I have a dust collector system and I would like to mount it outside of my workshop so that I don’t lose any more floor space. I live in Michigan and heat the work shop during the winters when needed.
Does anyone have suggestions for building an “add on” dust collector enclosure? I understand that this will be needing a “return” air opening to the workshop. Thanks, joeaviation
Replies
Joe, I've been contemplating a similar situation, and while I don't have any ready-made plans I thought you might also consider the question of how to know when the bag is full. We had a discussion on this a while back:
http://forums.taunton.com/fw-knots/messages?msg=46489.1
David Ring
http://www.touchwood.co.il/?lang=e&id=1
Thank you to all of you that contributed to my question. I have read them all and some of the links attached to the notes. No doubt that I will be back again to this site as I "engineer" this in my head before I start.
Planning is sometimes half the fun! Joeaviation
I built a 4' x 4' x 9' tall insulated (tight!) room onto the shop. I placed an Oneida dust collector with fan and cyclone in the very top of the 'room' and let the shavings drop thru the floorceiling into the 7' tall area below. I baffled an air return out of the dust bin back into the shop and set up a plenum with filter socks on it to return the air to the shop - after it was filtered. I did have to build an airtight door on the outside of the room, with threshold at tailgate height so my neighbors could come by and get shavings for their horses. If the structure is not airtight, then the dust will bypass the bin and fill the filters. This is a two-stage system and is superior to the bag and blow types that are unfortunately what so many shops have. Many times, I never had to deal with the shavings, and the heated or cooled air came back into the shop. Added a remote on/off, and it was great. Quiet, clean, and easy to work with. I did all this after changing bags one day and adding up all the time I spent directly dealing with that difficult, noisy pest in the shop. Then I figured out how much a real collector would cost. Turns out I had already lost enough time to buy a real system, I just did not have the system. I ordered one the next day. Dave S
I really like your idea
Hello Dave,
I realize this is an old post. However, I've been thinking a lot about building an outdoor dust collection enclosure. I never thought about using the room itself as the collection bin but, that's an awesome idea. After reading your post I was hoping to get a better understanding on how you return the filtered air back into your shop. Is there any chance you could explain your ducting a little furtner or better yet send me a few pictures?
Thanks A Ton,
-Austin-
Joe,
I had a nice little (slightly too little) enclosure adjacent to my shop to put my dust collector. The wall does a good job of dampening the noise. When you empty the bag, make darned sure that you put it back on properly. Otherwise, dust just spews everywhere. How do I know this...?
and www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com)
- Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
I have a 2hp collector in a small attached shed on the back of my shop. I insulated floor, walls & ceiling when I built it. I live in Atlanic Canada & heat my shop with a wood stove inspected & approved by my insurance provider. Pipe is run through an opening 24" tall & spacing between 2 studs. I built a pre-collector box 48"X48"X24" that the piping feeds before reaching the dust collector in the shed. The box has a vertical partition - 1st chamber is 2/3 of box & 2nd is 1/3 with app 6" hole at the top connecting the 2 chambers. It handles my 15" planer, 8" jointer, 10" saw, router table & sliding miter saw. If I catch it in time, I only get fine dust in the bottom bag & it takes 5 large contractors garbage bags to empty the box. No really noticeable heat loss from the shop.
My dust collector is mounted in a closet adjacent to the shop. You will need a return to bring your conditioned air back into the shop. I am sure people will disagree but it can be surprisingly small. My return is only 16” square and seems to work very well. You could even you an A/C filter to give you one more level of dust protection. The only disadvantage I have found is you have to make more of an effort to check the barrel to see if needs to be emptied.
One word of caution, make sure your closet is big enough. I thought I had plenty of extra room and when I was finished the equipment barely fit. Making pipe connections and getting all the bends to go thru the wall was a real adventure in down home engineering. It took a lot of twisting, pounding and a liberal use of language to make it all fit.
Hope this helps
Bob
I have no clue what I am talking about, so ignore this post, but If it is a dual stage DC, then you could possibly build an enclosure around the external filter and have a pipe that goes back in, or (again if it is dual stage) talk to the wood whisperer about it, one of his early videos had a comment about that
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