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What do you use for dust collection?

6K views 47 replies 21 participants last post by  Leo G 
If you want your filters to not clog up in a short amount of time, then you need a two stage system. Two stage is the only way to go as far as I'm concerned. It is very cheap to do, and can be done to any dust collector. I picked up a 55 gallon drum from a friend for $5.00, then bought a couple 90 degree 4" dust collection fittings and installed in them in the drum lid. I made a baffle and I was done. I have about $25.00 in the two stage addition. Now I get almost zero dust in my actual dust collector bags and my filters have yet to accumulate any dust that needs to be cleaned. I used to have to clean my filters once a day. I'll never run a single stage system every again, now that I have tried a two stage system.

Mike Darr
 
I am wondering if there's a place to buy better micron bags for my harbor freight unit that anyone knows of?
Filtration is all about surface area. Bags just don't work very well. Converting to a pleated 1 micron filter is the way to go. Not cheap by any means, but this has to do with your health. Dust collection is not something to go cheap on.

The next step if you have a single stage system, is to add a second stage to it. A two stage will keep your filters clean. If your filters are not clean your system can't collect dust. It's real simple, if the air can't exhaust, it can't intake.

Mike Darr.
 
I am wondering if there's a place to buy better micron bags for my harbor freight unit that anyone knows of?
My baffle is a plywood disc with about a 1/4 of the perimeter opened to allow the dust to fall in the drum. The elbows need to be aimed properly to create a cyclone effect. The larger the drum, the more cfm needed to make it work. I have 2300 cfm, and that reall isn't enough. I will be adding a second unit to my system soon.

Mike Darr
 
I am thinking that I probably need to replace the HF unit. It has a single bag that comes out the side, I think not worth retrofitting. My problem as is usually everyone's is space. I probably need to rearrange my garage shop , with one unit to collect dust and add a baffle unit before it or seperate vacs with the cyclone baffle units before them I think. Open to suggestions.
Space is a issue for me also. I built a small enclosure on the back of my shop to house my dust collector, and seperator. I have a hole in the wall to allow the 7" pipe to enter the shop along with the power cord. My dust collector is on it's own circuit and that circuit has a switch wired to it. I leave the swith on the dust collector turned on and use the wall switch to turn the collector on and off. I insullated the enclosure for the dust collector. That really cut down on the noise. Doing it this way allows me to have a large high cfm dust collector with a seperator in a small shop and not lose any floor space. The noise reduction is a big plus also.

Mike Darr
 
Run as large of a pipe as you can. If your DC has a manifold on it that reduces the inlet to 4", I would take off the manifold and run pipe the size of the actual inlet and then drop to 4" at each machine. Running a large pipe will allow for less CFM loss in your set up. Small piping, and curves are restrictions and will reduce CFM.

Dust collection is probably the most important thing in the shop as far as tooling goes. Currently I am running a 2300 CFM single stage unit with two 1 micron pleated filters, and I have converted the single stage system to two stage by adding a 55 gallon seperator. I run 7" pipe to all my machines and reduce it to 4" at each machine. This still is not enough and I am going to be adding a 4.5 hp cyclone two stage DC to my system. I also run a Laguna air filter that hangs from the ceiling in my shop. Dust collection is very important to me.

Mike Darr
 
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