6" Inlet/Outlet Separator How to with Video, Pics and Text

[pitbull]

Clay-

I have learned that waiting until you need to do it (meaning hole) with wood working projects is the best possible plan to go by. I could have routed it out earlier, but I may have had a plan change along the way like I did a few times with other things. Doing it this way I can make sure I did not make a fatal mistake early on that could have easily been avoided.

If anyone is going to replicate this once I am done, assuming that it actually works, then go ahead and cut the hole when ever best suits your project schedule.

[pitbull]

Video #4  -- Testing


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZSK88Hjl3A

[Vodkaman]

This has been a great thread/tutorial. You have shown craftsmanship and innovation. Thanks for taking the trouble to record and document the project and share.

I especially liked the last video. Learned a whole lot from watching the airflow. This has given me a few ideas to try out when I finally get around to buildin mine. I thought the anti-clockwise airflow as you look through the inlet was particularly interesting.

Dave

[pitbull]

Video #5 - Final Testing and Analysis


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhnBvdeaWS8

[Bulldog8]

Pitbull, that really looks good. Do you plan to leave you system configured as it currently is? I have all of my components and am going to start building a tophat similar to what you have done, but I think that I am going to disassemble my DC and hard pipe from the separator to the DC blower. Keeping the flex pipe between the two would simplify emptying the container though.

My biggest concern and reason for modifying my current setup is the extremely fine dust that I get from the drum sander. I made eight end grain cutting boards for Christmas presents and found that I had to remove my top bag and turn it inside out and clean it in between each cutting board. Prior to doing that much drum sanding I only had to shake the bag to dump some of the fines into the lower bag.
Have you run you system connected to a ?powder? producer yet? I am curious to see how many ?fines? may have ended up in the filter. (I am also adding a Wynn filter as part of my conversion)

Steve

[pitbull]

Thanks bulldog. I am in the process of ducting my shop, I just moved the shop here recently and this is usually the last thing I  will do once I get it configured how I want it..for now I just connect to the equipment as needed. I have quick connects. I will keep the flex pipe for emptying the container for sure once it is set up.

I do not have a drum sander here to test it on so I can not comment on how it works yet with that. But I can tell you that once you get a canister type filter....the problems you are having with the bag clogging will go away. The sooner the better. I would not expect it to be 100% efficient, but I have a smaller cyclone that I hook up to my sander and it scrubs the fines real good.
http://www.freeforum101.com/charlesneil/viewtopic.php?t=1568&mforum=charlesneil

Of course this is not enough suck for a drum sander but from my experience with this cyclone...I have high hopes for the Thein separator to scrub a good amount of this fine dust. Obviously a higher HP motor with a larger impeller is the ticket....The HF model, if that is what you have, does not really have enough balls for this task. Its inlet and impeller is to small to really do this job properly. For larger chips...jointer, planer...it works great.

[pitbull]

Chuck-

1) The poster was referring to his bag getting caked with the finest of all dust (sanding)...which required him to completely disassemble the bag, turn it inside out and blow it out to regain its effectiveness. This is frustrating and time consuming. Again you are right, a canister will get caked up as well. However, the big difference between a bag and canister is that you can knock the dust off/out of it with much greater results. Secondly, the pleated canisters are more effective of moving more way more air than any bag of comparable size while offering superb filtration. So if this is the hype you do not like, so be it.

2) I did not make the blanket statement that the HF dust collector is not powerful enough to pull from a single machine. Pleas re-read my post. A drum sander is by far the hardest machine to collect the majority if the dust from. We are not dealing with chips here. It separates the men from the boys in dust collection equipment. The original poster did not specify how large of a drum sander he has, but I can tell you with certainty that putting a HF claimed "2HP" dust collector with its small impeller on a drum sander (most commonly 15" or larger with 2 ports or more) and running it through a separator will give average results versus a real 2+ HP dust collector with a larger inlet and impeller.

The HF dust collector is a very good piece of equipment, price not even factored into the equation, when used on the right equipment. However, I stand by my claim it physically does not have enough balls to safely (meaning grabbing the stuff you can not see) pull the majority of tiny dust particles especially if it was being run through a ducted shop. In my previous post I did not say it would not work...I said it would not work properly.

We will have to agree to disagree on this. I am sticking with physics.      

[pitbull]

I will agree with everything you just said Chuck. Drum Sanders could be more efficient...but they are not engineered that way. It takes lots of CFM to compensate for this and that is why you do see many people rigging up alternative dust collection methods on these machines.

However the HF dust collector still shoots itself in the foot right from the get go with its 5" inlet and small diameter impeller. Their claimed airflow numbers are physically impossible. There are plenty of 1-1/2 HP dust collectors on the market that will run circles around the HF unit in suction capacity that have 6" inlets and 12" impellers, and forget about comparing it to legit 2HP units. I singled out the HF unit in the past posts because I know it suffers these symptoms even though it is marketed otherwise. Basically I am saying HF makes false claims.

The solution is simple...if drum sanding...do not expect a HF unit to work as well as others. Its static pressure limitations suck...well not really.  ;D

[Bulldog8]

Chuck, the problem that I am having is the drum sander producing so much fine dust that the bag becomes clogged. The bag has such a thick layer of fine dust that the DC's CFM is reduced to the point where dust is no longer being collected from the sander. If I turn the DC off and beat the bag, it helps restore some of the loss of suction. However, to get full CFM restored I have to remove the bag to get rid of the fine dust. Simply shaking the bag down leaves most of the powder laying on the baffle just to go back into the top bag when the DC is turned back on. I don't have a problem with the system with any other machine, just the sander.

Steve

[hardwood]

Nice work.  I've leaned on this heavily as I try to build one similar to it.  I have a question about the outlet pipe - the one connecting the separator to the DC.  How far into the "top hat" do you run that pipe.  Does it make a difference?

[Bulldog8]

Hey Hardwood, the outlet pipe from the baffle to the DC blower should stick down into the baffle at a distance of half its diameter. So if you have a 4" pipe it protrudes 2" below the top of the baffle, if 5" it protrudes 2 1/2" and so forth. According to Phil's notes, this does have an effect on scrubbing. If you had it flush with the top of the baffle, it would be in dirtier air and the cyclonic scrubbing would be less effective.

[hardwood]

Thanks, that's what I needed to know.

[pitbull]

On this one however, the 6" outlet pipe is penetrating about 2-1/4" below the bottom of the top piece of wood. So it is not the ideal 3" standard, but it works fine. I have wondered if it would work better if it was a true 3" long, but I have zero complaints as to its current efficiency.

[pitbull]

I forgot to post the final pics with this project, sorry. Better late than never-


6" Steel pipe was used for as much of the runs as possible. The flex lines are 6" wire reinfoced. The last flex line you see before the separator was put in so that the main line could easily disconnect from the separator. The motor housing was tapconned into the wall on a custom built right angle platform made from 2x4 and plywood. The air filter housing is bolted to the wall with a wood cleat (not seen in the photo) and the steel arm once used to prop it up from the rolling base was inverted and now is bolted to a piece of wood screwed to the truss in the ceiling. It is all rock solid and has totally exceeded what I thought possible for a system like this.

[Bulldog8]

Hey Pitbull a couple of questions for you. Our systems are pretty similar, did your Griz DC start with a Wynn filter or did you upgrade from bags? I had 1 micron bags and then upgraded to the Wynn filter. Their is considerably more air noise now than before. I am looking at putting a muffler between the fan/motor and the filter to quiet this thing back down.

My system used to have a lower cloth bag and I now use the clear bag that came with the Wynn filter. I am getting a little fine dust blow by where the plastic bag meets the DC. I see that you have blue tape on yours in that area. Did you tape and then clamp your bag in position?

I must say that I am very happy with the top hat style of setup. I still haven't gotten so much as a chip in my plastic bag. I do get some fines in the filter that I use compressed air to blow down to the plastic bag and then empty. Last weekend I emptied the drum for the 3rd time without cleaning the filter, so I blew the filter down and got about a cup of fines in the lower bag. This was from normal wood working, not a lot of drum sanding, but basically using everything in the shop including a small amount of drum sanding. I am really curious to see the results that SloMo gets from his all metal tophat.

Steve