Measuring Dust Collection effectiveness

[Paul Hingco]

What do you guys use to measure the effectiveness of your dust collector. There seems to be so many gadgets and meters from anometer,manometer, pitot tubes, magna hoo da hickey. I know there are some hvac gurus here. Is there a simple but fairly accurate way of measuring the cfms from the terminal. I saw a video of a guy using an anometer which seemed pretty simple. I believe he used a Pyle pma90. What do you guys think? You have scrub to the 17 min mark to see him use it


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gvSYLjo0rL4

[Jim Barstow]

I compare my shop now, which is remarkably clean, with my shop before I had a dust collection system. To clean the old shop, I started with a shovel.

[William C Rogers]

To me the best meter would be a Dylos particle counter. This is the result you are looking for. If the particle count is acceptable it doesn't matter what DC really is. If not you can go further looking at the DC, collection methods etc. just because you have a great well tuned DC doesn't mean you have great dust collection.

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi Paul, I used an annemometer to measure the airflow in my system and a Dylos particle counter to verify the effectiveness of the dust collection.

I also have a manometer on my cyclone to tell me when the filter needs cleaning.

Regards, Rod.

[Ole Anderson]

I have a Velocitor anemometer for airflow and two Magnehelic gages for static pressure, a 0-5" for filter loss and a 0-15" for total static pressure as well as a digital ammeter for the cyclone.

[David Ragan]

Those are really cool instruments. Sure would like to have them, but afraid I will have to rely on the visual "does it suck up dust?" test, and my Jet whole room filter.

After all, we are concerned about the particulates in the room air, so just the $200 Dylos counter would do, right?

Isn;t there an iPhone app for that?

[Jim German]

I have a Velocitor anemometer for airflow and two Magnehelic gages for static pressure, a 0-5" for filter loss and a 0-15" for total static pressure as well as a digital ammeter for the cyclone.

Same here. I also use a Hach Met-one particle counter (similar to a dylos but measuring smaller particles) to measure air quality.

[David Ragan]

Same here. I also use a Hach Met-one particle counter (similar to a dylos but measuring smaller particles) to measure air quality.

What is best for measuring less than 10 microns? Those are size that get into the chest.

[Michael W. Clark]

For airflow, I would suggest a mini pitot tube from Dwyer and and two magnehellic gauges. One gauge that is 0-2", the other 0-20". You can take flow readings and measure static pressure (SP). If you know the flow and SP, all you have to do in the future is check SP to determine if the flow is the same (assuming no mods to the system). The SP varies by the square of the flow, so a small change in flow is very noticable in the SP reading. For example, 4" SP vs 2" SP would represent about 1/4 the flow at the 2" reading.

I think Dwyer has literature on how to convert the pressure readings to flow. If you go that rout and can't find it, let me know and I can find a reference or explain it.

Mike

[Brian W Smith]

We have all the gauges.......but gotta say,get the right amt of sunlight peeling in a window and you'll know pretty quick what's going on.I realize we can't see individual,little tiny micro dust........get a few thousand of those together however.