Thien vs super dust deputy

[Tom Krueger]

Question for you guys. I made a Thien tophat style separator for my HF dust collector a few yrs ago. While it does work great for separation, I’m taking a pretty large cfm loss.
Has anyone taken the same setup and replaced it with a super dust deputy with favorable results?
Thanks

[Bob Riefer]

Hey Tom!

Having been down this path before (aka, trying all sorts of methods to make the HF DC work for my situation), I ultimately bought a more powerful unit and paired it with a Super DD XL. My experience was that I was sending good money (and time) after a solution that just wasn't strong enough for my situation where I wanted hard ducting around my shop and managed with blast gates.

I wish I had come to this realization far sooner, and I'd recommend that you consider the same. My improved solution was far less than $1000 total since I bought a used unit and did all the duct work myself using PVC. Well worth it.

(in other words, I doubt the SDD vs. the Thien will solve your problem)


Edited to add... If you consider this advice, remember that you'll make some $$ back by selling your unit... OR, you can dedicate the HF just to a machine (or 2) that are very near to the unit or are easier to collect from.

[Doug Garson]

I don't have a ducted system in my two car garage workshop, I just have a ten ft flex hose which I move from tool to tool. I previously had Thein baffles on my shop vac and 1 HP Delta dust collector. The Thein baffles did a good job and on a tight budget are the way to go. I did however notice a significant improvement when I replaced them with a Dust Deputy and Super Dust Deputy. On my dust collector I had a cartridge filter with a bag below (pretty much traditional layout) after adding the SDD I eliminated the bag and relocated the cartridge to the bag location and capped the top knowing that it was reversable and I could go back to the traditional arrangement. After a year of moderate hobby use I get a few cups of sawdust in the bottom of the filter which was easy to vacuum out and no bags to hassle with. This included one time I overflowed the SDD canister ( a real pain to clear out the hose and SDD) so no plans to go back to the traditional layout. (Note to self: time to check out the level in the SDD canister and cartridge filter. ). Of course your experience may differ.

[Jim Dwight]

I cannot meaningfully comment about air flow of a Thien versus a dust deputy but I think the cyclone separates much better and is very worthwhile. I have a dust deputy on my shop vac which only has a 3 gallon tank. I have to clean the quasi hepa filter occasionally but the tank never fills. The 5 gallon bucket under the cyclone fills several times before I have to clean the filter. I use a super dust deputy on my 2hp HF DC which exhausts outside after the cyclone. I think it does fine. I use 5 inch snap lock for my main runs and 4 inch flex where I have to to connect the machines. I have 5 inch metal gates for each tool. I can't have two gates open or it really kills the airflow but with one gate open it can handle my PCS, router table, bandsaw, 8 5/8 jointer, or 10 inch lunchbox planner. The planner is the furthest from the DC and has the longest flex. It does OK but if I had a bigger planner I might need to get it closer to the DC or take lighter passes. I'm not saying my DC gets all the fine dust but it gets all the big stuff and the air never gets so dusty I have to quit. I blow out the fine dust occasionally with a leaf blower.

I had a Thien and it will separate really big chips but gets far less fine dust than my cyclones.