I am in the (seemingly endless) process of installing a cyclone DC in my shop. I picked up a used 2hp Oenida blower unit and cyclone that had a giant plenum with 5 bag-type filters. I am replacing this with 2 Wynn cartridge filters which will give me about 600 sq/ft of filter area (as opposed to about 130 with the bags and less wasted space). I am placing the filters in an enclosure as I want to filter from the outside-in to make them easier to clean.
I had a “temporary” setup going where I had a long piece of 6” flex coming from the cyclone inlet directly to my table-saw so I could use the saw to make some cuts (some in ply, some in MDF). I had the plenum and the filter bags attached to the outlet side of the blower. I had a fiber bin attached to the bottom of the cone with a 2’ piece if 10” (I think) flex attached with some band clamps.
The blower is attached to the cyclone with an 8” rubber “plumbing boot”. Picture attached for reference on the install (shop doesn’t normally look as bad as it does in the pic). The plenum and filter bags are not attached in the picture.
Last night, in anticipation of installing my filter housing, I removed the filter bags and catch buckets and noticed that the filters and buckets had a surprising amount of dust in them. While it is good that they ended up being caught by the system, I am wondering if too much of the dust is making it to the filters and my concern is that my new filters will clog very quickly at this rate – and they were not cheap so I want them to last. This is my only exposure to “real” dust collection so I don’t really know what to expect.
My question, how much dust do others typically see making it to their filters? If the answer is “very little”, any idea why I am seeing so much? Could it be due to a leak somewhere?
Thanks in advance for your time.
Larry
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