Well, I finally broke down and spent some money on a cyclone. Only a small shop – 2-car garage and, for some reason, DW seems to think that it is a place to park her car – so my TS and Band saw must be stored against the wall and rolled out for use. SCMS stands in the middle of my side of the garage, I mean shop.
For that reason, a portable cyclone seemed like a good solution. The thing takes up only 3’x3’x3′ of floor space and stands 5′ high. It took only an hour to assemble, then, with the help of Oneida’s tech support engineer, 1/2 hour to fix the shipping damage to the switch – interior parts knocked loose by UPS’s gentle handling.
600 CFM is plenty for any one machine and having to move the suction hookup from one to another is a minor inconvenience that would have been necessary with a fixed cyclone anyway since I have to move the tools to use them. Rockler has a convenient 4″ quick connect system with a handle on it that makes hook up easier.
Noise is remarkable low – 74dBA – much less than my Ridgid shop vac, but significantly more than my little Fein shop vac.
The bonus I found this week as I set 18×18 porcelain tiles in kitchen and entry way. I had to use an angle grinder with diamond blade to square up a step-down part of the slab and also to remove a high spot in the middle of the floor.
I rolled the cyclone into the house, placed the end of the 10 foot hose on the floor next to where I was grinding and watched the dust go right up the hose. Some dust initially blew by the opening but I could see it being sucked back and up the pipe. A shop vac would have blown fine dust out of the exhaust and all over the room, but the 0.2 micron filter of the cyclone let no dust escape.
BruceT
Edited 2/7/2009 2:15 pm by brucet9
Replies
I have the Dust Deputy and is is used for everything from getting sanding dust to chips from the planer. I bought the DIY kit and just checked out the Onieda website and found they had mad some changes, so I made some changes to my setup.
I have been on the DC merry-go-round for a while. I am leaning towards the one you purchased. I too do not mind moving it around for each tool. My shop is in the basement so I like the low height and I am glad you said how loud it was compared to your shop vac. Everyone tells me how many decibels it is, but I don't know how loud a decibel is. I di have a question about removing the collected dust and if was difficult or messy.
Thanks and good luck to you.
Decibel chart.
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Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.~ Denis Diderot
Finally a chart on decibels that I can relate to. Thank you!
The lid of the little steel drum under the cyclone is clamped on with a lever-lock ring. Release the ring, slide the drum out from under the lid and dump it. Mine is a little difficult to pull out because the cyclone-to-drum flex hose is longer than it should be. I'm going to cut off an inch or so, enough so the lid will clear the barrel better.Incidentally, when I dumped the collector barrel just now, I found a 1 1/2" by 2" piece of ceramic tile that got sucked in along with the dust from demolition of my old floor, so I guess you could say that this machine really sucks. When the pleated filter gets clogged, you're supposed to blow it down from the outside with compressed air, then take it off and dump the dust in the trash.I forgot to mention before, that the caster on the front leg is puny and stumbles on any obstacle like an expansion joint in a slab, mortar joints in a brick walkway or an extension cord. With most of its weight on top, the thing can easily fall over when that caster stops rolling.Oneida's telephone customer service was top notch. An engineer walked me through trouble-shooting the switch problem. E-mail response is not good. A request to send me the missing bolts for the motor mount has gone unanswered for over two weeks now.BruceTEdited 2/8/2009 6:06 pm by brucet9
Edited 2/8/2009 6:07 pm by brucet9
bruce,
"It took only an hour to assemble"
*Sigh*
As opposed to many days getting my Clear Vue up and running, including building the wall bracket from scratch using completely inadequate narrative directions (no real diagrams to speak of), assembling all the parts, silicone caulking the plastic cyclone itself and wiring the motor.
Plug and play it is not!
Rich
Yeah but, as a reward, you get to watch all your sawdust spinning its way down that clear plastic cone. :)I looked at the ClearVue instructions and figured at least 14 hours to assemble it. Looks like your experience confirms that.BruceT
bruce,The bracket is on the wall, the 5 hp Leeson motor is on the bracket and the 17 lb impeller is mounted to the motor shaft. I thought I would be able to wire it today and get some idea of the sound level. But that's not to be.Putting the motor with it's associated sub-bracket up on the wall-mounted main bracket, while standing on the ladder's second rung, was like doing a military press at the very limit of my strength. But it's up there!Sound level results and final assembly by next weekend.Rich
"...while standing on the ladder's second rung, was like doing a military press at the very limit of my strength."Rich,Better thee than me, but you're gettin' there.BruceT
I know its been a long interval since your last post but whats the verdict? Has the mobile onieda stood the test of time??
mini-Gorilla
Yep, medicinedog, my MiniGorilla is still humming along (if 74dB can be called humming). I still can't see any dust escaping the pleated filter even when I shine a flashlight beam beside it and view against a dark background.
It does a fine job of controlling dust from my home-made SCMS dust collector cabinet, but, lacking a top collector rig, I can control only part of the dust from the TS.
Incidentally, I talked to an engineer at Oneida to suggest a bigger front caster mounted a little outboard of the base for more stability, and I told him how the thing had tipped over onto the filter and creased the pleats on one side. He actually thanked me for the feedback and a few days later a box arrived on my doorstep with a new filter.
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