Best Dust/Chip extractors for small workshop - Advice Please

[MikeJhn]

Wizard9999

I noted your comment re the HEPA bag, it may be opportune to point out in case you don't know that the standard proprietary Numatic bags are HEPA filters, but they only fit onto the straight connector out of the unit, not onto the cyclonic connectors which have no spigot inside to push the flexible bag orifice over, the bags do have a tag to push inside to seal the bag once removed from the spigot.

Mike

 

[beech1948]

Wizard999,

I will share the info when I have anything to report. Current status is that I have called both compabnies and now await a returned call from a tech specialist.

Ah, ok thanks, I assumed you were further into the process than you actually are. I was only just on the Wynn Environmental site earlier wondering what it would cost to have their products shipped over, or indeed whether I could get away with a filter as hand luggage :lol:

Terry.

Terry,

Sort of quite advanced and yet not. The reason is that I have been considering options for the past 3 months and that makes it not simple.

What I want is a two stage Dc which has a 5hp motor with a 16" impeller fitted onto the top of a cyclone with the exhaust of the cyclone going through a set of filters about 12" across and 5 to 6ft long arranged vertically with a small dust box at the end.

The cyclone was to have been metal. The quotes from local and distant sheet metal fabricators seem to indicate that they are making it out of first class diamonds so metal is a no go. My sheet metal skills are non existant so its not a DIY effort.

I considered a plastic cyclone from Cyclone Central but there is no way to mount the motor and impeller above the cyclone.

I recall the use of card to make the cyclone shape and then covering with fiberglass and resin inside and out and will probably go that way after the 2 months evening tuition I am going through on fiberglassing at the local college. I can at least make it any size I want.

I have a 5hp single phase motor which is suitable and should give nearly 3000m3 through the cyclone.

I have made a metal impellor with 12 blades.......its fine but hard to balance dynamically properly....still some way ( read hours of effort) from perfecting this. Metal impeller blades have been welded by a friend and inspected under xray as he is an aircraft airframe engineer at Farnborough. Should be tough enough to last and not fall apart. I have had to built a fixture to hang the motor/impeller from to guage dynamic balance and that took an age...3 weeks effort.

Intake is going to 5" round to rectangular and outlet is going to be 4" to final filters.

I am about 2 months away from starting the cad/fiberglass cyclone bodies and bolting them together.

The only unresolved issue now is the final Wynne like filters for the outlet.......companies have been slow to come back to me ( 1 month) so I need to start pushing them. I am starting to find that the industrial suppliers can provide a 25" long x 8" wide paper filter in a plastic net frame for about £40......really need to go to see them and feel the product.....keep getting bogged down as to closed or open ends, galvanised or stainless ends etc etc.....these companies do not grasp that a home brew effort is a bit less scientific that their approach. Good job I have a Physics degree.

However, these companies do understand the 0.3 micron issue and how to get there, how to clean out the filter and wether it is best to introduce the contaminsted air from the inside or outside...inside please I keep saying.

I'm sorry its a bit of a mish mash but there you have it.

Seems like I have another 3 months of part-time effort to go through yet.

 

[LancsRick]

Is there a good place to understand the hplv vs lphv discussion? In my simple head if you put a reducer on the end of a dust extractor then at that point it's hplv, but that probably just demonstrates my total lack of knowledge!

 

[PAC1]

Is there a good place to understand the hplv vs lphv discussion? In my simple head if you put a reducer on the end of a dust extractor then at that point it's hplv, but that probably just demonstrates my total lack of knowledge!

In simple terms a low pressure system is just a big blower which blows the dust into the bag so it needs lots of air and velocity to move the dust and keep it moving in the ducts. If you restrict the flow rather than increasing the velocity you starve the system of air and it fails. Hence for big machines 125mm, 150 or even 200mm duct is needed. A vacuum system works by building air pressure hence the vacuum pressure rather than the amount of air it moves is the important measure.
If you have several hours to spare and want to receive some good information, some confusion and a search for perfection read Bill Pentz website. In short he concludes most commercial units are inadequate.
In the UK we now have the LEV requirements so commercial enterprises need to take dust collection at source very serious, we are now beginning to see some better designed units.

 

[LancsRick]

Thanks.. Glad I asked that, I would have happily blocked off the hose to just a single 63mm on some applications!

 

[PAC1]

If it is low pressure 63mm duct is a problem. There simply is not enough air. 63mm is not half of 125mm it is a quarter in approximate terms of area available but it is not a straight line reduction. So if it is 2000m3 at 125mm pipe, 63mm is not 500m3. Then you get a general reduction over distance and bends. A 63mm pipe might be lucky to see 250m3. You also need to focus on air speed 1250 m per minute is needed to keep dust airborne.

 

[Wizard9999]

Terry,

Sort of quite advanced and yet not. The reason is that I have been considering options for the past 3 months and that makes it not simple.

What I want is a two stage Dc which has a 5hp motor with a 16" impeller fitted onto the top of a cyclone with the exhaust of the cyclone going through a set of filters about 12" across and 5 to 6ft long arranged vertically with a small dust box at the end.

The cyclone was to have been metal. The quotes from local and distant sheet metal fabricators seem to indicate that they are making it out of first class diamonds so metal is a no go. My sheet metal skills are non existant so its not a DIY effort.

I considered a plastic cyclone from Cyclone Central but there is no way to mount the motor and impeller above the cyclone.

I recall the use of card to make the cyclone shape and then covering with fiberglass and resin inside and out and will probably go that way after the 2 months evening tuition I am going through on fiberglassing at the local college. I can at least make it any size I want.

I have a 5hp single phase motor which is suitable and should give nearly 3000m3 through the cyclone.

I have made a metal impellor with 12 blades.......its fine but hard to balance dynamically properly....still some way ( read hours of effort) from perfecting this. Metal impeller blades have been welded by a friend and inspected under xray as he is an aircraft airframe engineer at Farnborough. Should be tough enough to last and not fall apart. I have had to built a fixture to hang the motor/impeller from to guage dynamic balance and that took an age...3 weeks effort.

Intake is going to 5" round to rectangular and outlet is going to be 4" to final filters.

I am about 2 months away from starting the cad/fiberglass cyclone bodies and bolting them together.

The only unresolved issue now is the final Wynne like filters for the outlet.......companies have been slow to come back to me ( 1 month) so I need to start pushing them. I am starting to find that the industrial suppliers can provide a 25" long x 8" wide paper filter in a plastic net frame for about £40......really need to go to see them and feel the product.....keep getting bogged down as to closed or open ends, galvanised or stainless ends etc etc.....these companies do not grasp that a home brew effort is a bit less scientific that their approach. Good job I have a Physics degree.

However, these companies do understand the 0.3 micron issue and how to get there, how to clean out the filter and wether it is best to introduce the contaminsted air from the inside or outside...inside please I keep saying.

I'm sorry its a bit of a mish mash but there you have it.

Seems like I have another 3 months of part-time effort to go through yet.

That sounds like a serious system you are building there =D> . Would love to see some pictures when it is up and running. I know what you mean about having a metal cyclone made, I approached one place and they did not seem very interested in it, and the price was clearly going to reflect that so I ended up buying one of the larger sized plastic ones.

I think I am going to try and break out of my own analysis paralysis and go for a simple filter box for now, built to it the size of some off the shelf filters. If it works I will be happy, if not it will not have been a huge investment of time and money.

Terry.

 

[Wizard9999]

If it is low pressure 63mm duct is a problem. There simply is not enough air. 63mm is not half of 125mm it is a quarter in approximate terms of area available but it is not a straight line reduction. So if it is 2000m3 at 125mm pipe, 63mm is not 500m3. Then you get a general reduction over distance and bends. A 63mm pipe might be lucky to see 250m3. You also need to focus on air speed 1250 m per minute is needed to keep dust airborne.

Where does this leave you when you want extraction from a table saw cabinet and from a crown guard? Once the two separate pipes connect that will be fine, but for the run going to the crown guard it is unlikely to be more than 63mm at the point it joins the guard, even if it opens out into a larger pipe section immediately above the crown guard (if, for example there is a 100mm pipe down to the crown guard with a reducer at the crown guard).

Terry.

 

[PAC1]

The extract on my Suva guard is only 38mm. In the end I decided to put a dedicated vacuum on it so bought a Bosch L1200 when they were selling them off for £100 which I use for my Suva guard and tools such as the domino. When I compared the price to buying a Y piece and additional duct I decided it was the better option.

 

[hrk]

So would you say a camvac style extractor would be better for a table saw rather than having one of the axminster bag types (with fine filter) if my table saw only has a 63mm inlet on the back and a 30mm one on the hood?

 

[PAC1]

So would you say a camvac style extractor would be better for a table saw rather than having one of the axminster bag types (with fine filter) if my table saw only has a 63mm inlet on the back and a 30mm one on the hood?

if it is only servicing a table saw and not a planer then yes it is more likely a better choice. The problem is most of us have a range of machines and spend years looking for a single dust extractor solution.

 

[Markvk]

Excellent thread.... i now have a headache....and a cough

 

[Wizard9999]

I also would like to see some real test data from the Axminster machine as the motor is similar size to the Jet, but 2000m3/hr is nearly twice the Jet. Yet the Jet has a larger duct size and is tested with the 30 micron filter.

Interestingly I just noticed that Axminster provide a little more detailed information on the Trade machines than they do on the Hobby machines. In the description for the CT-90H they quote that it has a 1 - 2 micron rating at 80% capture, I presume that in other words that means it catches 80% of particles somewhere between 1 and 2 microns. No idea though if all the fine dust cartridges from Axminster have the same specification.


I also found the leaflet below on a recent further internet trawl, it references Bill Penz so hopefully it is technically sound, but is in a relatively concise and easily digestible form.

http://www.fwwa.org.au/Art005_WoodDust_c1.pdf

Some interesting points on duct size, for me the most worrying point is the limitation that the 100mm ports standard on most stationary machines seem to place on what can be achieved, however big your ducting runs. Having read it I started to feel tempted to go to 150mm duct rather than the 125mm I was planning to use, but my machines have 100mm ports and my extractor and cyclone both have 125mm outlets so I do not know how much benefit it will give. I really do not feel happy or indeed able to start cutting into my machines to open up a bigger port. Surely it would be better for manufacturers to have a 150mm port on the machine but supply it with a cheap 150 to 100mm reducer for those who only have 100mm, can't imagine it would add more than pennies to the cost for them.

Terry.

 

[Markvk]

I also would like to see some real test data from the Axminster machine as the motor is similar size to the Jet, but 2000m3/hr is nearly twice the Jet. Yet the Jet has a larger duct size and is tested with the 30 micron filter.

Interestingly I just noticed that Axminster provide a little more detailed information on the Trade machines than they do on the Hobby machines. In the description for the CT-90H they quote that it has a 1 - 2 micron rating at 80% capture, I presume that in other words that means it catches 80% of particles somewhere between 1 and 2 microns. No idea though if all the fine dust cartridges from Axminster have the same specification.


I also found the leaflet below on a recent further internet trawl, it references Bill Penz so hopefully it is technically sound, but is in a relatively concise and easily digestible form.

http://www.fwwa.org.au/Art005_WoodDust_c1.pdf

Some interesting points on duct size, for me the most worrying point is the limitation that the 100mm ports standard on most stationary machines seem to place on what can be achieved, however big your ducting runs. Having read it I started to feel tempted to go to 150mm duct rather than the 125mm I was planning to use, but my machines have 100mm ports and my extractor and cyclone both have 125mm outlets so I do not know how much benefit it will give. I really do not feel happy or indeed able to start cutting into my machines to open up a bigger port. Surely it would be better for manufacturers to have a 150mm port on the machine but supply it with a cheap 150 to 100mm reducer for those who only have 100mm, can't imagine it would add more than pennies to the cost for them.

Terry.

Terry,

where did you get your cyclone? the largest i can find is 100mm and im considering putting 2 in parallel.

 

[Wizard9999]

Terry,

where did you get your cyclone? the largest i can find is 100mm and im considering putting 2 in parallel.

I got mine from these guys on eBay
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Omni-LARGE-Du ... SwpDdVWzSE

But it seems the manufacture is not as accurate as it could be and the inlet and outlet seem to be slightly odd sizes and therefore need bespoke fittings to join them to standard ducting. Therefore, if I was buying again I would consider using an Oneida from Toolovation
http://www.toolovation.co.uk/product_p/axd002030a.htm

Hope that helps.

Terry.

 

[mr.alan.]

Still not made it to Axminster yet..but will be going Tuesday - ( They have Wood turning demos on thee too on Tuesdays) Anyhow ..will let you all know what info I glean from them and what recommendations - In the mean time...another question - I have an old wadkin Panel saw AG10 - now for those of you who are familiar with it It has no side panel on were the motor is. Now as crude as it may sound- would you just put your extraction hose "In" under the motor - or would you actually cut a hole in the rear for the extraction? Hope that makes sense. And thanks again for all your replies.

 

[mikefab]

Here's a pic of the extraction arrangement on my AGS 10.

The green metal but is original and I have added the ply and mdf box with the dust port. Works pretty well.

 

[Markvk]

Terry,

where did you get your cyclone? the largest i can find is 100mm and im considering putting 2 in parallel.

I got mine from these guys on eBay
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Omni-LARGE-Du ... SwpDdVWzSE

But it seems the manufacture is not as accurate as it could be and the inlet and outlet seem to be slightly odd sizes and therefore need bespoke fittings to join them to standard ducting. Therefore, if I was buying again I would consider using an Oneida from Toolovation
http://www.toolovation.co.uk/product_p/axd002030a.htm

Hope that helps.

Terry.

Now why couldnt i find those??? thanks Terry. the non ebay one is out of stock..... im waiting for axi to get back to me on some "spare parts" for one of their larger chip extractors, which will allow me to build my own system
im hoping to get the fan impeller, casing and mounts as spares the mount my own 3hp motor to it and connect it to the cyclone. i tried to find a 3hp version of this

https://www.tool-net.co.uk/p-366662/cla ... 0wodDlkErA

but have been unsuccessful so far, anyone seen one anywhere?

Mark

 

[mr.alan.]

Here's a pic of the extraction arrangement on my AGS 10.

The green metal but is original and I have added the ply and mdf box with the dust port. Works pretty well.

Great Idea! - I never new - I was missing a "Guard" for the motor till I seen your machine - I also do plastic fabrication- so I will make the whole guard and Dust port and do
exactly same- Thanks - also just noticed your Saw is on Castor base- is this the same as Axminster sell - also how do you rate it for pushing the machine back and forth and is it stable enough who cutting? - Thanks

 

[mikefab]

Here's a pic of the extraction arrangement on my AGS 10.

The green metal but is original and I have added the ply and mdf box with the dust port. Works pretty well.

Great Idea! - I never new - I was missing a "Guard" for the motor till I seen your machine - I also do plastic fabrication- so I will make the whole guard and Dust port and do
exactly same- Thanks - also just noticed your Saw is on Castor base- is this the same as Axminster sell - also how do you rate it for pushing the machine back and forth and is it stable enough who cutting? - Thanks

The caster Base is the Jet one which came with my previous PT. It's rated at 400kg but this is ambitious as I found when I put my sedgwick PT on it. It's solid enough with the saw and fine if you just want to roll it back and forwards but a pain to swing it around unless you have loads of space (which you probably don't if contemplating a wheeled base! )