J. Phil Thien's Projects

I used one of those metal trash cans and had some problems. Phil suggested I check for leaks. I found the side seam as well as the bottom seam leaked. I used some silicone to seal all the seams and that helped a lot.

Just thought I would give you a heads up and maybe help you miss some of the problems I went through.

Raymond

I have to agree with Bulldog8 on this subject. Phil designed this separator and willingly shared his design and his ideas. He has answered questions for most if not all of us, and DID NOT throw a fit when people started re-designing his invention. Now, you ask him to re-design HIS website. I read through all the posts, then re-read them and again. I picked up a different idea each time I went back over these posts.

Personally, I think if you are too lazy to scour the info you want then it may be a good idea for YOU to re-do the website.

My opinion only. As we all know, opinions are like rectums. Everyone has one and some smell worse than others.

Once again, this is my opinion and has nothing to do with the management of this establishment.

Raymond

I have had pretty good luck raising my blade about 1/16" and running my plywood over that, scoring the underside, then raising the blade to height and finish cutting the plywood. This gives a lot smoother cut.

Just remember you will not be using your blade guard when you do the scoring cut. I know a lot of people don't use the guard anyway. I guess I have just had too many accidents to tempt fate. I feel the guards are there for a purpose.


Raymond

I think it was on Oneida's site that I saw long tapered reducers that will eliminate the abrupt angle transition, if you are worried about turbulence. I am sure other dc sites carry the same thing, but like everything alse, it comes with a price.

Raymond

Jerry in Maine: You could build a tophat design and your barrel would work fine. In my opinion. Still be able to use what you have, this way.

Raymond

Phil: Thank you for the response. Yes, mine is a tophat.

I thought I remembered you saying that making the tophat taller would slow rotation speed.

(For clarification) by adding the extra length to the outlet pipe, this means to fore-go the 1/2 diameter of outlet pipe below the top of separator. Insert the pipe further into the separator and then play with the depth to determine the best separation with the least amount of bypass.

I hate doing 2 changes at a time, but I think I will change to an 8" outlet at the same time. 6" inlet and 8" outlet should utilize my dc to it's fullest potential.

This sounds like a good place to start. I have 2 more projects for the wife and 1 for the daughter before I can start this. I will start collecting the material in the mean time and work on it a little at a time during working on the other projects.

Thanks again for the input. Will update when I have more info.

Raymond

DonJ: I didn't copy the link, but check out Phil's answer to Kooshball's post "Ideal material and cross sectional shape for HF Thien separator" on page 4 dated Sept. 11, 2011.

This is the responce that I was talking about. Knew I had read it somewhere.

Raymond

Mis-spelled separator in the title of this thread. Sorry.

Raymond

Let's wait on more feedback. I don't know if others have started with one and changed to the other or not. If so, they should be able to give a hands on answer.

Raymond

Help!!

I am still getting a lot of bypass with fine sanding dust and some with regular chips and sawdust. I recall comments about the diameter of a separator affecting velocity, which in turn affects separation.

I built my separator like most others have, using a 30 gallon trash can as a catch container, so the diameter of the separator is dictated by the diameter of said container. Because my dc is larger than most people on this site have indicated, I am beginning to question if I need to change the deminsions of my separator to slow down the spin of air. I was watching it yesterday while my wife was feeding some stock for me and I noticed that it is still sucking fine dust back up through the slot from the container below. I have caulked all air leaks that I could find. At Phil's suggestion, I even caulked the trash can which made a huge improvement.

My question is; would it help to enlarge the depth of the separator and be able to lower the outlet pipe a little more? I can also enlarge the diameter and build a funnel to a different type of catch container if that may help.

Or, am I just expecting too much and need to just leave well enough alone?

Thanks for your input.

Raymond

I am still having some problems of my own, so I may be the wrong one to speculate on this.

The one thing that I noticed is the thickness of your baffle. I remember Phil being adamant that "thin is in". He has stated that the best separation comes from a very thin baffle. I seem to recall him saying that about 1/8" thick baffle is best, no more than 1/4". I hope my memory serves me correctly in this.

Hope this may be of help.

Raymond

RonS: looks like a great retrofit. Too bad that Wynn doesn't sell kits. Their statement about compressed air being better, I will not argue the point. There are a lot of times that I use both. Turn the flappers a few times to knock stuff loose and then use air to blow it off. Works great. If you regularly use the flappers the use of air is reduced. IMHO if you do not reduce air pressure it is easier to tear your filter.

The retro idea looks like it would be easy to do for someone that has that type filter and no flapper.

Thanks for the link.

Raymond

Galerdude:

Hope these pictures help out. The cone on top is pop riveted on, don't know if it contains a bearing or not. As smooth as it turns, I suspect it does.The shaft is about 1/2" square with the bottom being round where it goes through the bottom brace. The brace does not support the shaft, it just keeps the alignment straight. The flappers are approximately 24 gauge flat metal bolted to the square shaft. They stop about 1" from the pleats of the filter and have a piece of approximately 1/8" thick rubber bolted to the plate. The rubber piece is actually sandwiched between 2 pieces of metal. The main plate and a piece about 1" wide on the back for support. The rubber piece extends about 1/2 way into the pleats. Hope this helps. If you have anymore questions fire away. If you would like more detailed pictures tell me what specifically you need.

I am not sure how much the dust shows up at the bottom of the filter but this is what I have been fighting. These filters were cleaned after I tried the internal baffle (that didn't work as well as the external tophat design).

I built a cabinet for the wifes sewing room. I used about 30 bd ft of pine, ripping, routing and drum sanding and this is what was in the filter.

Before I removed this filter for these pictures I ran the flappers each direction about 5-6 times. This is the "weak" filter and still has this much dust in it. There is probably another 2 cups of dust on the cone below the filter mount. As stated this is the "weak" filter, the other one fills up faster and seems to collect more dust. On a 2 filter/catch bag setup it seems 1 side is "strong" and 1 side is "weak" for lack of a better discription.

Any ideas why this much bypass please let me know. I am just using it and keeping an eye on efficiency of the separator for now. Trying to figure out what I have done wrong.

Thanks,

Raymond

Galerdude: My hand got very infected after the surgery, so haven't been in the shop quite as often as I would like. All is better now and have done a couple of "projects" for the wife. Building some storage shelves and such.

The internal baffle didn't do the trick for me, so I went back to the tophat on top of the trash can setup. So far it is doing decent. I got too wrapped up in the lost suction thing and decided to just use this setup for a while and see what happens. I will give credit to everyone that said check for leaks. I had sealed my separator but when Phil said to check the trash can I was very surprised at the results. The can had a leak at the bottom seam. I caulked all seams and it made a major improvement. Never would have thought about that.

Now, to answer your question. The filters on my dc came with the flapper cleaners, and they are the cats meow. My old dc didn't have them and I can say either make a set or buy filters that have them from the factory.

My filters have a hole through the top and a support across the bottom, then a shaft goes top to bottom into that support. Attached to that shaft are 2 "flappers"  that go side to side. I do not recall what material they are made from.

Instead of trying to describe them, later today I will take a filter off my dc and take some pictures. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Don't know about that, but I do know it will beat my description. I will post the pictures later today and then answer any questions I can.

In a normal day of use, I will spin the flappers at the end of the day and that usually does a good job. If I am doing a lot of sanding, I will spin the flappers every hour or so. You can really hear a difference when the filters are caking over. You will have to work out your own system depending on your use. I do not have as much problem during normal use, since adding the Thien Baffle but still get a significant amount of fine dust when sanding. I will say that there has been a reduction in how often I have to spin the flappers to clear the fine dust, since adding the separator, but I still do it every hour or so.

Hope this rambling answers your question. YES add the flappers. Hope the pictures, when I post them will help you with your design.

Raymond

Since my loss of suction appears to be because of the pre-separator, I decided to do the baffle in the dc rings thing.

I tore apart my dc today. Cleaned the filters, installed the baffles and reinstalled the catch containers and filters. I sucked up about 15-17 gallons of mixed saw dust and chips. The fine dust is what came out of the filters after using the drum-sander for about 2 hours straight. Lots of fine dust. Probably about 1/3 rd fine dust to 2/3 rds chips in this test today. I never dropped the suction line into the bucket of dust. I kept it moving about 2" above the level of the dust in the can.

I cleaned 1 filter after my test, (ran the flappers around 5-6 turns 1 way then 5-6 turns the other direction.) There was probably between 1 1/2 - 2 cups of fine dust from the 1 filter.(sitting on the cone, don't know how much went in the container)

I wanted to see how much difference the outlet pipes will make. I only have 4" between the baffle and the lower edge of the cone in the dc ring. I have made some reducer rings to hold the outlet pipes and will install them tomorrow. My thought is to split the difference of the space. 2". I know that Phil says to insert the outlet pipe 1/2 the diameter but with only 4", I don't think that would leave enough room if I insert it 3". The outlet in the cone is 9 1/4". I have 6" pipe to make the outlet pipes. Will this be too much restriction or not? I know I am only pulling air in through a 6" line and this will be 2 6" outlet pipes, 1 in each filter. Just not sure what the outcome will be. Time will tell.

I hope these pictures will help explain what I am trying to describe.

Any thoughts or suggestions will be appreciated.

Raymond