J. Phil Thien's Projects

I took advantage of the holiday sales and picked up a 2 HP HF Dust collector.  I'm working out how to use its parts.  See my design concept picture.  It is lacking the framework to support the motor, empty the can, etc.  I have a lot of experience fabricating steel framework, so that part is easy for me.  I will weld together a tubular steel frame.  The idea is to attach the HF blower directly to the top of a Thien separator then fabricate a smooth rectangular 90 to direct the blower output into a cartridge filter.  I have ordered one of the clear Huskee 32 gallon trash cans from webstaurant.com to use under the separator so I can see how full it is.  My experience with the first two separators I've built for my Shop Vac leads me to believe that I won't need the big HF ring or the plastic bag.  I don't expect anything but fine dust to make it past the separator.  The box shaped area under the filter represents a drawer that would catch whatever dust does fall from the filter when the blower is switched off.  Please feel free to comment, if this has been tried and has problems, I'd rather find out now.  Thanks.

My first separator was just thrown together without much finesse.  I just wanted to be sure I could make it work.  It works really well.  Not content to leave well enough alone, now I've got the second one done.  I tweaked the design a little.  I switched to 1/2 inch plywood for the top and bottom.  Since I'm using a 2.5 inch Shop Vac hose for the inlet,  I tapered the inlet port so that the rectangular cross sectional area where the air enters the cyclone area matches the area of the round inlet.  In my case the transition is from a 2.25 inch round hose to a 1.75" x 2.25" rectangle.  I also increased the outlet port diameter to 3 inches ID.  I know I'm messing with a tested design, but in my case I have my Shop Vac sitting directly on the top hat.  It seemed to me that having the 2.25 "outlet added additional resistance.  I also thought that by increasing the outlet size, I could reduce air velocity at the outlet and maybe pick up less of the fine sawdust.  Probably should have just left it alone, but that has never been my way.  I should be able to test it tomorrow.

I know it's ugly compared to some of the other builds on this forum, but I'm really happy with this separator's performance.  However, the metal trash can would make a loud bang whenever I blocked the inlet.  Since I'm using it as a vacuum, this happened quite often.  I nearly jumped out of my skin the first time it happened.  I made a simple common sense mod that took care of the problem.  I put an OSB ring half way down inside the can.  Right now it is just a press fit.  If it needs a more substantial attachment, I'll use some screws or something to anchor it.  I know its not much of a mod, and it may have been done before, but I hope it is useful for someone.