J. Phil Thien's Projects

Got my copy of FWW today... flipped to the 'Soup up your DC' article, and when I saw the testers angling what looked a lot like a Thien baffle up inside the separator ring of a Jet DC I thought "those sneaky snakes, ripping off Phil's design!"  Soon after I saw they gave credit where credit is due, naming it a Thien baffle, etc. 

I was a little disappointed that they didn't seem to even touch on the possibility of using a stand-alone Thien separator, instead 'testing' two commercial units - a Super Dust Deputy, and a trash-can lid unit.  Bummer!

So... I went and saw a man about a dust collector today... picked up what looks to be a lightly used 50-760 with some extra hoses and fittings, plus a 50-860 air cleaner for $200 total.  I'm happy  ;D

Anywho, over the last week or so I've been going back through various threads on different forums and looking at some of the nifty 'improvements' that people have worked on to these smaller machines like the HF 2hp, Delta 50-760, and Jet DC1100 units.  Wynn filters, various incarnations of the Thien baffle separators with 4, 5 or 6" piping, bell mouth discharge pipe, round-to-rectangular intake pipe, air straighteners, etc.

The stuff I've read seems to demonstrate a small but noticeable improvement with the last three or four modifications, at least judging by the current draw, if I read those threads right.  My understanding of that testing was that the assumption was/is that various changes resulted in higher and higher current draw, implying that the motor was working harder by pushing more air - except for the air straightener 'pipes' where it was theorized that the lower current read was due to the motor *not* having to work as hard due to less turbulence in the air stream entering the impeller housing.  While thats all well and good and I don't necessarily disagree on any particular point...  what I'm kind of curious about is if anyone has done testing of actual changes in either air flow or static pressure?  I realize that requires a different set of test equipment that is not exactly commonly available - but I am curious if anyone has attempted these more 'direct' measurements?

The other thing I've been wondering about... the Wynn 35 series filters seem to be commonly accepted as an improvement over the stock bags, even if they have supposedly identical ratings i.e. 1 micron factory felt bag vs. 1 micron pleated filter (assuming the factory bag rating is accurate), due primarily to the increase in air flow as the surface area increase from 20-30 square feet to 100 or more for the Wynn cannisters.  Again, maybe I missed it... but has anyone tested/confirmed the improvements in terms of air flow in CFM or SP at the intake, or even just current draw on the fan motor if nothing else?

TIA,

Monte

Would there be a benefit to using a pre-separator upstream of the intake as well as a separator baffle inside the ring of a single-stage DC like a HF 2hp or 50-760?  I think I've seen people doing both on the HF unit, but not sure if anyone has gone that route on the 50-760 that I've seen.  How much gain (in separation) or loss (in static pressure) would there be to a setup like this?

Has anyone here tried rigging up a mounting system for a 5-gallon Thien separator similar to the bucket mount used for the Dust Deputy?  Seems like a fairly simple (and slick) setup to keep the separator and vac together while dragging around the shop...

Hello,

I'm looking at building a couple of these separators if I can get it to work... one for the house 'central vac' (big 16 gallon shop vac hooked to the central vac network) and one for the real shop vac (Ridgid 14 gallon unit).  Can't see spending $150 each for Dust Deputies or Mini Clearvues.  If all that goes well, I'll have to see about building a bigger one for a dust collector (yet to be purchased).

My first question is this:  Where did you get those PVC nozzles or whatever they are that you have bolted on the outside of the lid?  I've never seen anything like those on the shelf of any local hardware store or big box store.  I imagine regular PVC pipe of suitable size would work fine, but I have to admit, they look pretty slick and it seems like the flange would make sealing things up a bit easier.

TIA,

Monte