Gentlemen,
My wife recently stumbled across bill pentz’s article on dust collection and suddenly was able to come up with the money for good dust collection. FAntastic. I will probably end up building the cyclone from his plans. My burning question is will a good chip collector with proper airflow and pickups at my machines negate the need for a seperate air filter? Since the machine will pull 1200 cfm, can i duct another pickup to the ceiling and filter ambient air with my cyclone? With the manufacturer’s specs in question, is modifying a currently marketed machine going to just get me by or can such a thing grow with more tool acquisitions and a growing shop? As a concrete carpenter, I well understand the dangers of microscopic particulates (a coworker with silicosis) and am grateful to bill for telling my wife something I’d been unable to explain for a couple years
thank you
Replies
Dustin (appropriate name)
Unless I seriously misunderstood your question:
I'm no engineer and not an expert on dust collection systems. I do, though, have a 1,200 cfm system which uses a cyclone and standard filter bags. Just studying systems offered by different manufacturers should answer your questions. Except for large industrial systems which remove the dust and chips from the building ALL commercially available systems use filter bags.
We don't want to remove heating or air conditioning from our shops. I installed my system in a different room to reduce the noise. I then installed a Jet air scrubber, running 1,200 cfm, in the wall to return clean air to my shop. Be careful with these 3 & 5 micron bags and cannisters. According to an expert I spoke with they do affect air flow.
To address your question about type and expandability: Again I prefer to rely on expert engineering which you will get with any commercially available system. The number of machines doesn't matter as long as you install blast gates on each one. What will affect performance is the diameter of the pipe, number of bends, and certainly, the length of pipe from the machine to the collector. I strongly urge you to get design help from someone who does this for a living.
Edited 12/14/2003 8:36:54 AM ET by Ken's Shop
Edited 12/14/2003 8:39:42 AM ET by Ken's Shop
I bought an aftermarket 1 micron canister (standard 20" dia) and my machine seems the better for it. More noisy however. Right now looking at Penn State's cyclone with canisters AND a muffler.
Cheers,
Peter
Interesting to hear results from an actual user. Thanks for the feedback.
Good luck with your search.
Ken's Shop
If you have a problem with dust, neither a dust collector nor an air filter will solve your problem.
If you have have no problems with dust, neither is necessary.
If you have problems with dust, you need to exhaust the dirty air and replace it with clean air. Large windows and doors are the most cost effective solutions.
Dustin
With very good bags or pleated filters, a cyclone system will capture even the very fine dust, but nothing beats exhausting the system outdoors, that guarantees nothing is coming back into the shop.
You could use the cyclone system, if it has good filters, as a substitute for a separate HEPA filter unit for capturing the fine dust that escapes from the machines. The problem with that plan is it would mean leaving the cyclone run the whole time you're in the shop and ideally for a while after you've quit for the day. If you could tolerate the noise and added power used you could do it, but a separate HEPA is the better way to go.
John W.
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