J. Phil Thien's Projects

I have ufo dust collector that has 2 bins, so naturally i wanted to leverage both of them.  Thus my modifications was to make a two stage top hat Thein baffle.



The first bin had a inline Thien Baffle with the typical garbage can, top hat, then dust collector stacking.  The dust collector discharge port was redirected into the second bin, that also had a inline Thein baffle.  The waste collector for the second bin was the standard dust collector plastic bag.  On top of the second bin was pair of torrent filters.  This worked very well. 

Currently the system is in pieces as I am redoing my basement shop layout.  As always vertical space is at a premium with a top hat design.  Currently trying to mount the dust collector more toward the center of the shop on the steel beam that holds up the house vs it previous wall mounted setup.

Well looks like I hijacked this thread, sorry.

As for what is up and what is down, I need to add some more explanation.

I am trying to optimize the airflow for the best separation using the motor as the top hat going into DC ring with an internal baffle that sits on top of the garage can.  Note that I have two DC rings, the second ring will be used as the traditional outlet (but with an internal baffle) with filters on top and a bag on the bottom.

The wok cyclone design is pulling air from the side DC ring and restricting straight pass through.
The Thien baffle design is pulling air from the sides of chamber\DC ring and restricting straight pass through..

Parts

• DC inlet cover plate:  16" diameter with 6" inlet pipe
• Light fixture:  6" to 15.5"/16.5" ID/OD diameter over 10.5" in heght.
• DC ring:  19.5 diameter 11" high. 
  Curved ring opening widens from 10" diameter to 19.5 diameter over 3" in height.
  The top of the ring is the curved part.
• Chip & Dip:  6" to 14" diameter over 2" in height.
• T8 Light Tubes

Issues

• The airflow from DC fan blades to DC inlet pipe is not optimized.
• The airflow from the DC inlet pipe to the DC baffled ring is not optimized.

DC to TB/DC ring connection possibilities

• Use two light fixtures and make a shot glass jigger with straightening tubes as DC inlet cover plate replacement.
• DC 6" pipe to light fixture with wide part of fixture connecting to ring
• DC 6" pipe to light fixture as DC cover plate replacement with narrow part of fixture connecting to ring
• Covert fixture into a wok and mount inside DC ring.

Depending the design, the curved part of the DC ring to light fixture connection will have different size openings.  Best solution for this is

• Cut fixture down until fixture diameter matches DC ring curved diameter
• Cut DC ring to light fixture diameter
• Place fixture underneath curved ring and have the desired end of the fixture stick out of the DC ring

The width is 7 to 14 with a height of 12.

Have not tried the above option yet, but I today I picked up two aluminum light fixture housing that could converted into something similar.

http://www.amazon.com/Fotodiox-Beauty-Beautydish-Elinchrom-Strobe/dp/B0048WL3KW/ref=sr_1_288?s=photo&ie=UTF8&qid=1337241453&sr=1-288

They probably longer in length as compared to the link, but the width is narrower than the one the pictured.  The price was right at the 2nd hand store, $2.50 each.  The had about a dozen, but most of the fixtures had a lot of dings in them that would effect the airflow.  A cheap or used work light might just be big enough to modify as well.

Here are some pictures

Still working on the setup.  Interesting thing with used equipment, identical rings actually are slightly dinged and dented making the baffles slightly different diameters and shapes.

The other unexpected issue is that the ring adapters inlet ports are a different size than the motor output port.  There is a one to two union pipe on the DC and at first glance the ports look the same size, but alas the output motor port is a couple inches bigger in size.

I might have found a cheap bellmouth and/or wok source, Dollar General is a selling chip and dip tray for a dollar.  The dip container part of the tray is a perfect 6 inches in diameter and the overall dimensions are 13.75 inches with a depth of 2 inches.  They are on the flimsy side but are really smooth. I might have to stack two of them together with some type of epoxy or bondo to stiffen them up.

The underside of the chip container is hollowed out and should be able to be covered and or filled with to resemble the bottom of a wok.

Tried the 6" pvc sewer coupler in hot oil to bellmouth hood and it was an epic fail.  Its now melted (none flare) snuggly on the collector in a toxic avenger outer decor.

Which is better bellmouth or wok?  Been debating inverting the primary ring of the DC and making a 6" to 10" bellmouth and joining that with the rings own flaring curves, making one big 6" to 20" bellmouth.

Thanks Phil, wow you live 2.5 miles away from Kopps.  When at MU, mentioning the phrase 'i have a car' followed by the word 'Kopps' in the near vicinity, increased my dating success considerably.

I currently am using a shop vac with a Thien baffle that I am quite pleased with.  I was going to upgrade to the HF DC and make an TopHat with an internal Thien baffle.  But alas craigslist presented me with a UFO102B for the same price that has a bigger 3HP motor and two collection bags.

The first bag holder will be used as the primary Thien baffle/TopHat.  The second bag holder will hold a pair of stacked torit filters found off of ebay and the secondary collection bag.

Thinking about it, if I am converting the one bag holder into a baffle, why not convert both bag holders into baffles?  In theory this should preserve the filters more by separating the fines into fines and now finers.  I am not sure of the following however:

1.  Will the CFM/Pressure/Suction be diminished by the secondary baffle?
2.  Will the secondary baffle need to be rotated, inverted, and/or the inverse of the primary baffle?

Any thoughts the practicality of this?

So I started by drilling a 1/2" hole in the top of the lid about an inch behind the center vacuum intake pipe at 9 clock when the collection pipe is at 12 o clock.

I Really was not sure if the hole here would be an intake or outtake or reverse directions on a clog. The hole seemed to remain an intake the entire time.  Did some testing of the hole its self uncovered and with no value.  It did relieve some pressure, but not much.  My 4.25 HP shop vac had an adapater on it to 1.25 for my router and the garbage can was still was crushing.  Then increased the hole to 3/4" and it was a little better, but still crushing.

When with the simple washer value approach and could not get the value to release with a very weak spring.  Initially I had the spring on the wrong side, but even with that corrected, the pressure was not great enough.  Not sure the physics, but the baffle cyclone generated pressure is probably much greater than the vacuum pressure. 

Overall with a 3/4 hole I did not product a noticeable reduction in suction.  Not sure what to do now, leave the hole, fill the hole, move the hole to behind the collection intake, or try the pvc value on side on the vacuum intake.

Last week I purchase a 50 cent spring and $5 1.5 inch PVC relief value.  Going to see what the spring does and if it does not work, enlarge the hole on the lid and put int PVC relief value.  While testing the the various size PVC values, the smaller ones seem to be better engineered and smoother operationally than the larger ones.

I was hoping someone would responded to this, but alas looks like I am flying blind.

This an old post, but Russ did you ever make a release value?  If so what where the results?

thanks

erik