RFC - Woodshop Dust Collection

General
1

Looking for comments on the current woodshop dust collection system. I’m thinking about proposing a vote to allocate ~$1000 to get it working correctly. I think we’ll spend about half that, but tool attachments can get tricky, and there are some unknowns with the current system.

The first thing that needs to happen is that Greg and I will be deciding on a more permanent layout for the tools. This will be happening sometime after the medium CNC and Coy’s plywood rack are removed from the woodshop.

After that I’d like to improve the dust collection system

Currently we have the following:

  1. Table Saw attached to mini Cyclone + shop vac
  2. Drum Sander on flexitube
  3. Radial Arm Saw (should be done tomorrow/soonish)
  4. CNC table
  5. Band Saw

Things I’d like to hook up:

  1. Jointer - Might just end up with a better box
  2. Thickness Planer
  3. Spindle Sander
  4. Router Table

Nice to have:

  1. Second cyclone for portal hand tools, like the orbital sander, attached to a dedicated shop vac as a unit. This could be a bucket head design.
  2. Dedicated shop vac for table saw dust collection
  3. Dust collection for Drill Press/Lathe

Problems with the current system:

  1. No indicators
    a) I’d like to build two boxes, one for each output, both with see through sides, so that people would know when it was time to empty them. Further the large dust collection would be more efficient space wise as a flat box, up against the central pillar. I’d like both boxes to be designed such that they could be easily disconnected and dumped into the trash bin. Running the shop vacs into ports appears to have cause problems with the small dust collection.
    b) I’d like to build a manometer to determine if we’re getting enough air flow through. I’ve got parts for this partially from Steve Jones. Current plan is to have a light turn on when there are problems.

  2. Too much flexitube - Flexitube is less efficient than metal duct work, resulting in poor performance.
    a) Band Saw - Could probably be mostly redone in metal tubing. Route is a bit wonky. Also needs a different splitter, current top hose has little suction
    b) CNC Router - Could probably have it’s flexitube shortened a few feet, not a big deal. Also needs to have the split going to the 2nd CNC removed.
    c) Large saggy flex tube feed into the small dust collector - should be mostly replaced with metal ducting.
    d) Similar problem with the large dust collection

  3. Currently we’re getting a lot of dust only on the small dust side, indicating an overall problem with dust collection. Not sure why this is happening. This is worrisome, because it could indicate that we need to replace the filters, and that there’s a serious problem with the current cyclone.

I know there’s been some talk about adding in neat features like automatic start, and the like. I’d like to have the system working first, connected to all the tools, before we start adding geez whizz features. So any money for this would be only to get dust collection flowing from our tools into the system when it’s turned on manually.

So I’d like to open it up to the Hive, and see what the current thinking is. Are there things I’ve missed or left out?

2

Why not hard line the table saw to the main dust collector? -just curious!

All else seems well thought out and makes many good points!

3

saw this, throw in mix. may not be super relevant but…

http://hackaday.com/2016/12/18/clear-the-air-around-your-cnc-router-with-a-custom-dust-shroud/

-D

4

I think our dust shroud already does as well as the Hackaday “shoe”.

5

I agree on adding the table saw to the dust collector “hard line”

John2pt0

6

Has anyone tried to loosen the dust from the filters?

Some current models have “shakers” built in or internal brushes to loosen the dust.

It seem like rapping against the outside mesh or even blowing with compressed air should loosen up a lot of dust.

Anyone know?

John2pt0

7

Doing things in RPN, (well, my name is P, so…)

Here’s a place to start:

http://www.makingsplinters.com/2013/06/cleaning-my-dust-collectors-canister-filter/

  1. Currently we’re getting a lot of dust only on the small dust side, indicating an overall problem with dust collection. Not sure why this is happening. This is worrisome, because it could indicate that we need to replace the filters, and that there’s a serious problem with the current cyclone.
8

Here are two other references on wood shop dust collectors & maintainance.

http://billpentz.com/woodworking/cyclone/index.cfm#index.cfm (“updated 11/16”) (I think Jon Neal may have reviewed this one some months back.)

http://www.jpthien.com/cy.htm

John2pt0

9

Anyway, the recommended “best” solution (where permitted) seem to be “blow it out the window”.

10

That Making Splinters site is pretty cool.

http://www.makingsplinters.com/

He has done some neat projects.

11

Maybe this is a stupid question, but can we simply 3D print some of the more proprietary connectors to the standard ducting sizes? If we don’t have them/can’t find them online? Especially after reading the site Brad just posted, if they are just ABS…

Just saying…

12

Sounds like some good work.

I did a bit of research into dust collection before I realized wood is soft and squishy (and flammable).

It helps to think about what the dust is getting created from. Different woods create different levels of dust and the operation (jointing, planing, cutting, sanding) tend to make different size waste. MDF almost in it’s own special circle of hell, not only does it create super small particles but the glue that hold everything together is not good to inhale.

I think in general the jointer and planer are much more chip makers rather than dust makers. This may mean a different solution, maybe more of a chip collection box under each unit.

The saws can create a medium amount of dust. Just imagine the kerf being turned into small chips and dust.

Any kind of sander is a dust creation machine. This gets into a safety hazard and should have the best airflow and collection. Usually a nice airflow stream to pull the airborne dust away from the operator is ideal. In general, whenever a power driven sander is in use the operator should have a respirator on. Yeah, yeah I know, safety Nazi. If I’m going just use a sander for 5 seconds to remove an edge I won’t put on a respirator, but you need to think of inhaling the super fine dust into your lungs. The super small stuff is the problem, you really can’t see it and it tends to collect in your lungs and the problems are way worse than the effort to not get them in the first place.

The CNC is a special beast because of the quantity of cuts it makes. Just imagine someone running a router table 100% of the time.

Totally right about the flexible tubing. It should be used just when you need the tube to flex (duh). Any other runs should have smooth pipe/tube. The little corrugations that allow the stuff to bend give the dust a place to collect and add resistance to the airflow. There actually is smooth internal wall flex tubing that does a much better job, but isn’t quite as flexible.

Didn’t mean to turn into a rant, just sharing some experience. I think Andrew is on the right track, there are some cool things we can do that aren’t that hard.

Happy holidays!

Brad

13

So I went down today, and removed the hose lead down from the bottom of the dust collection cyclone. Jabbing a stick into the cyclone itself removed literally 10 gallons of saw dust, so I believe that fixes that problem. (I filled a 5 gallon bucket twice)

I also added the radial arm saw to dust collection. I’d appreciate it if some of our shorter members tried reaching the blast gate, which is over the saw’s arm. (I’ll post some pics next time I’m at the Hive) I had somebody who was 5’ 7" tell me that the height was fine, but we can probably adjust a bit if it’s hard to reach/use. I also think it might make sense to suspend the flexible host connected to it.

Let me see if I can address some of the points:
Hard Line to Table Saw - My initial idea was a hard line, but Greg and Ryan vetoed that one, when I discussed it with them last Tuesday. I’m okay with either approach, the drawback with the hard line is that it gets in the way of the outfeed table, or the path on one side. If we DO decide to go with a hard line, then we can use the new cyclone I made for it for normal shop vaccing around the Hive. I can probably make a little cart quick and cheap. Right now the twin bucket approach is VERY top heavy, and is constantly tipping over.

The problem with the mini cyclone + dedicated shop vac is that we probably should by another one, and not a bucket head either, so we’re talking about $50-75. Right now I’ve got the 5 HP shop vac hooked up to it.

@John 2pt 0 - Hackaday “Shoe”? I don’t get it, and I read hack a day.

3D printed parts - I’m fine with this if somebody wants to spend time doing it. I’m wondering if it’s cost/time effective, and I don’t know enough about 3d printing to do it personally. As a reference the Woodcraft “Universal Tool” mount was $11, most of the duct reducers run ~$5 each, the 6" blast gates are $20 for the nice ones. (All our duct runs are 6") Can we do better with 3d printing?

Differing types of dust - In theory the big red cyclone should be able to separate things like this out. However, in practice, it was clogged, which seems to indicate it might not be capable of handling everything. FWIW, I’d fine with a box that needs to be emptied for the jointer & planers. My goal is to stop sweeping up after using them.

Various links - I appreciate people posting them, I’ll read through in a bit. Here’s a few of my own:
https://woodgears.ca/ - Matthias Wandel, does a TON of cool projects mostly with an engineering bent. He’s also made just about every peice of wood working equipment, including two band saws.
http://www.thewoodwhisperer.com/ - General all around wood working, with a TON of good advise.

14

To clarify before someone misinterprets the “veto” comment… We simply couldn’t quickly envision a permanent connection that did not present a navigation hazard. This brought us to consider a separate collector for the table saw.

Better ideas, as usual, are cheerfully accepted.

  • Ry
15

I wonder if we could hack together a dust collector that sits in the space to the right of the saw base. Kind of right where the dust hose exits now.
If we were super cool we could wire the dedicated dust collector to the saw switch so when the saw is on the dust collection is on.
So many options . . . . .

16

I wonder if we could hack together a dust collector that sits in the space to the right of the saw base. Kind of right where the dust hose exits now.
If we were super cool we could wire the dedicated dust collector to the saw switch so when the saw is on the dust collection is on.
So many options . . . . .

Not sure if you’re joking or not. I’ve already done so, posted a short thread about this a couple of days ago. We’ve got a two bucket cyclone + shop vac setup.

Thanks,

Brad

To clarify before someone misinterprets the “veto” comment… We simply couldn’t quickly envision a permanent connection that did not present a navigation hazard. This brought us to consider a separate collector for the table saw.

Better ideas, as usual, are cheerfully accepted.

Sorry, guess I should have been clearer. I thought we had agreed that we could avoid the navigation by dropping the connection behind the table, near the shelving, leaving the walking path clear. However, the problem with this approach was that it potentially restricted the size of the material that could be fed through the saw. It also necessitated a 6" gap between the saw and the outfeed table.

Having read the link that Brad sent with the detailed information on fine dust safety it seems that shop vacs are ineffective at capturing fine dust, since they’re under powered, so we should rethink the no drop down approach.

17

Ha.
I haven’t been to the Hive in a few days so I haven’t seen the bucket dust collector in person, just the pics you sent.
I’m glad the saw has it’s own system, thanks for doing it.
I was just brainstorming a no-touch system that auto turned on when the saw was used.
I think they actually make relays with a time delay for the dust vac to stay on for a short time after the saw was used.
No criticism intended, just thinking out loud.

18

Didn’t take it as such, just couldn’t figure out what you were saying. And if you were being critical, I just figured you were joking around as usual.

Anyway, a time delay would be nice, but we need to be careful about doing that for the whole system. The link you sent points out that most dust collection systems are setup to turn on and run, and on/off on/off wears them out prematurely.

Even in the case of a shop vac, a nice delay would be a good idea. I try to turn the saw off after each cut, which could mean many many many on/off cycles. Not sure what that would mean for a shop vac.

19

Andrew

As far as turning things on and off, the Jet air filter should probably be run for hours at a time if we really want to “clear the air”,
as the smaller (more noxious) particles stay airborne for 4-6 hours, according to a couple of the dust collection websites.

I think it has at least a 4 hr setting.

John2pt0

20

Sorry about the giant re-post.

John2pt0