I am getting ready to set-up my first dust collection system. I have read as much as possible about them but still have one major question.
I understand the benefits of smooth tubing rather than the ribbed/flexible. The O.D. of 4″ PVC is ~ 4 3/8″. How do you connect it to a 4″ flex hose to run to individual machinery ?? I wanted to mount ~10′ of pvc along the wall & have a couple of flexible runs off of it, complete with wyes & blast gates. How do you guys accompolish this with the diffence in size between the PVC & flex hose ??
Thanks in advance……
Replies
I'm in the same boat. Running a short line for chip collection with 4" PVC. Of course the flex pipe does not fit. I asked this same question on another forum.
What the responses pointed out was that the black plastic DC connections that you can buy at woods stores actually fit tightly inside the PVC. The cheap plastic blast gates were what most guys were using as a PVC to flex hose transition. The straight connector can be used to connect the PVC to the 4" hose as well, and of course you can use the Black Y connectors instead of PVC and hook the hos eto that.
What I did notice is that the PVC fits tightly over the 4" outlets of the DC, so I can hook it in directly. Which may be another option. I have a small shop, and although for the most part the machines are fixed. I occasionally have to move them out a bit for long boards. So this option isn't for me.
This project is high on my to-do list so I'm interested in any other solutions you come up with.
One thing I might as well bring up is that if you want true 'dust' collection you'll probably need a bigger main run...
I ran into the same problem, and I don't think there is a single simple answer. I played around with all sorts of similar sizes to find a friction fit. At my blast gates and y's, which are the ends of the pipe runs where hose begins, I have PVC fittings with their larger OD fitting (sized to fit over the PVC pipe). Of course the fittings they sell with the hose are considerably too small for those. I cut a short piece of the PVC pipe that fits the fitting (about 4 inches long) and glued those short pieces over the smaller fitting on the end of the flex hose, using construction adhesive to fill the small gap. That created a hose end correctly sized to fit the fittings on my system. If you use store bought blas gates, that would all change.
I told a friend about the tip of using carpet rolls (the paper tubes carpet is rolled on) for ridgid DC duct. It worked fine for him. 4" DC fittings fit perfectly.
I have also gone nuts trying to configure DC fittings for all kinds of gear. I happened to have some SDR 35 laying around (from a drainage repair) and found that the 4" flex hose will fit over it and the ABS fittings for joints and gates will fit over it too. I am going to use the Y's and elbows that fit the drain tubing and put short pieces of SDR in the ends of the fittings to accept the flex hose. This is the standard for sewer drain pipe and is just a bit smaller in wall thickness. It's also lighter than SCH 40 PVC. Some time after I dig out from this 16" snow we are in the middle of getting, I'll try putting it all together. It's about $15 for a ten foot stick of it around here.(MO) Good luck with your DC.
Bill Pentz has a good discussion on how to bend/mold PVC to fit most small changes in diam for DC systems.
Do a goolge search on "bending pvc", and his is the second link.
Todd
My aluminum bast gates (much better than the plastic ones) fit well inside the 4" pipe, and the 4" flex hose fits over the gates.
Thanks for all of the input. I will actually be installing my DC system around the holidays. I will post a follow-up (with pictures) after I have it installed. I still haven't decided which idea I am going to use.
Thanks again for all the input.....
Did anyone read the article in the shops issue of Fine Homebuilding where they did not recommend using ductwork with a small (less than 2-3HP) portable dust collector?
Thats different from what I remember reading in one of the shops issues a couple years back.
I was just getting ready to hook up my 1.5hp delta collector to a PVC system but now I'm not sure...
Anybody tried this with good or bad results?
I have 2 JDS 1.5 horse cartrige filter DC's in my shop. I use 4" stove pipe, with flexable hose at the ends. (usually less that 2 feet) I've kept my runs less than 15' long, and don't have any uphill verticle runs. The pipe runs under my tools and drops to the DC inlet. I have 3 tools on each run. Tools with finer particles are at the end of the runs. So far so good. I really like my current system for my one man shop. I don't know how it work with multiple tools running on the same duct run.
propane torch....heat her up and stretch her out....taper the end of the pvc and use it as a form for stretching out the hose....
i've also been able to compress S&D pipe using a torch and a wide band clamp over a round wooden form by applying heat with a propane torch...not sure how well this would work with sch40...
using forms and clamps you can make pvc and plastic hose do all kinds of things when you add heat...
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