dust collection plenum for multiple machines?

[Jim Becker]

TY Jim! I agree about the 2hp. Just hoping for a little more boost out of it so as toy be able to suck both sides of the TS, and the router, and ... works ok but not enough juice to power anything with any significant loss or inefficiencies, like a plenum either I'm guessing.

Indeed. But also keep in mind that DCs don't "suck" so much; rather than move large volumes of air at a given speed and that's what moves the material...air flow. Pressure is low compared to a vacuum like a shop vac or what you use in your home for floors. The more air a DC can move, the better the performance for dust collection. Duct size and design is very much in play around that, too, because bends and hose add fictional loss that inhibit air flow.

[Michael W. Clark]

If you are trying to connect multiple machines together, the design of the connection and the ducting needs to be such that your velocity in the system is sufficient to keep the material suspended, not dropping out. This will depend on your collector and how many points are operating at a time. If only one machine, then put a gate on each branch and use wyes to connect them of the same diameter.

The pressure loss in a plenum depends on a lot of things such as acceleration losses and how your branch connections are connected to it. A wye would be less loss than a branch stabbed into a flat side for example.

The main thing is don't let material collect in the ducting or plenum. If you cut through a nail, it makes a spark and it will drop out in the plenum. It could catch any dust in there on fire. If this is between machines and hard to get to, could make for a challenging situation.

[Tom Bender]

Hi Dave
How many dust ports are you wanting to connect? 3 saws and a router + how many overhead collection points. How many of those will you run at the same time?

It's going to be tricky to get enough good fittings and blast gates into the space under the saws.

Blast gates might be operated mechanical with rods and levers or with cables.

A way to clean out the ducts might be helpful. Maybe a cap you could pull off.