I am considering purchasing a new cyclone dust collector. Please provide any comments or suggestions related to dust collectors and the associated header and blast gates.
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Replies
Oneida Air. Their equipment is high quality and they will design your duct work at no charge.
https://www.oneida-air.com/
+1 for Oneida. I bought a super dust deputy, a bigass canister filter, and a bunch of fittings from them that I fit to my old 1.5 hp Rikon blower. They are a super helpful outfit.
It really depends on your shop, your tools and how you intend to connect your tools. Are you asking about adding a cyclone to an existing dust collector or starting from scratch? As far as brands go you can't go wrong with Onieda but they have a vast array of models and some may be more appropriate for your needs than others. Electrical requirements may also come into play, dust collectors are amperage pigs and work best on 240V but there are models that can operate on dedicated 20-25A 120V Circuits. With more details we can provide better advice.
The dust collector will be for a 20' x 20' garage shop with your standard woodworking power tools - planner, table saw, band saw, router ....
Most likely 1-1/2 - 2 Hp. 120 VAC will work.
New total package. I am not upgrading an existing dust collector.
From my personal experience if you intend to run ductwork and have multiple drops for each machine a 2-3 HP dust collector is a minimum. Since anything above 1½hp requires 240V that is also going to be a factor. Even a 1½hp collector struggles on a 20A /120V circuit and it will need to a dedicated circuit. I regret hastily making a decision to replace my 20 year old PC when it failed suddenly with a 1½ hp Laguna 1PX mostly because I didn't want to take the time to add a subpanel to let me add another 240V circuit. I had intended to run individual drops to all my tools but have found it woefully inadequate for the task at hand. My tools include a 12" planer/jointer combo, a 10" Unisaw, an 18" Laguna BX bandsaw amongst other smaller tools such as a router table, Bosch Axial miter saw, and others. I am currently running a single connection which I move from tool to tool, often forgetting or not being bothered to make a quick cut. Even when I do remember to hook it up I find it unable to adequately to clear chips from my planer/jointer or my router table. If I had it to do all over again, and one day soon I will, I would opt for a 3hp Onieda or possibly their new Supercell technology but I would need to research that a bit more. I would also use automated blast gates to overcome the human element of forgetting to open or close the proper blast gates.
FWIW, I bought an Oneida Mini-Gorilla last year. It easily services my planer, jointer, bandsaw, and table saw. My garage shop is setup in such a way that I
can quickly move the 5" flex hose from one tool to the other. I chose to do that rather than invest in a bunch of blast gates and additional hoses and fittings. I hate the amount of noise the thing makes and did set up an iVac auto on/off which detects when the table saw or the jointer is on. All in all, I'm happy with this system.
Great reply
This depends on your budget. Mucked about with barely adequate sized dust collectors for a while and eventually installed a ClearVue 1800 last year. Personally, I think nothing else competes with this for fine dust separation and overall performance. The downside is that to get value out of this you'll need to run 6inch ducting as much as possible with 4inch hoses to the machines. Cry now or cry later.
Small shop, low volume hobbyist here, and the Jet 1.5 hp 120v serves me well. Seems to work particularly well with my planer. I’ve got it set up with two blast gates from Taylor Toolworks. I love how easy it is to empty the drum/canister. The remote is also a plus-it works and is durable (I’ve dropped or bumped it off bench a hundred times).
I purchased a 3 hp Oneida unit early this year. Install was great. Shipping costs were much less than I had expected. I couldn't be happier with the results.
It's worth to have them do a shop layout for you. I did not go with their suggested layout but it helped me understand all of the pieces required for a metal duct system. But I wish I had purchased my ductwork locally. I would have saved well over 50% if I had. Yes they accept returns but the cost of shipping plus their restocking fee take a big chunk out.
I set up a Dust Right system from Rockler. I got a wall mount bag style, but didn't use the bag. Instead I turned the blower to go through the wall and into a barrel outside. No need for bag or filters. Works great for planer, table saw, jointer. Not so great on miter saw, but may be due to small opening at the blade and it misses a bit. I like that it puts all dust outside. I did have an electrician add a light to the motor so I can see when its running or not. With radio/tool noise and no bag to inflate, sometimes it was hard to tell if it was on using the remote.
I am a big fan of the Laguna C Flux series. The 2HP is big enough to leave stationary and have multiple drops. The 1.5HP moves enough air for any tool and is small enough to move around the shop. The whole series is efficient or if you want HEPA you can step up to a P Flux. The cyclone is built in and remote control is standard. The main dust bin is huge and super easy to empty. The secondary dust bag is a little trickier, but doesn't get emptied that often (unless you forget to empty the main dust bin - don't ask how I know that). The machines are loud, but quieter than most. The auto clean is also a nice feature, but not sure it's worth the extra $400. Make sure you have help and a full free day for assembly.
Here are few ideas for ducts. My shop is 26"x30" and the 3 biggest dust makers are in the center of my floor space. Not wanting hoses on the floor or along the wall I went into the ceiling with 6" sewer pipe. The duct is a "T" run, all 6". The center drop to the floor is hiding within 2x12s and doubles as a storage location for little things plus my F clamps. The second drop comes down along a wall to pickup my band saws and chop saw.
i went with clearvue pentz ev5 (https://www.clearvuecyclones.com/pentz-ef5/102-pentz-ef5-metal-cyclone-with-filters-single-phase.html). it's an absolute monster. the first time i turned it on it scared the living hell out of me. i thought it was going to suck me in through the pipe. incredibly powerful! i have all the standard high volume machines (planer, jointer, table saw, bandsaw, various sanders, router table...). while i have blast gates on all machines i don't bother. the thing is so powerful that i see no loss in suction leaving them all open.
I work out of a one car garage as a hobby. I only have 110v, 20A, and about $1,000. I move my tablesaw, bandsaw, and planer around a lot so I'm not sure fixed ducting would work too well. I'd like to use it on small tools too, like my router and sander. I'd like a two stage with good filtering. I was looking at Grizzly and Oneida. What do you guys recommend?
I’ve looked at both Oneida and ClearVue and although I haven’t pulled the trigger yet, but I’m getting a ClearVue. The EF5 is a huge machine suited to a commercial shop, nit the average hobbyist. It also requires 8” ducts - quite expensive. You could easily have $6-7000 invested.
IMO Oneida is the “Powermatic” of DC - yellow and over priced.
Youcan argue about cyclone geometry, steel vs plastic, etc, but in the real world I doubt there’s a wit of difference. Plus, CV has Pentz behind it, if that means anything.
I think you are right 1.5HP should work. You can buy them with cyclones as a unit. Check Laguna.
I’ve looked at both Oneida and ClearVue and although I haven’t pulled the trigger yet, but I’m getting a ClearVue.
IMO Oneida is the “Powermatic” of DC - yellow and over priced.
Youcan argue about cyclone geometry, steel vs plastic, etc, but in the real world I doubt there’s a wit of difference. Plus, CV has Pentz behind it, if that means anything.
I’m happy with my Jet 2hp (230v). Six inch main duct to 4” drops. I thought, briefly, about automatic blast gates that open and close when machines turn on and off, but I slapped myself to bring me back to Earth and went with manual gates, a mix of plastic and metal. A tip I followed about the duct, don’t use thin HVAC duct, it can collapse from suction. I didn’t spend the money on the extra thick spiral duct either, I went with metal, but heavier gauge than what the box stores stock. https://www.jettools.com/us/en/p/jcdc-2-cyclone-dust-collector-2hp-230v/717520
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