Has anyone with a DC tried making a box to hang up near the ceiling with a couple of furnace filters (Good one behind a cheap one) and a DC hose attached to it as an air filter?
1 – measure the board twice, 2 – cut it once, 3 – measure the space where it is supposed to go 4 – get a new board and go back to step 1
Replies
For collecting dust, it would work as well as a box with a built in fan, but these units are usually run continuously or even left on at the end of the day to clear dust from the air. Running a dust collector continuously would probably use more power than a fan, be a lot noisier, and cut down the available air flow for other tools.
John W.
I was considering it for use while using it when connected to the saw, jointer... I have a small garage shop and work by myself, and so only use one tool at a time and connect the DC to the tool in use. The DC has 2 inlets and I only use 1, so need to cap the other or come up with something else and this was a idea. I had planned to use an old box fan and a filter, but wanted a double filter system and had concerns on the box fan being able to handle 2 filters, and then came up with this idea. I may still use the box fan idea as a continously running auxilliary filter. But my question is would the DC be effective at what I am planning to do?1 - measure the board twice, 2 - cut it once, 3 - measure the space where it is supposed to go 4 - get a new board and go back to step 1
I built one that has a standard box fan blowing down and the filter set up like mentioned in a previous post, a good filter behind a cheaper filter, but two of them, one on each end of the long box. The box is about 36 inches long, 26 inches wide and 14 inches tall. It takes 12x20 filters, and the box fan runs on medium speed most of the time. I let it run as long as I am in the shop, and hangs from the ceiling above my table saw. I have a remote control switch on it to turn it on and off with. I have been really amazed at how much dirt it collects, both ends will fill quite quickly even using dust collection, especially when sanding. Some of the fine dust will fly away even with a good dust collection system and this filter seems to catch most of it. The only thing I would change on mine if I were making another one would be to fit it to 14x20 filters as they are easier to find. I find that running a box fan fast in the winter time cooled off the air in the shop, so slower was better, slowest speed seems to not 'do' a lot, but you might be amazed at what it does do.
Hello
I have a woodwork shop 24 x 24.
I make a lot of dust.
I would like to know if the box fan is blowing thru the box or is it positioned to draw the air thru the filters by running in reverse.
Thank you
Edited 3/17/2006 4:42 am ET by Jaymac630
A picture would be best here, but I can't do that right now, I am not in town to take one, but will as soon as I get home and post it here. I made a box that is about 3 ft long, and just big enough wide to place the fan on the bottom panel, and the bottom panel is open where the fan is, closed on the edges between the fan and the filter wall which is on the ends. The top is closed tight, and the fan blows out the bottom drawing air into the filters on the ends. The idea is to blow clean air out the bottom and catch the dust in the two sets of filters. The sets are a cheaper filter on the outside, and a hepa type filter in the inside of the stack, so you can clean the outer one more often than you change the inner one. If you make a lot of dust, I'd think of running this on high to move a lot of air, but the offset is cooling the shop air in the winter, or blowing more sitting dust on the floor or on tables. Playing with the settings will give some idea of what works best for you. My changes from the one I made would be to make the filter area bigger, but not so big that you run into it hanging from the ceiling.
Here are a couple of pictures that I took today of my filter. I hastily made this as a "Norm Abram prototype" and intended to make a better one later on if this one proved to work. I had also intended on finding things I wanted to change on the unit while I was in the interim, and have found a couple of things that I would change but for the most part this works well enough. There is a filter on the other end of this box, but I didn't take pictures of it.
pcooper, Jaymac
I appreciate your cooperation.
I will make one that is basically the same as the one in your pic.
Thank You
Jaymac
It looks like you built it with 1/4 or 3/8 plywood? Does it have a interior frame or did you use glue blocks? I also built a "prototype" that I'm trying to decide where and how to mount in 24 x 16 ft portion of basement with a 7 foot ceiling.
I made it with a frame, small strips of wood that would be about 3/4 x 1 1/4" and then covered it with 1/4" plywood scraps. I did glue and brad it together. I did that so it would be light, not wanting a real heavy something above me to 'fall'. I also figured that it would seal better if the frame covered all the joints since thin plywood was the covering.
Thanks pcooper.
Easier to use a box fan for power than a dust collector. I have two air filtration systems,a jet that I bought and another I made with a box fan. The box fan is above an outfeed table for the saw, does a good job of pulling dust from the saw. Not as good as the store bought, but effective as an auxillary filter. I originally had two filters in the box fan.The outer filter is a house furnace filter, the inner filter was an expensive filter for fine dust. The fan did not have enough power to pull dust with both filters. Works best with just a furnace filter.
mike
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