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I’m currently using a shop vac with a dust deputy for dust collection at my drum sander. I’d like to upgrade to a better system.
I was given a grain dryer fan. It seems like this could be a good dust collector fan but it has an 8” intake. If I use it for a dust collector should I reduce it from 8” to 4” at the fan or at the sander?
And is it even a good idea? I like to save a buck when and where I can but if it’s going to be a pain to get there I might skip the idea and buy a real dust collector.

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Where will the dust be collected once the fan draws it from the sander?

The fan has a 5.5" X 8.25" out put. I thought I could put a 3 micron dust bag on it.

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This is the company's products I sell for dust collection . ( of course i set up entire factories ) However it does give a visual reference when thinking dust collection , you want to gradually step down from 8 to 4

http://www.spiralmfg.com/prod.htm

Dont know if that helps at all .

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don't be cheap on dust collection. I put in a Grizzly unit and it has to go. I need something that really works. Sanders can clog pleated filters pretty fast. Nothing is as frustrating a something that doesn't work the way they tell you it does

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Good advice John, I abused my lungs way too much back when I smoked wacky tobacky I was also thinking about a
http://www.grizzly.com/products/1-HP-Wa ... ctor/G0710
But it sounds like your not happy with Grizzly what are you looking at?

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Any kind of dust collection needs a pre-filter to filter most of the dust before it gets to the pleated filter. I've got a dust deputy hooked up to a shop vac and it does a pretty good job of keeping the dust down from my sander and the shop vac filter stays pretty clean. LOUD but effective.

http://www.woodworking-news.com/woodwor ... ator.shtml

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPxsrEaAG5g

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A good place to start is Bill Pentz's site. Lots of very useful dust collection information.
http://billpentz.com/woodworking/cyclone/ducting.cfm

I put off upgrading some of my large power tools in favor of equipping my shop with a cyclone dust collection system. In my case I installed an Oneida Super Dust Gorilla; the 2HP version was enough for my small 12' x 20' shop. I've had it for 4 years and never had to replace the filter since the cyclone does such a good job. Makes a huge difference in the shop and, for me, it was one of my best "tool" acquisitions.
[url]http://www.oneida-air.com/inventoryD.asp?item_no=XGK020105H&CatId={7F6C8978-92E8-4902-9A37-D8A254EDF4FC}[/url]

I realize not everyone can afford a cyclone but with the right information you can have a better chance of getting the best dust collection for the money you have available.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

The amount of dust collection depends on your through-put.

On my home-built sander, I have a dust-hood (barn roof style) with 2" dia. pipe to a dead shop vac body mounted in the machine base and a 2" dia. pipe in the center of the top to my shop vac. The shop vac has a cloth bag over the filter which can be cleaned. The dust-hood has sliding doors front and back to limit air flow and increase velocity. The barn-roof style hood keeps air velocity up in the hood.

I find most of the dust ends up in the dead shop vac and the rest is cleaned off the cloth bag.
More power is not always the answer.

Just my opinion.

Bob

You're right, it's not about power. It's about CFM. To get the CFM flow in a low pressure system like vacuums and dust collectors the critical factors are pipe diameter, pipe length, and the static pressure developed by the collector. Obviously the filter has to have the correct micron rating and if it's too restrictive it will reduce the static pressure of the system.

Anything is better than nothing but there are minimum performance standards if you want to reduce the small stuff that screws up your lungs and that we can't see.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Well, first and foremost with any dust collector is layout and gating. If you are getting a lot of fines gathering on your filters you probably have too small of diameter pipe. It creates to much velocity, particularly with a cyclone. The fines don't fall into the main collection bin. I have a 30' run of 8" followed by 40' of six inch. All of my y's are 8" to 6" or 6" to 6". I only go to 4" or 5" at the machine. My large planer, large tablesaw, 37" wide belt sander and big bandsaw are six inch to the machine. I've been running a 5 hp griz cyclone for six years without issue. Another thing, we pull the brushes through the filters a few times a day. Tim

I guess I am at a near commercial point. A separator is indeed part of the unit. It is a cyclone style but the pleated filters supplied are inferior and not designed for use with a sander. For table saws and larger particulate it would be fine. It has 3 hp and a high Cu Ft but it quickly drops in CFM as the filter blocks.
There are many different units out there but the cyclone is not fast enough to separate the fines. Onieda has a good unit and woodwurker is looking and may be of help. I may have to put my sander on its own unit.

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Hi John, you're running a sander larger than my 2 head 37" wide belt for guitar work? Odd frankly. I just went to your site and could not imagine how you would need such sanding capabilities. There could be perhaps another plausible explanation for your dust collection problem? An Oneida is hardly an industrial grade unit. If you had said a coral fine. A Donaldson torit, awesome, I'd love to know what kind of sanding unit you are using. I've been through this in a few shops, one much larger than the 5000 square feet I have today. I probably help you out. Tim

My sander is an 18 in wide belt sander I do a good bit of sanding. I resaw and besides building 20-25 guitars a year I produce over 100 kits and custom work for other builders. The sander gets used a good bit and I rely on it for all the thicknessing. I use 36 to 80 grit in it.
I have a Grizzly unit 3 hp cyclone and the filtration is the weak link. My shop is 24 by 40 2 floors. Upstairs is my clean area and downstairs is the main shop. 2 band saws and a variety of sanders , Milling machine and metal lathes. The fines off the sander is what is cloging the filter.

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

The bad news folks is that no matter how "good" your system is, you're always going to have some dust.
For a number of years I supervised New York State Museum exhibit fabrication shop. It had a system that cost around 250K when installled around the year 2000 and was elaborately hooked up to all the machinery. This system cost 10K a year just in the maintenance of the anti-explosion/fire system which ironically required explosives of it's own to rapidly extinguish a fire propigating in the duct work.
Anyway, we still had dust in the air and bought several free standing filtration units (for what they were worth......).
Best

Yes, David I agree completely. I the early 90's when I was still in the film business we had 3 separate large shops and systems of similar size and expense. Plus the cost of heat recovery systems, made my head spin. No even with the best system you can never get it all and the maintenance is expensive and time consuming. One thing that has really improved the situation through the years is machinery is very well designed for the clean evacuation of dust. my current wide belt Timesaver is so much cleaner than my 15 year old unit was and it sands like a demon. You could really refer to it as an abrasive planer. Another great help to custom shops and those of us that get hired because we can think outside the box is dust collection work tables like Denrays, they really contribute to the ambient dust removal. Tim

So your 3hp grizzly cyclone is not separating the fines well enough to prevent clogging the filters ?

Do you have a straight section feeding the cyclone ? If so, how long is it ?

Are you absolutely sure you don't have a leak in the bin ?

I have been researching cyclones in preperation for setting up my new shop. The seperator on the recent griz units looks like a good design - I thought the weakness with these was the motor. My previous experience was with an Oneida, and it also had issues with separation of the fines.

-jd

I am dissapointed with the cyclones. I had a bag unit that did a better job. I am thinking of hooking one on my sander as that is the culprit with the most fines. Saws don't make the ( wood flour ) that blocks them up. Also the Grizzly uses an internal brush and this actually pushes the fines into the filter.
My current PM is to blow air into the filter and I use a vibrating sander to help loosen them. Once the filter looses circulation I take it outside and blow the junk off the pleats and replace the filter every year. .
At least the Onieda has an oversized filter on it.

_________________
John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

You can always change the filters on your grizz. Cabinet shop down the road cuts lots of mdf on a cnc. Their setup uses an Oneida cyclone inside feeding a bag house located outside. They are in goleta, so no concerns about heating/ cooling costs.

-jd

In PA the outside won't work for me. With an RH controlled shop the unit would pull all the air out in less than 10 minutes. I am thinking to use a 2 stage filtration that uses a bag and filters.

_________________
John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Don't waste your money on that Griz 1 hp wall hanger. That's about all it's good for (to hang on the wall and take up space). There are some things in lutherie that you can skimp on. Dust collection is not one of them. Shop air quality can literally be a matter of life and death. COPD is a hard way to go.

Here is my set up which I think gives a pretty good dollar-per-efficiency value. Delta 50-760 dust collector (you should go for at least 1.5 Hp), changed out the bag with a Wynn Environmental canister filter. The Wynn canister filter is much more efficient than the bag filters and well worth the investment. I kept the lines to the machines as short and straight as possible (10 feet or less) with the biggest ports possible. I have a Jet overhead filter and a floor standing air purifier. I use a Dylos air quality monitor to check for air quality.

Links:
http://www.amazon.com/DELTA-50-760-1-5H ... roduct_top

http://www.amazon.com/708620B-AFS-1000B ... ead+filter

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

http://www.dylosproducts.com/

Before I start making dust, I put on a half-face respirator with P100 filters, then I turn on the air purifier and the Jet ceiling filter, then fire up the dust collector and go to work. After I'm done making dust I keep the respirator on and leave the ceiling filter on until the Dylos reads 500 or less*. The ceiling filter does a superb job of catching any fine dust that might escape the dust collection system. On days I'm making a lot of dust I will leave the air purifier running all night. Also, every couple of months I will give the shop a good wipe down and mopping. You can stir up quite a bit of fine dust just moving around.

*Any reading on the Dylos over 3000 is poor air quality and 500 or less is good air quality. My dust collection set up is quite efficient...when I'm running the drum sander (the biggest dust offender) the Dylos rarely reads over 1500. Just for a test, I ran the table saw without dust collection and the Dylos read over 30,000+!!!!!! It is unbelievable how much fine dust will float around your shop without proper dust collection.

My set up works great for me, but if you want to spend some real money, check out the Cyclones. Steve gives great advice, and links to the Bill Pentz site. I recommend spending hours and hours reading that site. Good luck!

One does not simply read Bill Pentz's Website...

It is a vast endless cavern in which you will find yourself 5 hours later, realizing you spent 5 hours reading about dust.

I think i will just but a 5ft ind. fan in the garage and blow the heck out of it while i chop my wood

Seriously though, It looks like a lot of dough for a set up, something a lot of beginners wont be able to afford right away. I am thinking of venting to an outside shed or something.....

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I started with a 1 1/2 hp bag unit. that worked great bit was only a 5 micron filter. I saw a clearview unit that actually impressed me. My buddy has a 5 hp clearview and it worked with his sander very well. The cyclone did a good job of separation. Filters were remarkably clean.

_________________
John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

That's why I switched out the bag with a Wynn Environmental canister filter. It works great. Filters out 99.99% of the dust at 0.5 microns.




It is a lot of dough but it's the best investment you can make for your health. A 1 1/2 hp bag unit with a Wynn Env. canister filter upgrade is not much money. But if you really need to go on the cheap, a half face respirator is a must. Also a box fan with a good furnace filter taped to it and placed near the dust source is an effective and cheap alternative. I have a few of these in my shop and use them often when hand sanding. Also open some windows and use fans to get a good airflow and move the dust out of your shop, and keep a clean shop.

Jet has a new 'Vortex Cone' that looks promising. Anyone use/have one?

http://www.jettools.com/us/en/view-seri ... one/Vortex

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Thank You and Best To All