Introduce yourself...

[Zamfir]

Howdy,

I am Eric and a cnc router user in my garage in Colorado.  I have been using the Thien separator for about 4 years now on the top of a 55 gal steel drum.  Wonderful design and it has worked wonders. 

Thank you very much for sharing your design with all of us!

-Eric 

[candbj]

I am a hobby woodworker.
I have a chip separator made from a design in shopnotes magazine.
I joined to learn about the tophat design for dust collectors.

I bought a hf dc several years ago and am finally installing a wynn filter.

I thought this forum would be a great place to learn about Mr Thien's seperator and the tophat design which looks to save some needed floorspace and improve efficiency.

[R.True]

Hi folks,

I'm a hobby guitar maker who's also a bit of a tight-wad  :o so building my own jigs, tools etc is something I like to do.

I'm in the middle of making my own full dust collector system and going to build a baffle into a 55gal barrel which will connect to my DIY blower.

Great site and group.

Rod

[curlie]

Greetings from South Louisiana! I've been busy building a shop that is nearing completion. Construction is complete and I'm in the organize and set-up phase. I did a search and returned relevant results of older posts from the discussion forum, but cannot seem to access the older info. My point of curiosity - I intend to build a top hat version and want to leave a couple inches of material on both sides of the can rim for a wide stable ring. If my can is 22" in diameter, my "hat" will be 18". I am using a Jet DC650 and will move the hose to each machine as needed. Any particular performance issues with the "hat" not being as large as the bottom receptacle?

....or give me hints on why when I click on search results, I am simply returned to the most recent posts in discussion rather than the relevant topics found from 3 yrs ago. I'm sure this football has been kicked around before - I just cannot access the old discussion. Thanks, curlie

[phil (admin)]

The smaller the D, the higher the velocity, the greater the resistance, the more the loss to CFM.

I'd advise making the separator as wide as possible, given the other parameters of your vessel.

[Sinayu]

I just signed on. I added a simple 30 gallon trash can dust separator to my Delta 50-760 dust collector in my work shop 6 yrs ago. This was not working at all. 95% of the dust and chips were in my collection bag. Only 5% made it to the trash can collector!! This week, I decided to add the Thien baffle to my trash can dust separator. I am very happy to tell you that my test run after installing this baffle (few minutes ago) was very successful! It separated out over 95% of the dusk and chips! Thank you for sharing your great design!! I did notice a great reduction of the air pressure in my fiber air filter bag. It used to be like a blown-up balloon when the dust collector is in use. With the Thien baffle installed, the air filter bag is having trouble getting blown-up! It is now only about 40% blown-up!!!  I have the radius of the baffle reduced by 1.125" per plan on the 240degree portion. Do you think I have to increase this reduction of the radius to 1.5" to reduce the resistance of the baffle to increase the air flow of the system??? I am sure you have already answered this problem. Help!!

[Sinayu]

Thanks for the suggestion! I will try enlarging the D. Actually, the CFM is now much better than before after I restarted the separator today. The CFM actually is now up to 90 to 95% of what it used to be!! It must have a clogged some where that went away!!! The separation is actually more like 95 to 98%!!! I will let you know about the results if I enlarge the D. At this point, I might not do anything because I can live with the present condition of losing 10% of CFM with 95 to 98% separation!!

[NLAlston]

Hello all.

My name is Nathan (NLAlston), and I hail from Amherst, NY.  Want to thank J. Phil for this very nice, informative and highly instructive site.  I will certainly learn a lot, here.

[scowine]

Hello, Call me Scott. getting into ww a lil bit...dust control is the bane of my existence.

[bigfredlab]

Hello all,

Im Big Fred.

I have been looking for ways to "catch" the lint and dust from the dryer in my house.  Whoever put in the lint vent had it dump into the garage.

Would the Thien Cyclone Separator work for this application?

[FTElliott]

Hi Everyone

I'm Friedrich Elliott, live in Dallas. I'm a high school AP Physics and Engineering Teacher, also Head Coach of our FIRST Robotics FTC program. I'm creating a small Makerspace or "shop" at school for our engineering and robotics activities.

Like everywhere in our building, our little space is not partitioned off from the rest of the school's HVAC so anything I put back into the air goes everywhere. Therefore, I *must* have fantastic dust and debris collection. Researching these topics online eventually brought me here.

What an incredible resource and community! Thank you, Phil!

[c_pansini]

Hello,
          Just joined the forum in my long  search for a dust collection solution.This will be a long post since I kinda have a lot of research I am trying to find the answers to. I am student finishing up my degree, have been woodworking since a child but only in the past few years I feel have graduating into fine woodworking. To cut a long story short I have been researching dust collection for the past several months gathering information on the best DIY solution. Bill Pentz provided a myriad of information and research that explains the whole idea of dust collection. My original plan was to build a cyclone to suit my shop vac. I am sure anyone who has seen his research was overwhelmed, as I was, with the engineering of the task. But April Wilkersons' YouTube channel saved the day when she posted about the Thien Baffle. To make this short, I understand the 240 degrees drop chute as well as the placement if the inlet. I have seen baffles where the inlet is a simple 90 degree fitting, straight tube right into the baffle, or a small rectangle that takes the inlet tube then enters the baffle after a short run (much like the toilet bowl rides at the water park). Which way would be the most effective? I believe the 90 degree fitting is the easiest but understand fluid resistance I feel a forty five degree fitting would be better? Either way I will not be doing that method, as I think that the fitting interrupts the cyclone action. Another question was how tall should the the chamber of the baffle be. I see most plans having the baffle chamber being as tall the inlet to maximize the refuse space below. I will be using a 1.5 inlet possibly 2" but nothing much larger. I feel that the baffle should be be no smaller than four inches. That way the thien baffle begins to act more like a standard cone cyclone separator. If anyone has constructed one and found some results were lacking I would appreciate your input and will post my final results and some specifications that I found to be helpful. Potentially SketchUp model if this forum would benefit from one.

P.S. There were to many influences in my research to cite all of them, the above mentioned were the ones that stood out in the past weeks and changed my evolved my design greatly.

[Alpineguy]

I've been butchering wood in my basement for most of my life and finally got tired of breathing sawdust. So, I'm building my DC system with Phil's baffle and Harbor Freight components.

[jahmes143]

New to woodworking and dust collection.  This site looks great.  Hello. 

[Mjs4ny]

Hi.  Looking to modify my HFDC with the Thien baffle and the WynnEnv filter.  Thanks!