Canister Upgrade or Small Cyclone
pursuit265
| Posted in Power Tools and Machinery on
I have a Jet DC 1100 with bag filter piped in as a central dust collector. One tool at a time. It does a pretty good job for everything except my cabinet saw. That’s at the end of a ~20’ equivalent run of 4” duct. I’m debating whether 1) get a new/ bigger bag 2) purchase the Jet upgrade to canister or 3) bite the bullet and buy a 1.5 hp cyclone unit. So big price differences for a home but advanced wood workers shop. Maybe $75 to $1500. Any experience with this dilemma?
Replies
I had unit like that, I added an oneida cyclone and 17 gallon drum, got rid of the bag and added the oneida canister filter on the exhaust side. After some minor surgery I mounted the blower directly on the 5" top tube of the cyclone. The canister is a 6" pipe so the whole system breathes better. My shop is far cleaner, and I was left wondering how much damage I have done to my lungs over the previous 20 years. The bags are useless for the worst of the fine dust.
If you are exhausting back into your workspace the answer is almost always a cyclone. This is to separate the bulk of the spoil so that a more effective filter can be used without clogging rapidly.
If I were able to exhaust directly outside I would save a bunch of money by buying a 3HP blower and just let 'er rip. Since I don't live on enough land to do so without polluting my neighbors livestock or decorative ponds and swimming pools I use a cyclone with a good filter.
My next phase will be to ditch the filter and exhaust outside, post-cyclone. That tiny bit of spoil will be wafted away on the wind and should offend no one.
GDB, what climate are you in? I can't imagine the heat loss if I tried that here in NY's winter. The makeup air being sucked into the house today would be 40 degrees!
Good point MJ. I thought about that as I hit the "post" button. I'm in the SoCal desert basin so there are a lot of micro-climates within an hours drive. Where I am specifically is . . . well . . . pretty static. If it's below 50*, it's "cold" and if it's above 100* it's "hot". Humidity is pretty stable and I have to use caution when making items that will be shipped to more normal locals.
Like a lot of SoCal, the weather here is pretty non-existent . . . unless your a native. We think of enough rain to wet the pavement as a torrential downpour and 90* as a sunny day ;-) Folks who live where there are actual seasons would not want to part with 1000 CFM of heated air in January.
I have never had heat or AC in a shop but, as I embrace my golden years I am thinking about it. There are a lot of things wrong with California but, being an hour from skiing or surfing, during the same season, isn't one of them.
Most folks are familiar with the California Hurricane photos . . .
So, following your experience I might as well buy a cyclone dust collector because I can a spend couple of days and 100s of bucks having a pieced together system or just bite the bullet.
If I had the space to put one I might have gone that way. I did what I did so I could tuck the pieces into nooks and crannies that ate zero floor space in my small shop.
GDB, you need safety lines on those chairs!
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled