DC questions again

Carol Reed

In Memoriam
Messages
5,533
Location
Coolidge, AZ
OK, looking for the latest scoop on tricking out the HF dust collector. What say the collective brain trust?

Not recycling the shop air. DC will not live in the shop with me, so no fancy filter bags, etc. Ducting will be minimal and under the building as much as possible.

Also, large stationery machines (TS, DP, SCMS, BS, and spindle sander) will not be located in the area of this DC. And the lathes live in their own house.

This new DC needs to cover the messy stuff like the router, jointer(s), RAS, 2nd SCMS, mortiser, Performax, planer, etc.

And down the road, a cnc. :wave:

And those of you drooling over my tool inventory, I also have another shed with metal working tools. No welder yet. I gave my good wire welder to my brother for helping me move 6 years ago. So he does my welding. :thumb:

Can't get all this under one roof. County won't let me. :dunno:
 
My suggestions, based on personal experience:

1. Wynn cartridge filter. The washable one would be nice...I have the 0.5 micron paper one, so it's a bit more work to clean*.

2. Thien separator, either as a separate unit over a trash can, or built into the "cyclone" of the DC itself. Here's how I did mine:

http://familywoodworking.org/forums/showthread.php?t=13551&highlight=thien





* Since adding the Thien separator, I've only had to clean the filter twice, and both times it was because something got sucked into the DC and broke up the airflow.
 
Oops...I missed the part about not recycling the air. You still might want a standalone Thien separator to keep the big stuff out of the impeller, but aside from that, I'd say duct it up and let it blow and go. :D
 
Carol,
I use a 2 hp HF DC in my shop... I have it piped to both lathes, the table saw and the band saw only.... I do agree with Vaughn... if you can, insert a separator in the line somewhere to take out the big stuff... I don't have one yet, and if I'm turning green wood or even not so green, but getting really good shavings, i.e. ribbons, coming off the wood, it will clog the screen in front of the impeller... does get to be a pain in the pastututty...

My DC is in a separate shed/closet on the end of the shop (piped through the end wall..) outside so I have to go out and around the building every time I have to clear the screen... I'm not sure I left enough room in the closet to put a separator in... maybe a smaller garbage can, but probably not a full 33 gallon. Since it's in a separate shed and not in the main shop, I only use the bags, no filters or fancy bags... I think mine is a 5 micron from Grizzly... I put a low micron felt type bag, but the critters around here liked the felt as nest liner and took most of it for that... I wound up with 6-12 inch holes in the bag... wound up with nearly an inch of dust over everything in the outside shed... the dust blowing through the crevices looked like smoke coming out of there.

I don't use my DC on the planer, I always take that outside to use because of the mess and I don't have a DC port on my planer..
 
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