Setting Up HF Dust Collector ++++

Mike Turner

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Laurinburg NC
I have my HF 2hp dust collector almost together.I am thinking about making a Thein Top Hat baffle but was wondering about something. I did get the Wynn filter too!

I have my DC mounted on the base plate it came with.Is it absolutely necessary to make the separator like in this link so that it sits on top of the trash can or can I leave the dc as is on the base and make it to fit it like that?

http://lumberjocks.com/projects/29578

Also will the plastic bag (collector bag) hold up for long?Looks like it might not.

Have any of you beefed up the platform/base or the entire unit? I know I wont be moving around a lot but would be good to be a stronger unit.

Thanks in advance for your help!!!
 
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Definitely not necessary to flip the impeller, but it does offer a couple of advantages (and I opted to do so because of them):
  • Less space since you can share the room that the container takes with the impeller instead of having the bin off to the side.
  • the inlet and outlet runs are straighter which should improves airflow because you'll have much shorter and straighter runs. Some other folks did what they called the "stovepipe" mod which replaced the flex between the impeller and the bag assembly with bent stovepipe and reported decent airflow increases so even that short run of flex matters. I'd also note that I replaced the impeller->bag assembly with a short piece of straight 5" stovepipe and that worked swimmingly.

On the downside it does possibly put more strain on the bearings as they aren't apparently designed to run like that.. I can't speak to that being an issue or not given the low usage I have on my system (maybe a couple dozen hours of actual runtime over the last 3 years, I just turn it on when I need it right then).

Some of the folks who've just made the mod by putting a baffle into the bag/filter assembly reported almost as good of separation with less airflow loss... I haven't tried that (since I'd already built a top hat by the time I read it :D). The downside to that is that pulling the bags is more of a pain that dropping the collection bin under the top hat in my experience (ok pulling the bag is easy, getting it back on.. well grrr...). On a similar note I eventually took some bicycle innertube and ran it over top of the wynn filter so I could clamp it in place from the outside without having to pull the bag underneath (yes I still need to clean the filter sometimes).

The plastic bag hasn't been a problem thus far. With the baffle only a wee bit of really small stuff and the occasional lightweight thing (shop rags mostly, they don't sound good when they hit the impeller :eek:) that escaped the baffle make it into it anyway.
 
Great minds think alike. Just purchased and set the HF dust collected. Just did it stock no modifications yet. Hook to table saw and planer for the moment. Made a world of difference in dust in the air. The filter bag seems to work well. I'll keep my eye on this thread for other ideas.

David
 
Mike, it's not necessary to do the Thein baffle as a top hat. I did mine between the filter and the bag. I do like the idea of having the big stuff go into a separate container like shown in the Lumberjocks link you posted, though. As Ryan said, there are some advantages to doing it that way. It would definitely cut down on how often bag would need to be emptied. I might even consider doing the same with mine one of these days. Anyway, here's how I did mine:

http://www.jpthien.com/smf/index.php?topic=145.0

The plastic bags that come with the Wynn filter last quite a while if you take care not to let anything poke into the bag. I typically got half a dozen or more fillings before the bag was starting to look worn out. (Never did have one completely fail and blow dust all over the shop.) I did buy an extra ten bags a year or so after I bought the filter, and still have a few of them that have not been used five or six years later. (Granted, the past few years the DC has not been used much at all.) I ended up putting self-stick rubber weatherstripping around the outside of the center separator, underneath where the band clamp goes to hold the bag. I figure it helps the seal a bit, and it also provides a cushioned area for the clamp to push against the edge of the bag. I also fold the top couple of inches of the bag over (like the cuff on a pant leg) to reinforce the edge. And putting the bag on the DC was one of the few things I'd get my wife to help me with in the shop. That job goes a lot faster with four hands instead of two.

David, sometime after you've been running your DC for a while, turn off your shop lights and shine a flashlight beside the filter bag on your DC. That'll give you an idea of how much fine dust is getting by the filter bag. ;)

Ryan, I concur about the shop rags and the noise they make. The edge pieces to those interlocking foam floor mats also makes quite a bit of noise. By far though, the best one I've heard is the empty Coke can. Now THAT'S a racket. :rofl:
 
I was proud of bargin paid for HF DC then this morning it's on sale for $169. Back to store for price adjustment. Paid $209. Guess that's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.
Vaughn don't need to check dust that way, just look through my glasses
 
I was proud of bargin paid for HF DC then this morning it's on sale for $169. Back to store for price adjustment. Paid $209...

Even at $209 that's a good price for a piece of equipment that'll get a lot of use. :thumb: Getting an additional $40 off is worth the drive back to HF.
 
Even at $209 that's a good price for a piece of equipment that'll get a lot of use. :thumb: Getting an additional $40 off is worth the drive back to HF.

:thumb: Yup, those 20% coupons really add up as well! Last time we

The plastic bags that come with the Wynn filter last quite a while if you take care not to let anything poke into the bag. I typically got half a dozen or more fillings before the bag was starting to look worn out.

With the top hat and barrel setup I think mine will last indefinitely. I mean eventually the plastic will disintegrate but that will take a while. I've also seen some folks who have the top hat who replaced the bag with a hard bodied construct (can't remember what, another short barrel maybe? having trouble finding the link today...) because there is so little clean out you need to do. Basically the same setup idea that the cyclone guys do.

I ended up putting self-stick rubber weatherstripping around the outside of the center separator, underneath where the band clamp goes to hold the bag. I figure it helps the seal a bit, and it also provides a cushioned area for the clamp to push against the edge of the bag. I also fold the top couple of inches of the bag over (like the cuff on a pant leg) to reinforce the edge. And putting the bag on the DC was one of the few things I'd get my wife to help me with in the shop. That job goes a lot faster with four hands instead of two.

Yup, yup - I think I stole the weather stripping idea from you, definitely a winner :thumb:

Ryan, I concur about the shop rags and the noise they make. The edge pieces to those interlocking foam floor mats also makes quite a bit of noise. By far though, the best one I've heard is the empty Coke can. Now THAT'S a racket. :rofl:

:eek: :rofl: I've only had one oh no! moment when a scrap of wood to big to fit through the slot got sucked up in there and hit the impeller, it screeched like a banshee for a minute until I made it to the shut off switch. Luckily no apparent harm done. That was one moment where I thought to myself "man a cyclone would have worked better there"!

Speaking of which the one problem I had during my build was with planer shavings. My planer generates them in volume and (especially in soft woods) makes long stringy ones. The initial slot I made was fairly narrow and separated really well for sawdust (the narrower the slot the better the separation - don't ask me to explain the physics of why I can't) but would jam up horribly with the planer shavings so I had to widen it out a fair bit. The upshot of this is that you should make whatever you do easy to disassemble because it will likely need some tweaking.
 
Greetings to all,
If there is anything lower than a newbie-that's me.
I bought a HF DC and am now trying to figure the most appropriate mod for it. I plan to order the wynn filter for it. That's all I know for sure.
My questions are :
1. I see references to a neutral vane and I haven't figured out what it is.
2 . The Thein separator is really confusing me. I see so many variations that I'm not sure which is best for me. Which of these variations seem to be the most effective? I have 3/4 of a 2 car garage. I have a table saw, miter saw and can see getting a plane, a joiner and some type of sander. I have no plans for a lath or any other machine that will produce a lot of dust. Dust collection is important to me, so any ideas, recommendations or links to ideas will be greatly appreciated. Lloyd
 
Lloyd, like Ted said...Welcome. As for the neutral vane, I'm not sure what you are seeing referenced but that's generally something that's on a cyclone body. At the inlet, the neutral vane would continue the inlet into the body past the center line of the center vertical pipe (geez, I hope that made sense!). This makes for a more efficient circulation within the body leading to better separation of the dust from the air stream. I've not seen that used with a Thein, but best let others speak to which of the designs is best.
 
New Setup

Lloyd, like Ted said...Welcome. As for the neutral vane, I'm not sure what you are seeing referenced but that's generally something that's on a cyclone body. At the inlet, the neutral vane would continue the inlet into the body past the center line of the center vertical pipe (geez, I hope that made sense!). This makes for a more efficient circulation within the body leading to better separation of the dust from the air stream. I've not seen that used with a Thein, but best let others speak to which of the designs is best.

I don't mean to put anyone on the spot as being a Thein expert. I just would like to know if you had to start over-how would you set up your dust collector based on the HF DC. Thanks , Lloyd
 
1) Basically its just an airflow guide on the inlet to keep the incoming airflow from coming straight in and disrupting the swirling airflow. Its more important with cyclone type units than the thein (at least we think it is, is there a fluid dynamics expert in the house ;)). I don't think I'd worry about it on pass one.

2) A lot of it boils down to what you want out of the separator and how comfortable you are doing the various builds.

The simplest setup is definitely the one that Vaughn linked to above. It gets you most of the benefits without a lot of hassle. The main advantage is simplicity of the build and low cost of materials. The main downsides are that you have to remove the bag to clean it and the separation happens after the impeller. Removing the bag isn't a huge deal, but a bit of a pain in the neck to put back on. The advantages of having the separation before the impeller may well be more imagined than actual as I've had a few things make it past the separator anyway (I suspect it would matter with a cyclone more, the thien doesn't seem to stop some larger items from slipping through on occasion).

The setup I went with is the "top hat" where you basically build something akin to the round support ring with a separator in it that goes before the impeller. In theory these are slightly more efficient (how much is pretty highly debatable, maybe none, maybe a little, a lot seems to depend on the specific build). The other advantage is that its (somewhat) easier to add a hard sided barrel under the separator so you don't (normally) have to deal with taking the bags on and off, but just drop and remove the barrel. The downside is that its a lot more complicated to build and the material costs can be substantially more (unless you have scraps laying around you can use and a place that gives you barrels for the price of "if you're taking one you have to take two" :D).

In short pretty much all of the designs work, and there are only relatively slight performance variations between them. Most of the difference is in the other advantages on minor increases in ease of use down the road.
 
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