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Your thoughts on dust collection?

1K views 10 replies 7 participants last post by  woodnthings 
#1 ·
A little background, I have been using half of our 2 car garage (that is half our basement) as a woodshop/welding/fabrication/body shop/garage. Well, I finally got my new garage built, a 30x48. It's AWESOME! I'm so excited to have everything set up in a usable location that doesn't involve moving 5 things to use one.

Anyway, while moving all my stuff into the new garage, we've been sweeping up sawdust from corners that were probably from a project 20 years ago. I want to do some sort of dust collection in the new garage. I'm leaning towards the HF 2 hp vertical collector.

My question is, what do I do about the plumbing? Do I run a duct to each machine, or have a couple flexible ducts that I can connect to different machines?

Also, I know collecting all the dust from certain saws (table saw and miter for example) is almost impossible. Will a dust collector really collect enough to make it worth the trouble?
 
#2 ·
Yes, they absolutely will collect enough to make it worth the effort and cost. With the exception of what comes off the top of the tablesaw blade I catch probably 90%+ at the source. We have the HF unit in our two-car garage (full time shop) and added the Wynn 0.5 micron filter. The bag filter that comes with the HF unit is a 5 micron and you'll have fine dust on everything with that.

When we switched to the Wynn filter all of the fine dust disappeared. We also have a mini split unit and when we had the bag filter I had to clean the mini split filters every week, sometimes twice each week. Once we added the Wynn filter the mini split filters now need cleaning about every month.

This probably won't work in your huge new shop - congrats, btw! - but I have a 20' clear flex hose that I move to each machine as I use them. I have the CNC on its own run but switch out the hoses at the DC.

David
 
#3 ·
I use an 2 HP HF unit also, but if you have not bought it yet, look at the Rikon version of the same thing.

They have a better impellar, its 2” larger and reverse curved.

Many upgrade the HF with the rikon impellar, but they are hard to come by, as its a popular mod.

The rikon is only like 100 more.

I dont use the filter at all. The only part of the HF set up I use is the blower.

I put the blower on a shelf and ducted it outside in 6” through a termination similar to a dryer vent but larger. Made a cyclone separator and piped that in 6” sheet metal duct between the blower and the separator. I have a single 4” intake from the separator that I put a 4” flex duct on that I just move from machine to machine until I finalize the equipment layout.

At first it was very noisy outside, measured 90 Db. I did a duct traverse to acquire airflow readings with the separator inlet wide open, 525 cfm. (Im a certified air balancer, so thats a legit number)


I increased the oulet to 8” to limit capacity loss and ran in through of 15 ft of 8” flex duct up in a rafter space - strait over, 2 sheet metal elbows, strait back to the original termination outside.

Cfm dropped to 520 - so very little, but sound was cut down to 50 Db, ambient Db is 45 with the blower off.

Eventually I will duct the inlet of the Cylone in 6” and either replace the HF blower, or impellar with a larger one to get more cfm at the existing duct restrictions.

The cfm drops off significantly with duct and machine restriction, so keep that in mind.

Ill post some pictures tomorrow when the app lets me.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#4 ·
Very nice sized shop!

With a shop that size a ducted system is really optimal. But if we knew what machines you have or plan to have, it would help.

All I can say is you can never have too much CFM’s.

Personal choice, but you should look at a better system. DC is not just about keep the corners clean, it’s about health.
 
#5 ·
2 hp will cover most. One man shops. If your getting 100% coverage on your planer the rest is easy.. I can run two open ports on the Jet 2 hp without a problem but three it looses suction.. But I'm the only user ....
 
#6 · (Edited)
What I have learned .....



Dust is heavier than air, BUT if you keep the dust in "suspension" you can much more easily collect it. Dust that has fallen to the bottom of machine cabinets like table saw is all but impossible to suck up. new saws have blade surround that capture almost all the dust thrown off by the spinning blade. Some still exits out the throat plate, but a zero clearance throat plate is a must anyway, safer, cleaner, and splinter free!

OK, I use two methods of dust collection:
1 1/2HP Jets on mobile bases with short lengths of 4" flex hose. No overhead runs. These two serve the 12" and 15" planers and the 24" and 12" drum sanders and the bottom run of dust ports on the 3 bench top 12' table saws. It won't pull all the dust from the corners, but it does take all that's in suspension.


Then I have about 5 Rigid 6.5 or 16 gal shop vac attached to the ports on the RAS, bandsaws, sometimes an over the blade DIY collection system, router table fence dust ports, the 6" jointer. One is free standing for floor cleanup.

Since I move the hoses from machine to machine, I needed a "quick connect" method and came up with a 4" coupler and a Rockwell flanged end that just slips inside them:


For an overall view:
https://www.woodworkingtalk.com/f7/dust-collection-woodnthings-shop-part-1-a-20273/
 
#7 · (Edited)
I've recently given up on putting my shop into my two-door detached 20'x24' garage. Too much trouble to get adequate electricity out there and I wanted better climate control, so I set up in Shop in the basement.of the new (but old) house. It's 13x26 with 7' to the bottom of the rafters.

Coincidentally, I've just finished up setting up the dust collection.

I've tried shopvacs. I also tried a mobile collector (Delta AP400) with a Rockler DustRite connector, but found that was a pain in the rear and it risked tipping over due to it;s wheels. Once I got a workable arrangement in the shop, I disassembled the Delta base and installed it into one corner of the shop.

I watched several video on the topic and found one to be especially useful and professional - it advised to think of the dust collection as a cars merging onto an interstate - specifically have a few sections of flex hose as possible, avoid "T' fittings and 90 degree elbows as they slow down the velocity of the dust. Also use the same diameter ducts for as much of your system and avoid unnecessary constrictions.

This all fit with logic, my limited knowledge of hydrodynamics, and experience, so this is how I went.

The central collector is the somewhat piddly 1hp AP400 unit with a 4" hose. I *just* installed the high-end Wynn environmental 0.5 micron filter. I will say that is some of the best $$ I have ever spent. *HIGHLY* recommend the investment if you want to avoid bronchitis. I have the collector hooked to a 55 gal chip separator and that to main trunk line of 4" PVC that runs along the long axis of my shop.

I have six (6) "Y" branches with 4" blast gates - one (1) for the chopsaw, one (1) removable hose for general collection and the 13" planer, one (1) for the tablesaw, one (1) for the router table, one (1) for the mortiser, and one (1) for the 6" jointer. The main trunk line end in another blast gate, which is connected by flex hose to my 14" bandsaw. I can unhook the bandsaw hose for dust collection on that side of my shop. I'd like to get a sweep permanently installed, and setup something for my drill press and my router wing on the tablesaw, but I haven't figured it out how to do those effectively. The router is especially problematic as it's on the short side of my unisaw and commercial router table enclosures don't fit.


This is connection #3 for the Unisaw



This is connection #5 behind the Jointer.




So... this all works OK. Not awesome, but decent. The problem is that the central collector is weak. I compensate by closing all but one of the blast gates which gives me pretty good suction. It's a pain to open and close those blast gates, but that's just the situation. It's also a pain to walk over to switch it on, but I can fix that with a remote switch. One thing... if you want one of those fancy automatic switches, they don't make one for tools that run on 220v (like my unisaw) and 110v (like the collector).

If I had the free cash, I'd invest in a more powerful central collector - even a 2hp HFT collector would be a good upgrade, but the 1 hp collector works as well as could be expected and I think I'm getting the most out of it. I'd get a little bit better suction if I left out the separator, but it is a good trade off.

Also... my collection trunk runs close to the floor due to head clearance and tool-wall considerations.

I would never go back to just a shopvac at this point, I only use it for "wet" collection as the two 4" moveable hoses give me significant cleanup capabilities.
 
#8 ·
Here are some photos of my set up.


This is the cyclone I made mounted. I sized it as tall as it is because its narrow. Its narrow because I wanted it fit between the garage doors. I did a fair amount of research about cyclone segment proportions before I made it. Ive replaced the inlet hose with a legit DC hose, but that flex hose I was using till it came in. The can below is commercially available. I added caster to it more mobility when its ready to dump. I added foam tape to the lid to make a seal.



There is also a baffle inside the upper chamber of the cyclone.


The outlet tube also called a vortex finder extends down below the baffle.



This is the blower mounted up on a shelf, up and to the left, is the discharge loop of flex duct, it goes maybe 7 ft, turns 180 then comes back to the blower where I terminated it outside. I took the blower apart to change the motor mounting angle to best suit my application, its not normally at a 45 degree angle.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#10 ·
Good approach not jumping on something too soon, I'm no expert, but I've built 3 systems and at least I know what doesn't work ;-) One thing I sure of it is blower capacity is totally dependent on the particular machines and the layout. One common mistake is undersizing ducts.

I wouldn't go by the setups you see here because what works for one shop may not work for another. Maybe a 2HP blower is all you need, but a drum sander 20 feet away - that's a different story.

That said, I think furnacefighter's got a good set up. Exhausting outside enhances performance quite a bit.

Everything considered, if you have the funds and want a system that will do the job with room for expansion, take a look at Clear Vue or Oneida. They also can design a system for you.
 
#11 ·
Suction VS blowing ....

The reason an outside exhaust system works so well is that there is no restriction at that end. Duct collectors are really just a blower with the intake end captured with a hose. At the exhaust end, the pressurized air typically passes through a filter so it won't flood the shop with dust particles. The filters are what restricts the air flow as they begin to accumulate more and more fine particles. So, with no filters, better performance. Cannister filters have more surface area than bags, so better performance also.


So, even with a modest CFM blower, you can vastly improve performance by eliminating the filter and exhausting the air outside. This will only work or work best on a wall mounted blower rather than a mobile unit......:surprise2:
 
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