Dust Collector/Cyclone

[Fried Elliott]

http://www.woodmagazine.com/ideashop3/cyclone.html

http://members.aol.com/woodmiser1/dust.htm

1. Watcha think of combining the ideas in these two pages into one design?

2. What would you use for a filter and where would you get it?

3. Could I attach a dust collection bag downstream of the filter?

4. I have a 1/3HP 1700RPM motor laying around in the garage and a Genie 2HP shop vac I never use because the attachments useless. Would you make the impeller and use the motor or would you just use the top head unit off the Genie?

5. Assuming I make the impeller and mount it on the motor for the cyclone, would you hook up the Genie downstream of the cyclone and before the filter/bag combo?

Video of a cyclone in action: http://home.att.net/~dustventinc/dvi...sofcyclone.htm

[Jim Boyd]

I tried his idea but found it too dangerous. But I was using a 2hp 3450 rpm motor. After 4 attempts on the impeller and as many impeller explosions, I went back to this
http://members.aol.com/Alamaral/DC.html
Very effective. I only use it on my planer and jointer with some flex hose. I have been following DC post on other forums and the consensus is to get something with a 12" impeller minimum and a cyclone is very taxing on a DC's performance. The Grizzley 2hp is sopposed to be a real "sucker" for the $. If you do make the DC you are asking about, let me know if it works. I do have a washing machine motor but went with the larger motor.

[Fried Elliott]

Hey Jim!

That looks like a pretty handy gadget too! If this thing gets out of control I might drop back to something along these lines. I bet I could pick up a lead blower in a pawn shop or something for next to nothing!

The impeller design is definitely the tricky part of this thing. In sleeping on it, I'm amazed the guy got the thing to balance out given how he did it. The link on the second link's page showed a guy's impeller made out of plexi in a plexi box --- note stabilization turnbuckles!

Normally I would say more power the better for anything, but I think mebbe you were a tad overboard with that 2HP @ 3400RPM my friend!!! What I might do is build a cyclone at full scale and then use just my 1/3 HP motor (free) to do some experimenting. As I told Sonny, I'm a former experimental physicist and so I love figuring gadgets out like this. Especially if I can make it for next to nothing!

I'm thinking along the lines of a squirrel cage on an axle rather than a blade system (too unstable).

[Fried Elliott]

Here I am replying to myself...

One more question? How do you guys dispose of what gets caught in your cyclones? In Plano Texas, we have regular trash once a week, recyclables twice a month, and curbside "anything" pickup once a month. We also have large (approx. 12"x16"x28" = 3 cu. ft.) heavy duty paper bags that we can use for yard trash, clippings, etc. I could make a box and use these as liners. Too small?

[Sonny Edmonds]

Fried,
Whoa! Slow down enough to do a bit of research on cyclones, Radial and modified radial fans, what actually takes place within a cyclone separator.
Believe me, it is very fastinating to actually watch what takes place. But there are "dirty air" blowers and "clean air" systems. (I got your emails.)
Unfortunately I can't get you a better picture of the system I have in it's entireity, but it works. And it works damn well.
Onieda air has an excellent site. They sell metal pipe, so they are very biased toward selling it.
I put my system together with a lot of experimenting. First time a knot when through my cheap blower I knew it wouldn't be long before it had a cyclone on it. But that was a "Pusher" system, the fan pushed the debrie into a bag.
Almost all the home shop systems do this, push. There are many available that are mini-cyclones now. Onieda, and now Delta have home scaled clean stream fan systems.
What you missed about my configuration is that a 1 1/2 HP, 1200 CFM home shop DC is sucking on the modified barrel separator, which sucks the piping system in the shop.
The pipe that's within the shop from the separator draws on the discharge of my first small blower which draws on the piping system that is distributed to my various machines through a network with blast gates at or near the point of use.
So in actuallity it is more akin to a two stage vacuum system. Both of these blowers operate at 3600 RPM. Both are controlled to come on at the same time remotely.
Thus, half way to the separator is a booster blower kicking the air stream and drawing on the "live" piping and hoses to the equipment.
You need to study sawmill systems to see how they have done it. My system mimics these with materials I could get at minimul or no cost.
The blower(s) are the heart of the system and need to be properly done for best performance.
I would never make a blower from wooden parts. The impact of any debries would surly cause it to fail sooner or later. The forces alone imposed on it will weaken it to failure. Balencing it would be another nightmare.
And as a phisicist you should well know that such small HP as you invision will not do a saticfactory job.
By the way, I have had the blower mounted on the separator before. But in reality having a puller and a pusher the way I have it moves a tremendous amount of air and debries. And the separation is at a flour-like dust in the bags after the separator. I now have one micron bags on it.
Did you explore the hyperlinks on my pages to see the pictures? Because you appear to have missed several key points.
Maybe we could walk through it slowly. Also if you click on the pictures they will load up larger on your monitor so you can see more detail.
I'll try and find the post I did about the results of measuring the flows for you. For some reference for you to ponder.


Sonny Edmonds
"Precision Firewood Specialist"
http://home.earthlink.net/~sonnypie/
God Bless America !

[Jim Boyd]

I checked you pics on you home-made cyclone. Very similar to the one I posted the link on. You blower is much better though. Your use of the plastic bucket has my curiousity up. I think I might add one on my set up and see if it reduces the chips that make to the bag. Thanks!

[Fried Elliott]

Hi Sonny!

Thanks for the detailed response! I did look over your site (which is great BTW) several times and tried to follow the pics. An old mentor once said, "You only learn that which you almost know already." In that spirit, please bear with me given that I knew ZERO about *any* of this stuff before I started researching it --- heck, I only learned Saturday that my crummy shop vac just might become a functional piece of equipment if I get it a decent filter! ;)

I too was concerned about the durability of wood or plexi impellers. Some metal fab is definitely the way to go. And it makes a lot of sense to me to be dropping the heavy stuff along the way before it ever gets too far downstream to the air filtering sections. As far as the little 1/3HP motor goes, I've been lugging that thing around through 5 moves over 20+ years and keep hoping I'll find a use for it. Wishful thinking overcomes logic every time!

Over the past 48 hours I've come to the conclusion that I'll slow this project down and maybe tackle it during the Christmas holidays; nevertheless, the pressure is ON from the Significant Other to get the dust under control and like right frickin' now! In the spirit of your own rumination on your website, we got things to do and little time or money with iwhich to do it, so "lets get on with the hog killin'" (same mentor). Find a decent filter for the shop vac. Pipe its exhaust to outside. Put together a simple separator. Get some decent attachments and hoses. Use it awhile and think about the design for the better one, hopefully a day when there is a little more time and money!

I have only half a garage and I probably will never be able to have all my tools permanently hooked up so a compact, powerful system that works real well for one assembly area (probably dropping down from overhead) and one or two ports coming off the wall on hoses to a saw, planer, etc. is probably about all I will be able to manage. When I get some Visio drawings made, I'll post 'em and let you guys have a look.

I have one question about your overall system. I notice you have a mix of 2.5" and 4" for the reasons your stated on your site. It looks as though the systems run somewhat in parallel. I can see the value of having 2.5 for things likes sanders and bench tops. If you could do it over again, would you stay large as possible up to the point of "attachment" or do you prefer your (from what I can determine) more parallel piping scheme? I see some guys talking about 6" home runs --- again, if you could do it again, would you go that big for the main lines?

Again, thanks for the tips! Your site was one of the first I really stopped at and said Whoa! (which means Go!) and so if you see me out there in the garage messing around it's now YOUR FAULT! (hee hee)

Fried

[dicklaxt1]

Freed..like in a free man

Fried..like in fried eggs


or.............Fred

This is Dick like in ........I better not say that........

In Rosenberg ,Texas

[PastorPaul]

You meant, "Dick, like in detective...", didn't you? :P

Pastor Paul

[Fried Elliott]

...as in Friedrich, which is German. Named after 5 generations of first-born "Friedrich" progeny on my mother's side of the family.

My mom thought she would be helping me out by shortening my name to "Fried" because she was concerned Americans would not be able to pronounce the rolled r and d properly in my full name. Gee, thanks mom; I mean this is much better.

I do use Fred when in restaurants and so forth. Whatever works! This is always fun: "What's your name?" "Fried." "How do you spell that?" "F" (they write F) "r" (they write r) "i" (they wait) "e" (they go ahead and write down two e's) "d" (they write d). Okay, suit yourself.

Fried eggs. French fried. Fried chicken. Fried green tomatoes... Lincoln freed the slaves, born to be freed. C'mon, bring your best stuff, I've heard it all! (hee hee)


frIed