Dust Collector

[darthintel]

Hello All!
I purchased a dust collection system from Rockler yesterday which are pictured below. I mounted the wall mount unit under my work bench, ran the tubing into a plastic container with a air tight lid ( not round ), ports directed at the walls of the container, and lastly ran the tubing to the hood mounted on the lathe.
I ran the system and turned an Acrylic blank - all chips and streamers ...everything was sucked up into the vac system - worked very well.
But...yes there's a BUT.....I looked into the plastic container that's supposed to catch the large chips and it was EMPTY! All the shavings went into the 5 micron dust bag. Why?

1. Could it be that I need a cylindrical chip barrel to create a vortex to drop the chips?
2. Maybe my plastic container is too small?
3. I directed the ports at the outside walls of the container, do they need to be rotated to create a vortex?

Any help would be appreciated!

Rick

[gbpens]

Interesting idea. I doubt if the chips and ribbons are heavy enough to "fall" to the bottom of the square container, the suction is just to great. If the cfm were to be reduced it might work, but then you would be defeating the purpose of a vacuum system.

[PTsideshow]

You probably are on to something, about the round container. Since I have only seen round vortex chambers no matter what their proposes are. I have the dust deputy hooked to my big rigid shop vac and it works well and so far nothing has made it thru to the vacuum canister. I just purchased a 13 gallon dust collector form HF changed the casters on it since I had a heavy duty set of 3.5" ones. Haven't used it much yet but it appears to being doing the job on the saw dust.

mounted on top of the vac. It is a cone shaped container that dumps into a 5 gal bucket for easy emptying.

Hose from vac to cyclone unit

Mine goes into the top and the suction hose to the pick up is in from the top side.
Here is their great explanation it may help sort out your problem, your idea will having me try putting it between the dC and dust port and see how mine works.

[The Penguin]

my guess is your plastic container is too small.

[maxwell_smart007]

My guess is the same:
Container too small, and not round, so there's no 'cyclone' of air to drop the heavy particles to the bottom.

[nava1uni]

I believe that you need a round container to create a venturi effect. That is what causes the larger pieces to drop to the bottom. Not only do you need a round container you need the tubes that go into the container to have an elbow that faces the sides. The air goes through the tubes, hits the sides and creates the venturi or cyclone effect. If you are near a Rockler or Woodcraft go and look at the inside of their vortex or lid that goes onto a garbage can and you will see what I mean.

[darthintel]

Originally Posted by nava1uni

I believe that you need a round container to create a venturi effect. That is what causes the larger pieces to drop to the bottom. Not only do you need a round container you need the tubes that go into the container to have an elbow that faces the sides. The air goes through the tubes, hits the sides and creates the venturi or cyclone effect. If you are near a Rockler or Woodcraft go and look at the inside of their vortex or lid that goes onto a garbage can and you will see what I mean.

I have the tubes that are mounted through the lid and they do have the elbows and are pointed to the sides of the container. (from Rockler) Rockler doesn't sell the round chip canisters, but they have one on display.

I will look into getting a round container or a vortex separator and mentioned above.

[MesquiteMan]

PLEASE also consider upgrading your bag. 5 Micron bags are not nearly fine enough got get the stuff that is bad for you. Using a 5 micron bag is like having a big huge dust pump constantly pumping the dangerous stuff back into the air, keeping it airborne so you can breath it easier.

[bradh]

Originally Posted by The Penguin

my guess is your plastic container is too small.

+1. The chips need time to fall. The volume of the container compared to the pipe size is not big enough. There will be little drop in air speed within the container, so very few chips will drop out.
Aiming the pipes at the wall or creating a vortex, will cause the chips to hit the wall and slow and this helps the chips drop out too.

[ossaguy]

I have the same exact unit that you have,and they told me it needs at least a 30 gallon round container for it to work right.I'm wondering if there is enough room under the workbench for it to fit,and it looks like the bag gets bent even.A redesign might be needed.

I have the same exact seup from Rockler,and I had posted before how I follwed their suggestion and made a seperator using a conrete form tube from Home Depot,and I gotta say that it works great.Since then I got their quick-connect 4 inch tube fittings so it's like a 10 second setup time to assemble it.They work really slick!

But that design is too tall to fit under a bench.

I'm hoping someone has a tip on a 1 micron bag thaat fits this unit.It comes with a 30,and I too have the 5,but agree that it's not enough.I wonder if the performance would suffer with the 1 micron bag?

Here's how mine turned out if you want to see.It's on Page 5 of my photobucket

Pictures by ossaguy - Photobucket


Take care,
Steve