J. Phil Thien's Projects

I drew this up - hope it helps...

Quote from: CheapScotsman on December 16, 2008, 04:27:27 PM

Quote from: Greg McCallister on December 04, 2008, 04:10:49 AM
dbhost,
The inlet is used from Bill Pentz site excel spread sheet ....

While I have skimmed most of his site .... Are you saying that you calculated both the size and how far into your baffle the inlet extends from Pentz's spreadsheet?

Pretty much yes. I did not use the total height from Bill's site but mostly just the inlet. The inlet angles downward about 1 in. All it is - is a 6" piece of metal duct from HD that I soldered the seam and using 2x4s and other scrap wood was able to hammer out the round to rectanglar shape. Hope that made sense...
To put it in a nutshell, its is a combination of both Bill and Phil's ideas. Inlet and basic cylinder is Bill's and the baffle is Phil's.
I thought about this for a while after reading Bill's site. Phils idea, I have been also looking at from the beginning. He started out with 2 1/4 Vac and it has gone up from there.

Looking at the Clearvue site you can see how the dust travels after entering the cyclone. I thought  if you could get the debris below the suction port (as in Phils baffle design) it would work pretty close, if not better then a cyclone because of much less CFM loss due to turbulance and required air flow (big motor - big impeller).
I don't know how well the unit draws as far a CFM but to be honest it really draws some air and seems to trap 95 +% of the dust.
This is actually a different concept using both, or in another hand, the best of both worlds...

Phil,
You should of got my donation in your either email or paypal account (not sure exactly how that works to be honest).
If there is a problem please let me know.

Again thanks and Merry Christmas!

Greg

Phil,

Your work on the baffle concept is beyond what anyone could accept in a free form. I would like to help take some of the financial burden from you as I know is cost to keep a website up and your time is valuable.
Your idea has made my dust collection capabilities beyond what I could of done myself. I am very happy in that you shared this information as well as some, I imagine others, and feel you could use some compensation for your hard work.
No good deed should go unpunished or as Mom used to say, "nothing in life is free".
How can I donate to you? Do you accept paypal or any other type of compensation?
You deserve something, that is for sure, if nothing else for my health and my families.

Greg

Was able to take some more pics today. Hope this explains a bit more on the design.
The filter looks quite clean. Like I said in a previous post I have emptied it 4 times without cleaning the filter.
You will also notice that there are some pretty fine-fines in the on pic showing my hand.

dbhost,
The inlet is used from Bill Pentz site excel spread sheet. I soldered the seam on a 6" metal duct and with 2x4s and other scrap wood was able to create a 3.5 x 8" inlet (I think those were the dimensions) I did not put a vein in as there was not enough room (only 12" tall).
I have hand tools that use 1 1/4" hose which I use a shop vac on. I also use a downdraft table.
Use both 4" and 2 1/2" on my table saw extension wing router table. 6" to table saw, 4" to plainer and jointer. Bigger is always better (within limits) but you can only use one machine at a time. You can use just 2.5 duct but you will not like the about of air flow. Go minimum of 4" if you can.

You like that - I wish I had drawn up plans on it but did it mostly in my head...

Sorry Phil,
I had forgot to upload that pic here (did on SMC).
I added it to the last picture post.
The clamp (yellow) grabs the edge of the top melamine board of the cyclone thing. Not real detailed -will try to get a better pic when I get some batteries :).

Benny,
The nice part about the clamp is I do not lift the motor but the cyclone(?) section itself. Could lift by hand but you will need to prop it up somehow. Only need to lift about an inch. I also routed (black ring) a 1/2" round diameter about 3/8" deep for the can to sit in and applied black silicone for a good seal. Slide can under, turn on vac and it sucks it up in the grove. Then loosen the bar clamp and drop down the cyclone. Simple empty with no actual lifting except to empty the can. The PVC pipe from the cyclone slides inside the upper section below the motor (reason for tape).
This thing really draws some air.
 

Phil,

The output dust bag stays pretty much empty.
I was thinking about changing the output to also use a can (smaller) yet have not had any time to do so.
I will try to get some pics of inside the filter this weekend (batteries) and post (hate taking the bag off).
Even if the filter is loaded, I do not seem to have any decreased air flow not as I did before.
There is a lot of fines in the can (sanding) so it seems to do pretty well.

last -

Oh forgot to mention I have emptied it at least 4 times now. Easy to empty as the bar clamp lifts the assembly upward so I can slide the can out from underneath.

I know there will be some questions and I will try to answer them the best I can.

I will try to upload some more pics but my batteries died on the camera and of course I don't have any more...

More

For starters - I would like the thank Phil Thien for his baffle concept. His work on this idea is what made my version possible. (Thanks Phil!)

I have never posted here before and I should of taken more pictures when I created this version, but to be truthful, I was not sure it was going to work.

As many of you probably have done is read Bill Pentz dust collection site, and after I did, it really scared the &%^ out of me. I have a very small basement shop and wanted to put in a cyclone but as you might be, I could not afford the expense nor did I have the ceiling height to install one. Woodworking is a hobby for me.

After seeing Phils design I wondered if this could be adapted to be used with 6" ducting instead of 4".
I have a Harbor Freight dust collector with a .5 micron Wynn Environmental filter. Worked great when clean but it plugged quickly and I did not like the material going through the impeller.

I came to the conclusion I needed a pre-separator and like most who have progressed with dust collection opted for a trash can separator.

Though they work, they killed the amount of air flow especially with 4" ducting. Well to make a long story short - below is a combination of both Phil's design and Bill Pentz cyclone.

Made rather inexpensively less than $50.00 for materials (not including the HF dust collector and 6"  PVC ducting).
Made using a 5' -6" metal duct from HD, some threaded rod with wingnuts and a 2' x 4' piece of melamine.

Here is the first set pics: