J. Phil Thien's Projects

A year and a half of having a 2HP DC sitting in pieces in the corner of my shop and I finally have some progress on my new collector.  This will be my 3rd Thien setup, I have an "in the can" shopvac setup, and a tophat "push" collector connected to my dewalt 735 planer that have both seen lots of use and still working fantastic.

Looking forward to having dust collection for the tablesaw and the jointer with the addition of this setup.

It was definitely a serious question.  It was a brain fart type situation where I knew something was wrong, but couldn't explain why it wouldn't work.

If I can't find a bucket/barrel with a larger diameter I guess I can always cut/weld the ring into a smaller diameter to suit the original planned bucket.

I started working on a tophat this weekend, using the collector ring of a dust collector as the body.  I was going to use a rubbermaid 77l (20gal) trash can, but realized the collector ring is about 1/2-3/4" larger in diameter than the bucket.  That isn't going to work for me is it?

I would add some external support to the side entry pipe, then cut it flush inside, and add the baffle attached to the lid.  That way you will have less work, and have less of performance hit because of the 90deg bend with the through the lid configuration.

Just as a side note, the dust being sucked up from the drum to the vac when not actively collecting dust is a perfect example of the "scrubbing" that the Thien baffle prevents.

I picked up a Dewalt 735 planer over the holidays, and just finished a tophat push separator similar to the one brdad made ( http://www.jpthien.com/smf/index.php?topic=809.0 )

Good lord the blower on these planers pushes a lot of air!  My first test run I only had the top secured with 2 sided tape and it popped right off.

I should probably paint it as it is mostly made of scraps I had laying around the shop.

A shop vac won't move enough air to collect all the dust from a table saw. 

A bunch of that is way above my paygrade, but they seem to be saying that for their particular application a Thien seperator is more efficient than a cyclone, but together they are more efficient then the individual components.

Interesting that their concern is the actual recovery of the particulate to keep their process going where we are interested in collecting the particulate to get rid of it.

Quote from: BernardNaish on July 11, 2014, 06:12:38 AM
Is this responsible? Would I risk exposing my young Granddaughters to this dust?

See

http://www.jpthien.com/smf/index.php?topic=1103.msg6005#msg6005

Are you venting close to where they would be playing?  I would guess the amount of dust would be much less than what is in the air naturally on a windy day if they are a reasonable distance away from the outlet.

Hmm, I will have to double check, but I don't think it is spot welded on, I seem to remember seeing an actual bead of weld the whole way along.

Kind of disappointing, I was thinking the "auger" would help spin the air even more above the baffle.  If I have to cut it out it will probably be less work for me to fab up a tophat and be done with it.

Finally stepping up from the shop vac/can topper thien seperator, just picked up a King Canada KC-3108C 2HP single stage collector for $100.

The collector ring isn't what I was expecting though, it has a spiral air ramp in it.  Not sure where I should be positioning the baffle.

I really like the setup TX_Lenadore has here http://www.jpthien.com/smf/index.php?topic=1054.0 and want to do something similar.

A bit of help with positioning the baffle would be greatly appreciated.

build yourself a simple vacuum relif valve into the top, such that it opens before the container crushes.  I made one out of a short piece of PVC, with an end cap on it, drilled 2 holes in the endcap, one on center one off center.  Then made a wooden plug to fit loosely in the pvc, covered it in rubber to make a seal, and used a bolt and a spring through the center hole of the cap to secure it.  You can adjust the pressure at witch it opens by tightening or loosening the bolt.

or youcould buy one readymade from a place that does home central vacs.  http://www.centralvacuumfactory.com/vacvalve-relief-valve-central-vacuum-systems-p-954.html

That dust collector will need to be plugged in to at least a 20 amp circuit.  You will need to contact an electrician to come in and install a 110v 20a breaker, appropriate wiring and receptacle.

Induction motors draw much more than FLA at startup, and fan loads like a dust collector are hard starting, they start under pretty much full load and I would guess that motor on a 15 a circuit will trip the breaker at startup every time.

I built one, short section of abs pipe, with an end cap on it, drilled 1 hole right in the middle for the bolt, and one off to the side for air.  cut a round piece of mdf to fit in the pipe, drilled a center hole for the bolt, and glued a piece of bicycle inner tube to it.  a small slit to let the bolt through, but still seal against the inside of the endcap.  put a spring onder the mdf, then a washer and nut.  The spring tension is adjusted by the nut.

I know others have done this as well, but I aded a vacuum relief valve to my trash can top seperator so if the hose gets blocked the shopvac doesn't crush my metal trashcan.

Quote from: RonS on January 26, 2012, 08:07:14 PM
Doug
Here is an artical from Fine Woodworking Mag that has some very good Ideas on how to improve the dust collection from Table Saws. 

Ron

Thanks for that, have been working on setting up better collection on my contractor saw.