Triton dust collector

[AlanG]

A product I hear very little of on this site is the Triton dust collector. I use on connected to a cheap vacuum cleaner (£25).
The vacuum cleaner is connects to the Triton bucket and a hose from the bucket runs to the machine creating the dust. It woks fine for table saws, band saws, mitre saws, even a thickness planer. It holds about 35 litres of chippings and the filter in the vacuum cleaner takes care of the small dust particles that the Triton misses the set up is cheap enough to allow more than one unit in the workshop and saves the need to run ducting around the walls, and you still have something to clean the car with.
Alan

 

[Midnight]

Alan.... is this some kinda seperator?? i.e. hose from the tool thru the trash can lid... back out the trash can on a 2nd hose to the DC.... seperates the big stuff...???

 

[AlanG]

Hi Mike
Yes it’s a cyclonic separator, a 35 litre bucket with two inlets; you can use one inlet or both, the unit has it’s own micro filter and is powered from a household vacuum cleaner, Vacuum cleaners are so powerful and quiet nowadays you need only buy a cheap one.
Nothing gets through to the bag in the cleaner and that never need changing.
I’m about to buy a second unit to sit at the other side of the workshop’ so I have no excuse not to use dust extraction.
If I had to find a fault with the Triton, it would be the rather stiff hoses that it is supplied with; in cold weather they are not very pliable.

Alan

 

[Midnight]

Alan... given the £2/bag for my shop vac, something like that makes a lot of sense. Do you have an online supplier for them?? At that price it's not gonna take too long to recoup the cost in savings.

 

[Anonymous]

The following adverts say it's 20 ltr, not 35 ltr:

http://www.diytools.co.uk/diy/Main/Prod ... uctID=2264

http://www.rutlands.co.uk/cgi-bin/psPro ... ,0,0,1|23|

Andrew

 

[Johnboy]

Axminster sell these:- http://www.axminster.co.uk/default.asp?part=DCS which you could adapt to fit smaller diameter hoses. The Triton seems a lot of money for a 20 litre plastic bin.

John

 

[Anonymous]

A couple of points worth mentioning about that modified dustbin lid available from Axminster.

Last year I built a cyclone unit based upon DIY plans provided by someone else. There was a web site showing this, unfortunately I no longer have the URL.

The first issue was that the plastic dustbin I purchased to act as the receptacle (and I went for the most rigid dustbin I could find in the local garden centre) literally collapsed inwards when the vacuum was applied, it didn't keep its regular shape which is absolutely required for the cyclone to work properly. The only way I could think of solving that problem would have been to fibreglass the dustbin!

The 2nd issue with the axminster dustbin lid is that there is no cyclone! So you'd have to be inventive about how to use it - just sticking it on top of a regular dustbin might not give ideal results.

Andrew

 

[johnelliott]

Last year I built a cyclone unit based upon DIY plans provided by someone else. There was a web site showing this, unfortunately I no longer have the URL.

Will you be publishing pictures, better still, a review?
John

 

[Anonymous]

Will you be publishing pictures, better still, a review?

Unfortunately not. I threw the cyclone dustbin out a while back because I picked up a proper vac on ebay

Andrew

 

[Keith Smith]

The Triton and the Axminster bin lid are dust separators not cyclones, the air my spin a bit but that does not make a cyclone. The Triton is only suitable for small power tools, definitely not a planer thicknesser, not least due to the very narrow hoses.

And following on from Handymac's post I built a dust separator and made the front of acrylic so I could see all the dust being trapped, and tell when it was full. The first time the hose blocked the unit imploded with terrific power, frightened the living daylights out of me. To give you some idea of the stresses a decent shop vac will work at 2Bar, that is 30lb per square inch.

I have been researching cyclones for a year now and plan to try to build my own next year, although it is a simple idea, it is very complicated if you want to keep any air flow with anything but a jet engine powering it (very slight exaggeration).

Keith

 

[Johnboy]

Keith, I don't understand the bit about 30 lbs per square inch. A perfect vacuum will only give a pressure difference of 1 bar (approx 15lbs/square inch). Axminster reccommend a heavy duty bin be used, presumably to prevent collapse. Anyone tried this?

John

 

[Anonymous]

Keith, I don't understand the bit about 30 lbs per square inch. A perfect vacuum will only give a pressure difference of 1 bar (approx 15lbs/square inch). Axminster reccommend a heavy duty bin be used, presumably to prevent collapse. Anyone tried this?

As I said previously, not specifically with the Axminster lid but the one I built was with a sturdy plastic dustbin which required a fair amount of effort on my part to collapse manually. I made an Axminster lookalike dustbin lid out of sturdy MDF and it was a good seal on the dustbin.

Connected to a 1200w vacuum cleaner - which is fairly equivalent to a decent home vac - and it collapsed very easily if you blocked the hose. And that wouldn't have been anything like 2 bar pressure.

I think a simple metal dustbin might not have faired any better.

I toyed with the idea of putting a spokeless bicycle rim around the outside of the dustbin and attaching to that, but my interest waned at that point so I never got around to it.

Andrew

 

[devonwoody]

I use the triton dust collector on my triton gear and also connected to a pull mitre saw, and I have to empty quite regularly, so it must work. By the way you can always tell if your vacumn cleaner is working, if you have to empty it. I find this also stops the wife keep asking for a new model!!!
Any sawdust on the floor is also taken care of also with this machine. However I would agree with the earlier remark, most probably unsuitable for a planer/thicknesser and bandsaw

 

[Alf]

I noticed Lee Valley carry a genuine (apparently) cyclone lid. As it's under the Veritas name, I wonder if Brimarc would be able to stock them...?

Cheers, Alf

 

[cambournepete]

I've built a lid similar to the axminster one using a couple of 100 mm steel flanges (?) that I rescued from a skip (I actually got about 10 of them), on top of a cheap plastic bin.

This I've connected to an axminster chipping collector (ADE1200) and this works reasonably well, picking up lots of stuff, and separating out the heavy stuff so the dust collector doesn't fill quickly. It also means you can vacuum the floor without nails etc hitting the blades of the collector. I haven't blocked the pipes on this, but as it's HVLP it shouldn't hurt. The biggest problem is stability, with the 2 s/s flanges overbalancing the bin.

The Triton collector also works reasonably well, but as has already been stated, both of these are separators, not cyclones.

 

[Keith Smith]

John the word vacuum in vacuum cleaner is a bit of a misnomer, the vacuum cleaner works by creating suction not a vacuum, therefore it is possible to create as much negative pressure as the equipment will allow.

For instance the Camvac machines create 2.08Bar of vacuum pressure.

 

[Chris Knight]

Keith,

Like Johnboy I am lost here. Surely even a perfect vacuum at sea level, is not going to create a pressure differential of more than 1 bar?

 

[ike]

KeithS wrote:

For instance the Camvac machines create 2.08Bar of vacuum pressure.

If 1 bar is atmospheric pressure, then surely 2.08 bar is not a vacuum at all but exactly the opposite - pressurization. I thought vacuum is expressed (metrically) in millibars e.g. typically 220 millibars for a decent dust extractor. Or am I wrong on this?

It's a bit long winded to have to refer to a "partial-vacuum cleaner" don't you think?

 

[mudman]

1 bar is effectively a measure of the column weight of air above you and comes out at about 14 lbs per sq. inch. So, if you take a bin that is about 19 inches across and about 36 inches tall and take all the air out of it. Then all that air will be pushing in all over the sides and top and will amount to a total weight in excess of 15tons. :shock: It's no wonder your humble plastic bin will quickly do an impression of your acerbic aunty sucking on a lemon. :wink:

Cheers,
Barry

 

[Keith Smith]

OK, forget the word vacuum and call them suction machines.

I'll have a go at explaining this then wait to get shot down :roll:

Atmospheric pressure will support approximately 10metres of water (1bar), a suction machine of the type made by Camvac will support approximately twice that (2bar) or as ike correctly said 2000mb. Sorry ike, I'm used to using bars for pressure from scuba diving.