J. Phil Thien's Projects

Thanks all for the encouragement and advice. Phil was correct - leaks were the problem, plus my probably unrealistic hope of zero visible fines escaping. Performance is greatly improved and should now be considered a success not a fail. I'm almost finished with my through wall vent for the cleaned air and will post pics in a new thread soon -with a positive title!

OK good advice to try some more to fix it before abandoning.

With the bag over bag collector I used 5yds of flexible hose. With my newly constructed separator I got the same result both with the hose connected and when just chucking dust and chips straight into the inlet.

I've got a 5' straight section of metal pipe which I'll try - it might help separation.

If that does not work, I guess all I can do is to take off say 1/2" at a time from the metal exit pipe.

I'll report back

PS Just saw your comments Phil. Thanks. I'll post some pics but I'm away for the weekend so it'll be a few days. I'll also investigate leaks. My tests so far have been conducted by gaffer taping joints, prior to completing weather seal. I thought I'd been thorough but I'll try again before hacking at the exit pipe.

So many reports of successful builds on this forum. Sad to say my first attempt hasn?t worked out. I?ll briefly describe what I did, what I think is the problem, and what I plan to do next. Any comments / advice would be much appreciated.

I?m in the UK so my measurements are imperial conversions of metric and might seem a bit odd.

Canibalising the 2hp blower from a Jet bag over bag collector, 5 ?? pipe, I built a 19 ?? diameter spin chamber (out of bendy mdf), about 6 ?? tall, side inlet, with the exit pipe extending down into the chamber about 2 ??. Result is that a significant amount of dust (guess 40%) seems to go straight to the exit, which I presume means that the diameter of my chamber is too small.

For my next effort I am thinking of going to the diameter of a 55 gall drum since that is what several people seem to have successfully used. Is that 22 ?? or 24? ? I?ve seen different dimensions on different sites. Do you think it will make a significant difference to my 19 ?? effort?

Should I keep the internal height of the spin chamber the same as the diameter of the pipe and stick with the distance the exit pipe extends downwards being about half the pipe diameter?

I don?t want the mass and weight of a 55 gallon drum filling with dust and chips. Since it seems to be accepted that the shape of the space below the baffle does not impact on performance, my thought is to construct it square, initially larger than the baffle, but then ramp it down on all four sides to create a funnel to a smaller collection drum. If that explanation makes sense, does the plan seem reasonable?

Thanks for reading.

I am planning to convert my Jet DC-1800 to a Thien separator, venting the exhaust outside without filter.  The DC inlet is 140mm - about 5 1/2". I have no fixed ducting - just use good quality flexible hose (Felder) which I hook up to whichever machine I am using.

Convention is to locate the DC near the wall, which in the new set-up I am planning would result in a longer 'pull' from machinery and a shorter 'push' to the external vent.

I wonder what would be the effect of instead keeping the DC mobile and using it close to machines, resulting in a shorter pull from machines and a longer push to the outside?  It seems self evident that I will gain the most suction at the dust creating machinery - or am I wrong and might it be possible that I will over strain the motor with too little resistance in the system?  Will this be balanced by resistance in a longer push to the exhaust vent?  Is the longer exhaust a problem in itself?

Has anyone done this already, or have any thoughts?