J. Phil Thien's Projects

I'm working on a 55 gallon drum separator using a Reliant 3hp 2 bagger. I removed  on of the inlet welded to one of the rings where one set of filter/collectors mount. Basically using it as my straight side inlet to a topcoat design. Check out my thread soon.

I copied Matthias' 5 gallon bucket version and can attest to the efficiency and portability of the design. Mine is connected to my Ryobi BT3K series table saw and it works great !

www.harrisonplastic.com is a source for plastic ducting. I have no experience with them and just googled 5" diameter PVC. Looks interesting but probably cost prohibitive.

5" may be an odd size for PVC. Not something you're going to find at Lowes or Home Depot.  The Brute can isn't very rigid. You could try adding a stiffening ring or vertical ribs around the outside of the can.

Yes. I'm interested to see as well. Show us some pics too please.

My response to the above post would steer even further from the original topic. Bottom line in my opinion is to put a better separator in front of the impeller whether that be a top hat or other. The OP's question was if a modification of his collector would work. I don't think it will because his filters are clogging up now. Restricting the feed to the filters with a smaller 3" pipe will not work. I also think the 10" inlet pipe is not correct.

 I may be getting off topic a bit but I think this is important. CFM and FPM (feet per minute) are not the same. Duct sizing, horsepower of motor and impeller size/design will dictate how much air you will move. Typically, the impeller/HP combo you are stating should use a 6" duct with ZERO reduction from your trunk down to the tool. This means you may need to modify or build new ports on your tools. Reducing that size will decrease efficiency as well as increasing the duct size.  350-450 CFM will collect the chips and lighter stuff but will not really grab the fine dust which is what can kill you from long exposure. 1000 CFM with 4000 or so FPM of air speed is best. Think that's absurd ? Some do. Think of it this way, wet your finger and hold it out away from your mouth at arm's length. Now blow on it. Feel the air ? Probably. Now do the opposite. Wet your finger and hold to same distance. Now suck in. You probably can't feel the air around your finger rushing by. This is because blowing the air can be directed and concentrated to a point. Pulling air away from an object is harder because we're pulling that air from a large volume (room). This is why the exhaust from your dust collector feels like a lot of air but standing the same distance away from the suction side really doesn't feel that forceful. Bottom line in my opinion is we all should do our homework and study hard about this. For me, I'll do just that before I finalize a design. Even then because I'm a novice I am sure to make mistakes. Hopefully they won't be costly and I can redesign when needed. Regardless of which separator you choose, it's the FINE dust you need to worry about.

Can you post more pictures of the intake section ? How many hoses can you connect ? What are the hose diameters ?

If your filters are filling up too fast, that means the current separation isn't efficient. I really believe separating before the impeller is best. A finely tuned separator should remove more than 95% or more of the fine stuff.

From what I can see in the pictures,  your intake hose(s) go directly into the inlet side of the impeller. This means that all materials are going through the impeller and then into the bag/filter setup. Ideally you would want to put the separator before the impeller.

Is this what you want/intend to do ?

A blower designed for a HVAC system simply will not move enough air for a dust collector. The typical static air pressure for a blower like that is somewhere around 1 1/2-2" of static pressure and the blowers move relatively "clean(er) air than a dust collector. A dust collector has more like 8"-10" or more static pressure. You need 1000 CFM of air movement to properly remove materials away from the tool. A HVAC blower cannot do that. Slower air movement will cause the materials/particles to settle and ultimately cause clogging in the ductwork.

Regardless of your dust collector design, you will NOT be able to collect it all. This means, the fine dust, which is the worst, should be filtered or exhausted away from the shop. There's a way to filter without venting outside but it requires a considerable investment. If set up properly, they will last years with proper cleaning. Search the web but I think you will find that Wynn filters are best. If you vent outside and heat/cool your shop, then you have to replace the vented/collected air when the collector is running. This creates a less than efficient scenario for your HVAC without some kind of air to air exchange. If you're a hobbyist, then maybe popping a window open (with a replaceable filter) when running the collector will do. If you're a business, then you may need to meet specific specific code requirements. I plan to vent the fine dust outside for now because I will need to scale up the investment.

If the motor has ball bearings, the bearings may be "deep grooved" and may support the weight of the rotor and impeller weight . If the motor has "sleeved" bearings, then there really isn't much axial load support thus making it a poor selection for vertical mounting. When running, the motor's electrical field wants to center the rotor within that field but it's not designed to support the rotor weight. The best way to know for sure if you can mount the motor vertically is to contact the manufacturer.

I know some motors are not suited for vertical use. Has anyone checked to see if their horizontal motor will work/last/perform correctly when mounted vertically ?

Quote from: Latham on May 07, 2014, 01:15:20 PM
Tom:

I read through that a couple of times and haven't been able to figure out what you made your inltet box-port from. Did I miss it in the thread?

Thanks,

L

I made the inlet port from 3/4" MDF. It's 4 1/2" x 4 1/2" with appropriate hose diameter inlet hole to fit my shop vac . Here's a drawing of how I made the radius. This drawing allowed me to make the top and bottom of the inlet port. I cut pieces of MDF to fit the front @ 3"x3" square and the side was 3" x 6 1/2". The side was then trimmed to match the radius of the top and bottom. I screwed the inlet port onto the bucket side from the inside and sealed it up with silicone.