Cyclone continued

[Barry Burgess]

I had some time on my hands this afternoon as I was command to make a bed head or two but SWMBO failed to come up with the design and went to London so I decided to go back to continuing with my cyclone
The story so far
Extractor with filters

The cyclone attached to the extractor

Removing most of the extractor and putting the filters in their own stand

I am left with these bits to take to the dump unless anybody wants them???

The last thing I still have to complete is moving the motor and impellor on top of the cyclone and swith to short steel tubing.
I also have to test my baffle in the new arrangement

 

[Mcluma]

big guestion

HOW IS IT WORKING - is it an improvement on the hold one

 

[Mike.C]

Barry, thats bloody brilliant. =D> :mrgreen: well done mate. I am continually amassed at the talent of many members of this forum. It is a pleasure witnessing the things that you produce. =D>

Cheers

Mike

 

[Barry Burgess]

big guestion

HOW IS IT WORKING - is it an improvement on the hold one

The big improvement was when removing the bags and replacing them with the filters. The motor drew an extra 3amps suggesting that the through put was far better. The problem with an extractor with filters is that too much dust gets to the filters. With the cyclone 99% of the dust is retained in the cyclone and the filters continue to work at a very high level. Without the cyclone I expect that the performance would fall after 2 to 3 weeks unless the filters were cleaned.

 

[Quetech]

Barry

If the cyclone is knocking out most of the dust why dont you
just pipe the extractor outlet outside and do away with the filters.

Mike

 

[Barry Burgess]

Barry

If the cyclone is knocking out most of the dust why dont you
just pipe the extractor outlet outside and do away with the filters.

Mike

The filters are .5 micron so they catch the dust you do not see and that is the most dangerous. I don't think I would be a good neighbor if I pumped this into the air - do you??
Barry

 

[BrianD]

This is brilliant !
I have been familiar with hydro-cyclones and you application is very effective!

Question: What angle have you found to be best to generate the cyclone?

I think you have inspired me to look into building my own as well. It is effective in using floor space.

Well done!

 

[Barry Burgess]

T
Question: What angle have you found to be best to generate the cyclone?

Brian you must remember that this cheapie cyclone's beginnings are a flower pot from Ikea and a 65 litre drum. I tried to use the ratio of 1.6 to 1 (cone to barrel) but compromises were made. The dust inlet started life as a kitchen extractor pipe.
Barry

 

[JPEC]

Brian

Have you had a look at the 'extracting MDF dust' thread

Cheers

Julian

 

[BrianD]

Thanks for the info on the site. Amazing amount of research and effort has gone into this :shock:

Now I am very keen! :lol:

 

[Losos]

Mike - Apart from the environmental aspects, as Barry mentioned, another reason for not piping the air to the outside is that you will loose a lot of heat
That's a major consideration here in Czechland (Can sometimes be minus 20 in winter ) and I suspect that even in England you don't want to spend money heating the shop & then vent the 'warm' air outside.

 

[AndyBoyd]

Just curious, what filters did you use, special ones designed for your DC or others (I hear Truck air filters are very effective and cheap)

I like your IKEA plant pot ide for the cone, very neat

 

[dickm]

Just curious, what filters did you use, special ones designed for your DC or others (I hear Truck air filters are very effective and cheap)
[snip]

I'd been wondering about truck filters too - has anyone tried this, and if so, what make of truck???

 

[Barry Burgess]

I used Donaldson Torit Cartridges that I found on Ebay at £46 each from RBINDUSTRIAL. These filter down to .5 micro. Truck filters, so I am told, only get down to 5 micro so let out the bad MDF dust. My filter also has a area of 20m2 per filter. You require at least 10m2 per HP. I used a clamp meter to test the various combinations. The motor runs best with no filters and draws the most amps and worst with the cloth bags attached. By replacing the top bags with filters I increased the amps used by 3.

 

[Anonymous]

The motor drew an extra 3amps suggesting that the through put was far better.

Don't follow your reasoning here at all Barry. An induction motor's speed is determined only by the frequency of the mains supply, 50Hz in England.

Thus, your motor will be running at the same speed BUT taking more current. It will only draw more current if the load on it is greater and it needs to produce a higher torque - not higher speed.

I would suggest that perhaps you are getting less flow and more resistance against the impeller blades (you have a longer, more convoluted pipe network) which in turn requires more torque to spin it and thus more current drawn form the supply.

 

[Barry Burgess]

Tony I don't know but the pipe work was the same before and after the filters were installed. Post the filters, the suction was better so I presumed that the flow rate had improved. There is something about this I read on the Pentz site.

 

[Barry Burgess]

Sorry its a bit heath Robinson but I have attached my silencer/baffle to the system. What a result -the best is most of the noise has gone. I still have to test it with the bucket of dust and the amps used with the clamp meter.
I will try to borrow the meter from Roger S to test the decibel change

I just did a quick dash into the garage to install it and have retreated due to the heat.

 

[AndyBoyd]

Hmm interesting how did you make the baffle?

 

[Barry Burgess]

Andy I got the idea from here
http://billpentz.com/woodworking/cyclone/Muffler.cfm

I could not get the parts so I changed it to suit what I could find.
I replaced the metal snap to case with a piece of 11" PVC piping I found in a skip in France.I used a plastic 12" funnel to increase the diameter from 6" to 11".The outer layer was acoustic foam, then roof insulation followed by foam and fiberglass cloth around a 6" diameter chicken wire core. All my material was mostly what I had- bought the acoustic tiles.
Barry

 

[AndyBoyd]

Cool, a skip find in France - well done
Interested to read your noise reduction figures. Now you really spurred me on to get mine built. I have 2 extractors to use so I''m still deciding if it best to put them in series or parallel , both are 750w feeble things but since I have them and since they were free, I 'd thought I'd use them