J. Phil Thien's Projects

anyone ever come across this lid?  it sems to mimick the features in phil's lid with the center draw and the angular tool inlet.  any thoughts about this and a baffle?

http://entertainment.webshots.com/photo/2426971900104952478zoshmA

http://entertainment.webshots.com/photo/2059589390104952478arcuwL

nice job!  there are, however, two things on your unit that i noticed which might improve the performance of your separator:

1. get the center fitting to extend 1" below the bottom of the lid. this helps create the cyclone swirl of air inside the separator.

2. get the outer most fitting, where it touches the baffle,  as close to the sidewall of the bucket as possible and as close to 90 deg relative to the baffle as possible. 

i had to add a 45 deg elbow to the end of my 90 deg elbow to get the suction parallel to inside wall of the bucket. once i adjusted my set up, which is identical to yours, as indicated above, it's performance improved dramatically. upwards of 95% of debris went into the separator and scrubbing just about disappeared.

dbhost.. the link appears to be non functional.  can you provide any other info regarding these "wynn" filters?

jim d...what make and model cartridge filter are you planning to use?  i also have an ap 400 and would like something better than the 5 micron bag mine came with,  thanks.

this is the page that has 3 photos of my baffle
http://community.webshots.com/user/toolguy1000

any guidance about how i get these photos onto this forum would be sincerely appreciated. thank you.

well, this is fun.  got the photos up on webshots, but if there is a way  described on that site onhow to get them onto this forum, i am unable to find it.  any help on this would be appreciated.  thanks.

anyone care to provide a little guidance on how to get a jpeg picture from my hard drive onto this forum?  thanks.

put together a small separator today.  5 gal pail with plumbing fittings driven by a 20 gal craftsman shop vac.  baffle is 11 3/4" in diameter, with the 1 1/8" slot reducing that over a radius of 240 deg.  about 1/2 of the dust sample still makes it to the vac.  how critical is the placement of the suction side relative to the side of the separator pail?  i could get it so the edge of the elbow between the lid and the baffle touches the inside sidewall of the separator pail if that will help. is a 5 gal pail too small?  should the slot in the baffle have been smaller?  the connection of the vac to the separator is dead center in the separator lid.  i don't have a digital camera or i'd have included pics.  elbow between lid and baffle is a sched 40 90 deg elbow and its face is perpendicular to the baffle.  the suction side of the separator, to which the vac is connected, extends into the space betwen the lid and baffle approx 1.5". any thoughts or ideas would be appreciated.

so the idea is to have the dust enter the pre separator parallel to the baffle and the lid., thus creating the vortex?

thanks fo the info.  your patience and advice is really appreciated.  BTW, what do you think of this lid, as it seems to avoid the offset issue of the woodcraft and pioneer lids:

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=30282&cat=1,42401&ap=1

thanks.  and for a 1hp dust collector with a single 4" input to the impellor?  would 20 gal work ok?  and, lastly, would a 50 gal brown fiber drum be too large for a 1hp delta dust colllector (such as the one shown in my link in the above post)?  assuming a properly sized baffle, what size container , as a separator for a 1hp DC, would be too large? your patience with these questions is appreciated.

thanks for the reply.  i understand that the woodcraft, et al , units are less effective due to the offset of the outlet.  the link i put in my post was to an instruction for a completely homemade separator, albeit without a baffle such as yours. looking at the drawing in the link, would the addition of your baffle improve the performance of such a unit, assuming inlet and outlet pipes according to your specifications?  lastly, what size separator pail is preferred for use with (1) a shop vac with 2 1/2" fittings or (2) a 1-1 1/2hp dust collector (like this http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-media/product-gallery/B00006K005/ref=cm_ciu_pdp_images_0?ie=UTF8&index=0) with a 4" inlet to the impeller. i built the one pictured in the link mentioned above using a 5 gallon drywall pail without any kind of a baffle and it hasn't worked especially well. your innovation is very impressive.  thanks again for the information.

phil(admin)..if i am understanding the info about the baffle, if this

http://www.woodcraft.com/articles.aspx?articleid=408

were to have a baffle added, there's a pretty good chance it would work better than it does, correct, once the outlet going to the vac/dust collector is shortened to provide for the baffle?  it's the baffle that has the biggest impact on performance, right.  thanks.

sub-doood.... am i understanding you correctly in that you are using an "off the shelf" sparator lid with a baffle similar to the featured item?