J. Phil Thien's Projects

Thanks. I actually have a noise suppressor now,  just to take the noise level down a bit at the output. It actually makes a big difference. I'm attaching a drawing of it.

I might be able to use the same idea in a larger scale, by building a small room around the whole dust collector, using sound dampening material on the inside walls, and then a large hepa filter on the bottom.

Hi,
I built a dust collector with a thien baffle a few years ago, using a 3 hp blower with a 160 mm hoses and pipes.

Until now, the blower blows the air outdoors. This has worked well, but cools the workshop down quite a lot in the winter.

I am moving this summer, and will have neighbors too close to just let it blow outdoors in my new workshop (because of the noise - it sounds like a jet engine). So, I'm looking at adding some filters to let the air back into the workshop.

My first thought was to make two rectangular drawers, one with a coarse filter, and one with a hepa filter. This feels like a great setup, as I can just pull out the drawers and clean them outdoors. However, I've started wondering if these filters will let enough air through. Maybe this would remove too much suction power from the dust collector.

Would a hepa cartridge filter be better? Like this one:
https://www.axminstertools.com/hepa-filter-for-t-2000ck-2hp-cyclone-505090

That one seems to be designed for a 2 hp blower. Maybe it would be too small for my 3 hp blower?

I'm attaching a drawing of the version with two filter drawers. It's a see-through version, so the walls around the output are not visible.

I'm currently building a top hat separator on top of a square container. I'll report here when it's done. :-)

I'm planning on building a top hat Thien baffle. The only thing I have not decided yet is whether to build a double top hat or a "normal" top hat separator.

I'm going to use 6" ducting throughout  my system. I will probably use the 44 gallon Brute trashcan (or perhaps the 32 gallon one).

So, the diameter of the baffle is either 24" or 21.9" (not sure if that's the inside or outside diameter of the trashcan).
I'm making a transition (in sheet metal) to go from 6" to 8" x 3.5". This means the minimum internal height of my baffle will be 8".

So, the internal height for a double height baffle would be 16" (2H of square duct), or 12" (2H of 6" round duct). Not sure how I should count.

I will vent outside. So I'm not after 99.9% separation. I'd rather get more CFM's than perfect separation, as the small amount of dust that makes it through the separator, will blow away in the wind, once outside.

Does the 2H top hat promise better separation or better throughput? I've been reading loads of threads, but I'm still not sure if I should go for the 2H build or not.

Hi,

I'm Staffan. I've ordered a 3 hp dust fan that I plan to use in my new dust extractor system. All pipes and hoses will be 6". I'm making a new dust hood (in sheet metal) for my planer/thicknesser to accept a 6" hose. I will use no filters. The dusty air will vent outside.

This should probably have been posted as a new thread, but I'm not able to create a new thread. Probably because I'm a new user on this forum.

I'm planning a build of the cyclone, but have had trouble locating a suitable trashcan. I've found no suitable trashcans in locally.

I had been thinking of using an empty oil barrel. But I guess those are a bit too heavy to move around for emptying.

I've now found the Brute trashcan online. As many people seem to use this trashcan, I have a question for you.

Can someone who has either the 55 gallon or 44 gallon version please measure the outside diameter of the trashcan?

I ask because I need to know the outside dimensions before ordering. I need to make sure it is smaller than the door opening to the room where my dust collector is.

I found the following info on the web, but it doesn't say if the measurements are taken on the inside or the outside:
55 gal  208.2 L
Diameter:   26.4 in     67.0 cm
Height:     33.2 in     84.3 cm
   
44 gal  166.6 L
Diameter:   24.0 in     61.0 cm
Height:     31.5 in     80.0 cm
                               
32 gal  121.1 L
Diameter:   21.9 in     55.7 cm
Height:     27.8 in     70.5 cm

The largest one will probably not fit through the door opening.  I hope the 44 gallon one will fit.

I'll build a 6" separator. I think both the 32, 44 and 55 gallon trashcans are large enough for this. I read, somewhere, that the minimum diameter should be inlet size * 3. For me that would be 6" * 3 = 18". All of the trashcans are larger than this (assuming the measurements are the inside diameters).