Have my dust collector outside my shop. What do I have to do to prevent it from sucking all the warm air outa my shop. I guess I’m supposed to be venting it back into my shop…….Can anybody tell me how I do that? Thanks.
J.M.
Life may be short but it can be very wide!
Replies
The DC will have to be in a relatively airtight closet that has a vent back into the shop area.
John W.
Thanks John. My DC is in my garage, outside my shop, but not in air-tight area. Thanks again.
JMLife may be short but it can be very wide!
John has a good solution. Another solution, if you have a cyclone, would be to mount the filters inside the shop, and have the motor outside the shop. An outside closet would still be good for insulation purposes, but it wouldn't have to be "air-tight" or "vented" to shop. Just run a short, large diameter pipe from the cyclone output to the filter canisters.
Good luck,
Todd
An excellent idea. The filter in the shop could be installed in a closet, it would have to have a vent into the shop, that would reduce the noise if needed.
John W.
John,Correct me if I am wrong, but most of the noise comes from the motor, which is outside. Also, I don't understand the purpose of a closet inside the shop. Using a closet outside to insulate the air in the cyclone makes sense. Enclosing the filters within a closet inside the shop complicates the issue of properly returning air to the shop. Lots of venting is needed so that back pressure does not increase and effect performance.I have been working on the issue for a while, and am in the process of installing it.Todd
Todd,
I'm not positive just how much noise would come back into the shop with the return air. I was just raising the possibility of building a vented closet to reduce the noise if needed. I know that Oneida has a rudimentary muffler built into their pleated filter connector to diminish noise so I get the impression that it might be significant.
To me one of the big advantages of a DC out of the shop is to diminish the noise dramatically. If returning the air into the shop would raise the noise level back up significantly I'd definitely try to muffle it with an enclosure around the filters.
To be honest, depending on the climate where the shop is located and the amount of time the DC might run on a typical day, I would try to avoid bringing the return air back into the shop and accept the penalty of additional heating or cooling costs. In a one man shop that isn't doing a lot of high volume, repetitive, machine operations the cost of exhausting the DC to the outdoors probably isn't that high even in very cold or hot climates.
I would try to avoid returning the filtered air to minimize the noise and to completely eliminate any chance of dust that either escapes through the filter ,or that's let loose during servicing the filters, from getting back into the shop.
John
Edited 1/13/2006 1:57 pm ET by JohnWW
Hello:
Another solution is to purchase a WoodSucker cyclone, IMHO a great unit , an opinion supported by Bill Pentz (billpentz.com). His site is a great resource!
The WoodSucker returns (blows) its air from the OUTSIDE of the cartridge filter to the inside, and exhausts it out of a 6" diameter opening which can be ducted back into the shop. This return could also be a 6" piece of insulated flex duct 10+ feet long, to substantially cut down on noise.
Hope this helps.
HL
HL has a very good idea which is made possible by the unique design of the Woodsucker. There are two points to be careful of. First, a 10 foot long flex hose would add a considerable amount of back pressure, maybe to much. Go with solid wall tubing (steel or plastic) that is at least as large as the opening and as short as possible. Second, although Pentz recommended the Woodsucker and the larger versions of the Onedia systems for their ability to collect dust at the source (that is, high CMF), they are not efficient at separating dust from the air due to excessive turbulence within the cyclone. Thus you will have to deal with either frequent filter cleanings, or reduced CMF. This is not something I would want to invest a lot of money in.Todd
Todd:
Good post.
The flex I am speaking of is Insulated Air Conditioning Duct (Flexduct). It could be 6, 8 or even 10"in diameter, minimal back pressure & significant noise reduction.
HL
I'm assuming you positioned the dust collector outside to cut down on noise, most of the noise is on the exhaust side of the collector so putting the filters back into the shop will most
probably bring the noise back into the shop. You will either need to put a muffler on the exhaust side of the collector or build the vented closet mentioned in one of the other post.
If you positioned it outside to save floor space, you could then just build a vented closet
to enclose the filters which would occupy much less space that the entire system, however I think I would install the muffler on the unit outside and pipe to the filters inside and see if
the noise level would acceptable before going thru the trouble of building a vented closet.
Ron
Edited 1/20/2006 8:28 am ET by Ronaway
Saturday I completed installing a small closet in the shop to house the cyclone and filter. As an experiment I did not vent the "return air" and the back pressure inside the closet was, as you would expect, significant. I also noticed that the db level from the previous internal filter/muffler configuration to an external filter was noticeably increased. On the plus side, the increase in CFM was also noticeably increased. I am installing a good filter in the closet wall to relieve the back pressure and somewhat mitigate the noise. The closet is covered in dense but thin material so while the noise level was reduced, it is not as quite as I would like. I may line the walls with a sound deadening material if it gets bothersome. As noted in another response, the noise is managed by controlling the exhaust not by isolating the motor.
J.M.,
With a lot of recycled materials like solidcore doors, 2X6's for walls and sound insulation, I enclosed my home-built cyclone system in a corner closet in my workshop, thinking I would forever be happy... Now I could use the room.
Since that time, I've added a lumber and material storage addition to the back of the workshop and am now considering moving the dust collection system in it and bringing both the ducting and return air back though a 24" X 36" slider window opening....
The best source I used in building my current enclosure came from "Woodshop Dust Control" by Sandor Nagyszalanczy. There is an revised edition to this softcover book, so look for that one. Inside, it gives the size the return air opening has to be, based on the cfm your blower delivers.
If I move the system, I'll have to build and super insulate the closet so that the returning air in closet is equal to the workshop's temps. Plus, the air is coming out of the filter bags with positive pressure. You are going to have to really seal all the seams between the floor and walls, between every wall and the closet ceiling, as well as heavyduty weather stripping seals around the door opening.
Maybe other things to consider would be to use Hardiboard (a cement board product) as a fireproof material for the entire inside surfaces. ( You can buy cracked or broken sheets at the Box Stores for 1/2 price or less) Also consider the amount of room you need in case you want to add more filtering bags, as well as room that allows you to work on your system should you need to replace parts or flex hoses. Plan for a moisture proof/sealed light fixture, so you can see, too.
Here's my current working system.
Bill
Edited 2/11/2006 11:05 am ET by BilljustBill
Edited 2/11/2006 11:34 am ET by BilljustBill
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled