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New to the site, new to woodworking and need advice.

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Neil Hjelmeland

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Greetings,

I'm just getting started into woodworking, something I've always wanted to do. With my wife's permission of course, a decision was made to build an outbuilding intended store bikes, mowers, etc., something that would make more room in our garage. Shortly after construction began, I realized it was going to be too nice of a building to be used as a storage shed and again with my wife's permission and more important, her blessing, it evolved instead into my new wood shop. She and my daughters call it my "tiny house"!

Due to the size of our lot and hilly terrain, I was somewhat restricted on the size of the building and settled on a 12' x 20' floor plan. It was built into the hillside on a concrete foundation with 8" poured concrete 4 ft walls on the rear and both sides. The remainder was built using 2x6 construction with 8' walls. It was during this phase of the construction when I found myself wishing that I could have built something with more square footage. My contractor was an old schoolmate of mine and very patient with my indecisiveness. So when I told him that since I couldn't go bigger, I wanted to go taller.... well a few weeks later stood my new two-story "tiny house"! I know I probably should have put more work and thought in the planning of this and have learned a few things along the way but it sure was a fun journey and I'm very happy with the final results. Since then I've installed a wood floor, insulated and finished the interior walls with 3/8" Smart Siding, small heater and had 100 amp service installed. I still need to add better lighting by upgrading the current basic single light bulb fixtures. Needless to say, I'm having a blast setting up shop and have already completed a few small projects.

When it comes to tools and equipment, I like quality and don't mind paying a little extra for it. Having said that, I love the old stuff that was built to last...something that I can repair without knowing how to read a foreign language. I have a Rigid table saw and DeWalt miter saw that I picked up from a family estate sale. I found an older Rockwell 6" jointer at a garage sale that is solid and works great. Arriving early at a few estate sales has also paid off with purchase of a drill press, radial arm saw, an air filtration system a few nice old routers and other misc. clamps and tools. I picked up an old Foley Belsaw thickness planer from an estate sale. I've never even used one before but it looked like a brute and built like a tank. I think I paid $150 for it. I guess they don't make these planers anymore but I found a supplier on the internet that carries all the original parts. The feed roller had seen their better days so I purchased a new set for $90. This past weekend I tore the machine down, cleaned it up, new feed rollers installed, a little chain lube, set the tension on the feed rollers per the owners manual that I also found on line and I've got myself a nice thickness planer. Again, very happy with those results.

I'm sure it was only a matter of time before my "not looking before I leap" was going to backfire on me. I've started reading up on the importance of good dust collection in a shop and have been in search of a good buy. This past weekend I found a used but new condition Kufo/Seco UFO-102B dust collector. Seemed like a great buy at $250. They sell between $700-$800 from what I found online. Knowing that I had my shop wired for both 110 and 220, I thought this machine would work great. What I didn't realize was that the dust collector has a 3 phase motor. I didn't even know what that meant. I focused only on the size of the unit and that it ran on 220.
I've done some research enough to know that there are a few options out there, one of them being a variable frequency drive. I know enough about electricity to get myself in trouble and know my limitations so I rely on electricians for that. My electrician happens to be out of town for a few weeks on a hunting trip so I made a visit to a local shop who sells and repairs large electric motors. They admitted to not know in much about the woodworking world or the equipment but did suggest that I try to resell this unit and find something that runs on single phase instead.

I'm hoping that someone on this site can offer me advice on what to do.

Thanks and sorry for being long winded.

Neil
 
Hi Neil, and welcome to the forum. :wave:

Sounds like you're on your way to having a lot of fun. That's a pretty nice lineup of tools so far.

On the dust collector, there are a couple of ways to run a 3 phase motor on single phase power. One of them involves electronics (the VFD) and the other is a (mostly) mechanical solution that involves using another motor (a rotary converter). Exactly how either one works is beyond my grasp of understanding, but I do know it can be done. I'm also not sure if it's something that lends itself well to dust collectors. I'm sure others here will chime in with more info.

Your dust collector looks pretty typical. I'm betting it might more cost effective to simply replace the motor with a decent 3 HP single phase motor. If you tore down your Belsaw planer I'm betting a motor swap on a DC would be a walk in the park for you. ;) I would, however, suggest that you look into upgrading the filter bags on that unit. Looks like it comes from the factory with 25 micron bags. In the world of wood dust and carcinogens, 25 microns is like a softball. I'd recommend something more in the 0.5 to 1.0 micron range. You should be able to find replacement bags, or you might want to consider cartridge filters. My dual-bag DC started with a pair of 25 micron bags. Now it has a single 0.5 micron pleated cartridge filter and a non-porous collection bag. And it still has better airflow now due to the additional surface area of the pleats.
 
Vaughn pretty much covered it (Welcome to the forum, BTW). At this point, anything you do is going to cost your more including any choice to power the unit as well as the filtration thing. It will also be difficult (probably) to sell the unit and recover your cost...though I'm sure you will be able to get something for it. At this point maybe consider this a lesson learned and write off your losses (ouch)? Move on to a different unit, keeping in mind the single phase power needs and the filtration you'll want. Putting a VFD on it would not be very hard and you might even get one for less than $200 or so.....but then you would still have to deal with the filters, a replacement motor might be in the same (or more) cost range, so I think I'd move on. Keep us posted on what you decide.
 
Welcome to our Family, Neil! :wave:

Vaughn and Fred made good points. The main advice I like to offer new woodworkers is to review before you buy anything. I'm a price/value type of person, so I don't buy the most expensive just because "it must be better". I have a fair amount of Grizzly equipment, some Jet and some DeWalt. Look around and ask questions.
 
Hey Neil, sounds like you're getting a good start alright!

I'll agree with Fred and Vaughn. The best way is either to replace the unit unless you can find a cheap motor replacement. A vfd would work but you're at marginal to negative cost benefit versus another unit. If it was a bigger more expensive unit the three phase plus vfd can be a good strategy because you get soft start and can potentially program it to manage your load / airflow (the load is directly related to the airflow construction and the vfd can read the load, so if you make it ramp up or down depending on the inlets open). For a smaller system like that though the cost and complexity doesn't really pay back.

If you do decide to go this route a lot of folks have bought stuff from these guys
https://www.automationdirect.com
http://vfds.com

This is the provider of the drive that powermatic uses on their lathes, which has seemed to work pretty well for me there (that's the one machine I have with a vfd).
http://www.delta-americas.com

Some folks have had luck with some of the eBay drives but that's definitely a "due diligence" required situation for any specific drive/seller.
 
Hi Neil and welcome! Glad you found us. It would be helpful to put your location in your profile. Might be someone near by that can share some knowledge/experience.
 
One advantage of going with a different unit altogether is the footprint size. A dual-bag (quad, actually) DC like the UFO-102B takes up a fair amount of floor space, and it quite likely more than you need for a one-man hobby woodshop. You can reduce that by about half with a single-bag model. Grizzly, Jet, and others make good, capable machines in a single-bag configuration. Here are some examples (with cartridges instead of bags):

http://www.grizzly.com/products/2HP...8ZP?utm_campaign=zPage&utm_source=grizzly.com

https://v-fans.us/dc-1100vx-ck.html

https://www.harborfreight.com/2-hp-industrial-5-micron-dust-collector-97869.html

The Harbor Freight model is the one I have. If you happen to catch a sale, and also use the ever-present 20% off coupon, they are hard to beat for the price. (I was mistaken about the original filter bags. They are 5 micron, not 25 micron.) I spent another $130 or so on a 0.5 micron canister filter from Wynn Environmental:

https://wynnenv.com/woodworking-filters/

I see the filter I have has gone up in price since I bought mine, but I still recommend it for the Harbor Freight DC:

https://wynnenv.com/products-page/woodworking-filter-pricing/35a100sbol-cartridge-kit/
 
Welcome to the forum and the world of woodworking. As the others have stated, I think you would be much better off in the long run to try and recover what you can from selling the UFO and get a unit that is better suited to your small shop. There is a large learning curve on getting equipment for setting up your new shop and I can only tell you to do a lot of research before you pull the trigger on anything. I have found that a good rule of thumb is to only add something new, if I need it for a specific project.
 
Welcome to the family Neil, i was in your shoes once and until i met the guys here had wasted a load of coin. Check in here before you buy, we got no restrictions on linking to a product or criticising a poor product or experience.

As to dust collection dont forget Oneida, its a US company all made in USA and they only do dust collection.

They have a cyclone that you can hook up to a HF (harbor freight unit) and end up with a very efficient dust collector for a reasonable price performance ratio. https://www.oneida-air.com/inventory.asp?catid={428A1AFA-E859-459E-8BF9-47817428D9AF}

I think its the Cobra where you can buy only the cyclone part.

Then there is also their smaller dust deputy cyclone that is unbelievably efficient if you hook it to a shop vac. It fits on top of a HD type bucket and lid. Good for hooking up to tools with small ports or that you use in a portable fashion around shop like say a router, or sander.
 
Thanks everyone for your input and advice. The same guy who built my shed also has a woodshop and does a lot of cabinet work. Just for the heck of it, I called him up to see if he or anyone else he knows might be interested in this DC. He couldn't help me with that but said he had a deal for me. He recently upgraded and had a dual powered Delta 50-850 that he would sell me for $150. It's a single phase 1hp unit with the cloth bag filter. I can't tell what the bag is rated for and I'm having a hard time finding the specs on line. Needless to say, I took it and so far it works great for my shop. He said that he used contractor plastic bags for the collection bag an they worked fine. I actual tried one of the cloth collection bags from the Kufo unit and it works great. The bag dia. is a bit smaller so it's a good snug fit.
Would there be an advantage to switching it to operate on 220 volt?

When I first set it up, the filter bag was pretty dusty, inside and out. I can't find anything online about the care of this unit except for what they call the owners manual but that seems to be only a parts list and assembly instructions. Assuming I stay with this filter bag or even upgrade to a better one, they still must need occasional cleaning and servicing??
The first floor of my shop is 12x20. My thoughts were to have my DC system upstairs and pipe it down thru the ceiling to the shop. I've watched some youtube videos on this and picked up a few pointers. Looks like this Delta might be a 5-6" port coming out to a Y with two 4" ports. I've read that you should keep the lines as large as the system will handle until you need to reduce to match the machine you are hooking up to. Any other thoughts on that?
As for the Kufo, I think I'm going to push it in the corner of my garage for now and see what happens. I did send an email to their company asking for the specs for a single phase motor that would run the UFO-102B. Who knows, I might get lucky and find a way to make it work for me without breaking the bank.
 
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Neil Hjelmeland said:
He recently upgraded and had a dual powered Delta 50-850 that he would sell me for $150. Would there be an advantage to switching it to operate on 220 volt?[/QUOTE}

Nice score! That's a better machine imho than the HF one..

At 1.5HP there is no real advantage to moving to 240v. The only real advantage of 240v is that you can run the same HP at lower amps which allows smaller wire and/or longer runs, and at enough HP its not really feasible to run them on 120v just because of the draw. At that size ... no real difference. You can see the wire size/run tradeoff in the manual on page 10:
http://go.rockler.com/tech/RTD10000115AA.pdf

Neil Hjelmeland said:
I can't find anything online about the care of this unit except for what they call the owners manual but that seems to be only a parts list and assembly instructions. Assuming I stay with this filter bag or even upgrade to a better one, they still must need occasional cleaning and servicing??
The first floor of my shop is 12x20. My thoughts were to have my DC system upstairs and pipe it down thru the ceiling to the shop. I've watched some youtube videos on this and picked up a few pointers. Looks like this Delta might be a 5-6" port coming out to a Y with two 4" ports. I've read that you should keep the lines as large as the system will handle until you need to reduce to match the machine you are hooking up to. Any other thoughts on that?
Click to expand...

The filter bags need fairly regular cleaning. Moving to a pleated filter like the Wynn Vaughn pointed at increases the need for cleaning unless you also do a pre-separator (I built a thien baffle for my dc.. like a cyclone but easier to DIY) but those also exact a pretty hefty performance hit. Not sure where you are or where the weather it, but if you can simply pipe it all outside and skip the filters you'll get the best airflow (downsides - this sucks all the hot/cold air out and may well annoy the neighbors, as well as plastering the general area with a fine spray of sawdust).

As for actually cleaning them there is again a tradeoff (this is only true for bags, for pleated filters the cleaner the better). The dirtier they are the better they'll filter (the dust cake acts as a secondary filter), but the worse your airflow will be. So you want to basically just shake them out good every so often. This is a horrible dirty dusty job and kind of obviates a lot of the reason we use a dust collector in the first place (keeping the dust out of your lungs). The best way I've found was to VERY carefully invert them into a garbage bag then tie off the mouth of both together then whale on it a bit to knock most of the dust loose. Let the dust settle a bit inside the garbage bag then reverse the process. When you turn it back on expect a big POOF of dust as it shakes itself back out.

For piping, there is essentially an inverse correlation between air speed and pipe size (larger pipe, lower air speed), conversely there is a direct correlation between pipe size and air throughput (larger pipe, more airflow). If the air speed gets low enough it starts to drop chips, so to big of a pipe doesn't work real well. OTOH you want to keep the pipe as large as possible up until it starts to drop chips. Looking at some reviews of the 58-850, imho you're going to have a hard time getting it to pull chips up a story with a 6" pipe. It will likely work at 5", but I'm not positive... its kind of on the edge - if you're not going very far and you keep bends to an absolute minimum (and nice smooth bends, no sharp 90s) you can likely get away with running a 5" drop. Finding 5" piping at a reasonable price is of course another trick.. I was able to cobble some short runs together out of stove pipe but its far from ideal (hard to assemble/seal and not exactly cheap unless you score a deal).

Pentz explains the airspeed requirements fairly well in his duct sizing document:
http://billpentz.com/woodworking/cyclone/ducting.cfm#ducting_diamter
Click to expand...
 
Welcome to the forum.

For dust collection, horsepower is your friend. Actually the impeller is the primary factor, but bigger impellers require more HP. Moving to a 1 hp unit seems like you are going too small. I had a 2 hp Grizzly with upgraded bags, and switched to a 5 hp cyclone in my one person, garage size shop. Duct work is critical as well.

You may be interested in my web site on getting started in a one-person woodworking business (or active hobbyist) www.solowoodworker.com . It includes a web page on understanding 3 phase and how to live with it in a single phase world. It includes an analysis on dust collection. Lots on finishing (I enjoy rather than hate it), and so forth.
 
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