Seeing an old post reminded me of this dilemma, which I hope might be interesting to discuss.
I have recently upgraded from a 1.5HP single stage to a 3HP Cyclone.
The cyclone has four 4″ports, or one 10″ port. (comes with a weird adaptor thing)
When I ordered it, I was all set to upgrade my 4″ PVC duct (ungrounded and no, I don’t get static) to 6″ steel, but balked at the price. Even 6″PVC seemed a lot, so I decided to leave it as it was, and besides, I am already marginal on head-room in some areas and the extra ducting would have had to be run further, or the DC moved to a less sensible place (where it is occupies some of ‘her’ space, which I would otherwise lose…)
I have it set up so one 4″ port runs to the table saw (via 5″ tube and a blast gate even though the machine has 4″ flec hose inside it, thank-you, Hammer…) and one 4″ port goes to reticulation – runs variably up to perhaps 15″, some reduced close to the tool for the drum sander and mitre saw.
I am awed by the suction power.
I KNOW it would be better with bigger ducting, I would get (even) more suck, but the 4″ tube is enough to remove the chips from my 16″ planer even if I’m taking off 2-3 mm on a wide board (8″ max so far!)
So out of interest, has anyone really gained anything from upgrading to wider ducting in a home shop? I don’t plan on any changes, but my experience has resulted in curiosity about whether in general the cost of upgrading is really worth it.
Replies
The performance increase on my tablesaw, router table, edge sander, and jointer when I changed to 6" from 4" was pretty significant. Oddly my drum sander has always done well at 4" so I left it that way. I do run 6" to my bandsaw and then split to two 4" at the machine. This was also a significant improvement from a longer 4" run to a split of a 4" and a 2-1/2".
HTH
When installing a new 3hp dust collector I went with 6 inch PVC sewer/drain pipe. It's much cheeper than Schedule 40. In my area Lowes is the only one that carries it.
Note - the fittings are not compatible with Schedule 40. They are called "Hub by Hub"
I upgraded from a 2-bagger system to an Oneida Super DD. When I did I used a 5" main trunk because that is the inlet size for the cyclone. I use 4" drops to the machines. The real performance upgrade came when I put in a larger impeller and went to an 8" pipe on the exhale side connected to a huge filter. The system went from smoking 3 packs a day to running marathons. It also collects the baby powder dust that used to cover every surface in the shop.
You want to speed up the "inhale" air to the cyclone and slow down the air to the filter on the exhale.
mj
Do you really put baby powder on your work surfaces in your shop?
Do you do that to collect moisture?
Oh man - all REAL woodworkers use baby powder. I'm not supposed to tell you that (might get in trouble with the Guild) but seriously, baby powder is definitely a woodworking essential.
Quite apart from the smooth (as a baby's bum, literally) feel of every surface, the soothing scent of baby powder just makes the shop feel somehow special. It gets you in the right frame of mind to cut perfect dovetails by hand every. single. time. I even lube my diamond stones with baby oil for the same reason.
It is also quite possible that @MJ was just referring to really fine dust, but as a father, baby powder does have a sort of appeal....
That was a fun read, but Rob_SS is right, I was talking about fine dust.