "tophat" that drops a lot of material into a drum. Exhaust runs directly out the side of my barn where it goes into a 2nd drum outside my barn (I call it the "muffler") that is outfit with a filter bag and a louvered (and oversized 9") exhaust vent (I did this to capture the little bit of dust that was coating side of building/neigbor's car, and to reduce noise output... works very well actually).
I have the good ol' Harbor Freight dust collector modified to fit directly into the tophat and exhaust setup without reducing. I removed the impeller cover and built a replacement that accepts 6" pipe. Same thing on the exhaust side.
I use (junky) plastic blast gates where I reduce to 4" at machines (I had the gates on hand already from previous setup). I use shop made gates on machines where I stay at 6" the whole way (miter saw, jointer, drill press)... I think these work pretty well actually.
So here's the rub... I'm just not getting adequate suction to keep the shop somewhat clean. I collect a lot of dust, but leave a ton behind too.
Since I'm in shop re-org mode anyways, it's good timing to try to improve the setup.
My thoughts are:
- Micro leaks throughout the system add up to big impact (proposed solution: caulk all PVC joints, consider swapping out junky blast gates)
- The HF unit just ain't up to the task (proposed solution... I could buy a bigger / stronger DC)
I think my first idea can't hurt, so I'll go ahead and teach the kids to use a caulk gun :-) and purchase some better gates.
The second one... A used Woodtek 3 HP dust collector has popped up locally. Model = 864-381. Looks like that one is hard to find these days, but this model appears very similar from some googling. LINK Would you anticipate that this $350 investment will significantly improve my situation? (I'll admit that the CFM numbers etc. fly over my head)
Edit... here's a pic where you can see the longest runs and the tophat setup. Added tophat close up and muffler pic.