J. Phil Thien's Projects

I am building my own impeller using Matthias Wandels dust collector plans, reason being it's much more efficient per HP than material handling impellers and I wanna get as much useful work out of this DC I am building. But I am wondering if I should build it from plywood and hardwood, I also had some ideas of buildilng the vanes from softwood and epoxying thin sheet metal on the surfaces to make a really durable vane.

Now I am wondering, could I forego wood entirely and maybe use plastic, I got this idea in my head now of a completely transparent dust collector with a viewing window in the housing. I'm not sure if it would be a good or bad idea. I dunno if the materials I got access to could work, I could use either polycarbonate or SAN (styrene acrylonitrile) for this.

Anyone here a engineer or something with the relevant qualifications to take a stab at this? I kinda thing it would be as durabe as wood at least. And it would be much more uniform weight wise than plywood. And it would look really cool  :D

Greetings from Finland.

I'm currently building a garage that will be partially dedicated to a woodworking workshop. It's close to done and I've been considering dust collection options. I've done a lot of research and asked a lot of questions and what I've come to is I should aim for the following:

-Metal ducting in the size of 150-160mm (I think 5-6.3", metal because it grounds easily, no static issues with dust clinging)

-Ducting in the ceiling rather than walls where possible

-Vent outside (just seems like the best way avoid a lot of potential issues)

-Powerful blower. I have a 3-phase 4kw motor I plan to use in a jointer/planer, somewhat overkill for the small 8" machine I have, but I got it cheaply. I guess it can be refitted later for to a dust collector impeller/fan and be more suited to that task.

I was looking at cyclone separators and I am currently building my own shop vac from leftover parts and a cheap cyclone I bought from china. I was considering building a big one from Bill Pentz designs but since I am venting outside, and also reading Matthias Wandels experiences with his thien baffle system, it seems like this system is entirely adequate in separating most dust and chips and most fine saw dust. I gather there's some contention between cyclone and thien baffle users as well...

Anyway it seems like it works well and well enough for my purposes. I am wondering are there any guidelines for what size I should build given a certain airflow/speed? This will be a large and powerful system, though hopefully it should come out pretty cheap since I am building it myself from spare parts and 2nd hand stuff.