I say relocation, as I am going to vent it to the outside. Mine is a small shop, 16×24, equipped with a Jet 650 DC and a Jet AFS-1000 hung in the ceiling. The DC is ducted to two lathes and my BS. I hook up the shop vac when using the TS, router, ROS, etc. The squirrel cage dust “relocator” would be for everything else. My plan is to mount the beast in the ceiling, duct it with 4″-6″ hose with the intake hose moveable about the shop. So, can clip the intake to, say, my scroll saw table or maybe near my ROS to take care of some of the overage that the other filters/DC’s/shop vacs don’t get. I am in the country with ZERO other houses within 1/2 mile, so neighbors ain’t a problem. Would install some type of furnace filter at the intake side to get the big stuff, but allow the smaller particles to be blown to the outside.
Anyone do this or have any thoughts on the matter?
Many thanks, hope all have a great day.
Rich in VA
Replies
Richard,
I don't know how much air the squirrel cage will move, but with 8' ceilings, you've got about 3000 cubic feet of air which means your current DC should be able to filter the air about 12 times per hour. Will you be able to heat/cool all the incoming fresh air?
Yes, I believe so. Keep in mind that this is not intended to be a constant-run situation, only for specific equipment and for limited duration. I just started the thinking process on this yesterday, so some of the details need to be worked out.......:) It may not work at all, but I have to try and do something to keep the dust down. Even with the filter, DC and shop-vac, I seem to be losing the battle.R
Richard,I got my DC about 10 months ago and saw what a difference the low micron filter made in the air quality so I replaced my filters in the shop vac to a better quality, not HEPA, but close. I've given up on a really dust free shop but do focus on the air quality as best I can. A couple of 20" box fans with furnace filters help also. Good luck.
Is your shop heated/cooled? If so, you'll pretty much have to abandon that, since you'll be sucking in lots of unconditioned outside air. Also, make sure your air inlet (you can't exhaust air unless you let a like amount in) is far enough away from the outlet that you don't suck the dust back in.
Mike Hennessy
Pittsburgh, PA
If you have any gas or oil heating in the shop be sure to test for combustion air starvation .Otherwise you may wind up dust to dust yourself from monoxide poisoning.
It never fails to amaze me how often this idea comes up on this board. And it never fails to scare me how many peaple think this is not a dangerous idea. Turst me on this, most likely you will be fine but if you do it wrong it could kill you.
Doug M
Dangerous? Kill me? Care to elaborate on how?I have no gas or oil, so no make-up combustion air. I can handle any s/e that might occur, altho' that's probably a stretch. I'm really interested in your response.Rich
Well as I said a lot of the time you will be fine, (most in fact) but it all depends on the exact situation you are in. If you have no vents of any kind. (Furnace, Hotwater heater, and such) and if you are not connected to the house (that does have these kind of things) you are probably ok.
But my somewhat generic reply was to point out that if you have anything like that this type of forced venting can be dangerous the air has to come from someplace if it did not you would implode your building, and we know that is not going to happen so the air will get into the building somehow. If you have exhausts it will pull the air back down them (and the nasty stuff that was supposed to leave up the exhaust pipe will come with it. This could kill someone. But even if that is not an issue in your case. their are other issues.
For instance you can lessen the quality of the air as you are forcing out air faster then it can make its way into the space. This leads to more sustained dust and other particulates in the air as the air is in constant motion as the air is forced out of the building and new air is sucked in (through the walls or what have you) and the dust will not settle out of it (all be it you are sending a lot of the dust outside so you should be gaining on the dust one would hope) but any that is in the air will not settle as fast. This was a surprise they found out in mines, that just having an airflow to move the dust out of the mine, did not help as much as expected. As at some flow rates it just kept the dust in the air for people to breath and made the issue worse. Our dust filters get around this by pulling the dust out of the air as then send the air around the room.
Also if you happened to have anything like mold in the walls then the air that will have to come in though the walls and such to make up for the air that is leaving the building will be greater then normal and thus could pick up some of that. This also holds if your walls have dust or saw dust in/on them. As the air that flows though the walls will pick some of that up. Would you really want to breath the air that is passed though your walls like a reverse filter?
Their are all kind of potential issues. This is the reason that in any commercial building (that has a lot of exhaust air flow) you have to have an engineer look at the numbers. In my house I had to have a make up air system for the house and one for the fire place. (new house required by code) So these are very serious issues. If (as it sounds) you have a separate building and if it has no exhaust of anykind to be sucked back in, then you should be fine. But as has been talked about on a few threads over the years if this is attached to a house or has any gas anything in it or it has a fire place or a wood stove of such it could be dangerous.
As my dad used to say when someone asked if he thought they really needed new breaks or if the could make it another month. "It's not my wife and kids riding in the car" Is anything likely to happen? No. But unless you know you are safe it is better to be careful.
Doug M
My wood supplier back in IL had that very set up. He was a retired Boing worker that got into making furniture as a hobby and cut and dried his own lumber (lots of it). His shop (very nice) just vents to the exerior of the shop and he blows the dust to the outside. It was pretty high, but he says there are several horse places around that comes buy and takes it by the pickup load. His place is pretty big, so if it got to big he has a bobcat that he can spread it around, but he indicates free sawdust is easy to get rid of. Good luck. Me, I don't make enough, and my neighbors would mind.
If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it.
And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
I have a squirrel cage blower driven with a 1/4 hp motor mounted up in the rafters of my small shop and ducted outdoors to clear the airborne particulates. It moves a fair amount of air and clears the air quickly but I doubt it could lift and shift sawdust and chips. A bigger one might, but I'd be more inclined to run lines to the DC or hook up a shop vac. Drawback is losing the nice warm shop air in the winter when it has to run though I do appreciate the nice breeze it raises in the hotter months.
Observer,Exactly the way I am thinking. It's not for chips, simply for dust. Altho' I believe it would work OK, not real keen on giving up conditioned air in the shop space just yet, so I guess I will try and revamp my existing DC and filter to work more efficiently. Some new duct and blast gates and maybe that new canister filter for the DC. It is permitted to give DC's Christmas presents, eh?Thanks.Rich
No doubt you'll make your DC very happy.I built in a conversion for winter use where the outdoor outlet is blocked and the blower exhausts inside the shop through about 8 layers of furnace filter. It works, but not well.
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