Garrett in Cda
9th August 2004, 04:18 AM
Good morning
I'm a Canadian living in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:State><st1:place>Victoria</st1:place></st1:State>, on <st1:place>Vancouver Island</st1:place> on <st1:country-region><st1:place>Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s west coast. I happened across your Forum, saw the interest in cyclones, and thought it might be helpful to post this saga on my construction and installation of one of the <st1:PersonName>Bill Pentz</st1:PersonName> designs (http://billpentz.com//woodworking/cyclone/index.cfm).
Because of the length, it will have to be posted in three parts:
A long discussion about Pentz cyclones on the Canadian Woodworking Forum earlier this year led almost 30 of us to decide to each build one, and some group purchases kept common costs down. Although there are variations due to people using motors and/or impellers they already had which in turn affects the diameter of the cyclone and the size of the inlet and outlet, the most common system has a 5 HP motor driving a 14" impeller housed on top of an 18" diameter cyclone. Some of us added one or two cartridge filters to remove any escaping dust larger than half a micron.
(Part 2 follows)
I had my cyclone fabricated in 20 gauge galvanized sheet metal by a local shop. At C$385 it just wasn’t worth the hassle of doing it myself. One group of 4 who built theirs together allowed afterwards that were they to do it again, they, too, would have the cyclone fabricated. Cutting the pieces out of sheet with a jigsaw is easy. Rolling and soldering the parts is not.
<img src="http://www3.telus.net/GLI/Cyclone/Finished%20copy.jpg"><?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
One of the participants in Toronto organized a kit consisting of the motor, impeller, and impeller housing ( CNC router-cut Baltic birch ply for the matching top and bottom panels, the motor mount, and a couple of rings that attach underneath to provide a strong seat to the cyclone body). The precision is as good as on metal work. Inserting the 20 gauge galvanized into the tight, matching groove on the bottom was simple.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
<img src="http://www3.telus.net/GLI/Cyclone/1aaImpeller%20Housing.jpg"><o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
Getting it into the groove on the top wasn't as hard as I anticipated. With the clamps only tight enough to apply a little pressure, it was just like putting a tire on a rim, i.e. push some of the metal into the slot, tighten that clamp and move along to the next section. <o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
<img src="http://www3.telus.net/GLI/Cyclone/1aClamps%20On.jpg"><o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
The motor is mounted on a circular platen with hex bolts that pass through it into the face of the motor. (All holes were made by the firm that machined the housing components, and in every case the match among components was absolutely perfect.) The steel Sheldon Engineering impeller mounts on the Leeson’s arbor with a simple but effective clamping system controlled by 3 cap screws that either tighten or loosen the clamps. Once in place, the impeller drops through the hole in the top plate, and the platen sits flush in a recess rabetted in the housing top plate. Bolts - not installed in this photo - are passed through fender washers into Tee nuts supplied and installed in the top plate. I was concerned that their clamping action would be inadequate to prevent the motor mount from spinning, but they work very well and make installation and removal easy, given that the motor and impeller are quite a heavy assembly.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
<img src="http://www3.telus.net/GLI/Cyclone/Semi-assembled.jpg"><o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
Here’s what it looks like inside with the motor mounted. (The tee nuts mentioned above are visible.):<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
<img src="http://www3.telus.net/GLI/Cyclone/1binside.jpg"><o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
These are the cyclone parts from the sheet metal fabricator. They’re actually sitting upside down on the floor, so I’ve inverted the photo to show them in their upright position. The disk on the outlet pipe was to have been formed into an “air ramp”, a helix tacked-welded to the internal outlet pipe to direct the air in a downward spiral. After doing some further research, the performance reviews on air ramps were mixed with many comments indicating a poor installation would do more harm than good, and that it isn't needed at all in a well-designed cyclone. Thus, I decided not to install it, figuring I could go back and do so later if necessary. I didn’t.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
<img src="http://www3.telus.net/GLI/Cyclone/1Parts.jpg"><o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
I puzzled over the stand for quite a while, and in the usual way, it was simpler and easier to build than to design. Some old bed frames supplied the angle iron, and the worst part of this job was grinding off the rivets to disassemble them. The cyclone has a small but strong circular ridge - shown in the photo above - where the cylinder is joined to the cone, and that provides a very handy flat rim to support the unit in a hole through a couple of pieces of ˝” plywood glued and screwed together that sit on the angle iron “shelf”. The hole is beveled to match the cone and is exactly its diameter. 3 small pieces of angle iron bolted through the plywood act as clamps on the rim to hold the cyclone in place.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
<img src="http://www3.telus.net/GLI/Cyclone/Cyclone%20STand.jpg">
<o:p></o:p>
The plastic barrel needed a top which was simple enough to make out of some recycled ˝” ply with the edged beveled to match the barrel’s rim, and some closed-cell foam weather-stripping to ensure the seal. I use 4 inexpensive draw catches to pull it tight.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
I'm a Canadian living in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:State><st1:place>Victoria</st1:place></st1:State>, on <st1:place>Vancouver Island</st1:place> on <st1:country-region><st1:place>Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s west coast. I happened across your Forum, saw the interest in cyclones, and thought it might be helpful to post this saga on my construction and installation of one of the <st1:PersonName>Bill Pentz</st1:PersonName> designs (http://billpentz.com//woodworking/cyclone/index.cfm).
Because of the length, it will have to be posted in three parts:
A long discussion about Pentz cyclones on the Canadian Woodworking Forum earlier this year led almost 30 of us to decide to each build one, and some group purchases kept common costs down. Although there are variations due to people using motors and/or impellers they already had which in turn affects the diameter of the cyclone and the size of the inlet and outlet, the most common system has a 5 HP motor driving a 14" impeller housed on top of an 18" diameter cyclone. Some of us added one or two cartridge filters to remove any escaping dust larger than half a micron.
(Part 2 follows)
I had my cyclone fabricated in 20 gauge galvanized sheet metal by a local shop. At C$385 it just wasn’t worth the hassle of doing it myself. One group of 4 who built theirs together allowed afterwards that were they to do it again, they, too, would have the cyclone fabricated. Cutting the pieces out of sheet with a jigsaw is easy. Rolling and soldering the parts is not.
<img src="http://www3.telus.net/GLI/Cyclone/Finished%20copy.jpg"><?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
One of the participants in Toronto organized a kit consisting of the motor, impeller, and impeller housing ( CNC router-cut Baltic birch ply for the matching top and bottom panels, the motor mount, and a couple of rings that attach underneath to provide a strong seat to the cyclone body). The precision is as good as on metal work. Inserting the 20 gauge galvanized into the tight, matching groove on the bottom was simple.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
<img src="http://www3.telus.net/GLI/Cyclone/1aaImpeller%20Housing.jpg"><o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
Getting it into the groove on the top wasn't as hard as I anticipated. With the clamps only tight enough to apply a little pressure, it was just like putting a tire on a rim, i.e. push some of the metal into the slot, tighten that clamp and move along to the next section. <o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
<img src="http://www3.telus.net/GLI/Cyclone/1aClamps%20On.jpg"><o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
The motor is mounted on a circular platen with hex bolts that pass through it into the face of the motor. (All holes were made by the firm that machined the housing components, and in every case the match among components was absolutely perfect.) The steel Sheldon Engineering impeller mounts on the Leeson’s arbor with a simple but effective clamping system controlled by 3 cap screws that either tighten or loosen the clamps. Once in place, the impeller drops through the hole in the top plate, and the platen sits flush in a recess rabetted in the housing top plate. Bolts - not installed in this photo - are passed through fender washers into Tee nuts supplied and installed in the top plate. I was concerned that their clamping action would be inadequate to prevent the motor mount from spinning, but they work very well and make installation and removal easy, given that the motor and impeller are quite a heavy assembly.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
<img src="http://www3.telus.net/GLI/Cyclone/Semi-assembled.jpg"><o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
Here’s what it looks like inside with the motor mounted. (The tee nuts mentioned above are visible.):<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
<img src="http://www3.telus.net/GLI/Cyclone/1binside.jpg"><o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
These are the cyclone parts from the sheet metal fabricator. They’re actually sitting upside down on the floor, so I’ve inverted the photo to show them in their upright position. The disk on the outlet pipe was to have been formed into an “air ramp”, a helix tacked-welded to the internal outlet pipe to direct the air in a downward spiral. After doing some further research, the performance reviews on air ramps were mixed with many comments indicating a poor installation would do more harm than good, and that it isn't needed at all in a well-designed cyclone. Thus, I decided not to install it, figuring I could go back and do so later if necessary. I didn’t.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
<img src="http://www3.telus.net/GLI/Cyclone/1Parts.jpg"><o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
I puzzled over the stand for quite a while, and in the usual way, it was simpler and easier to build than to design. Some old bed frames supplied the angle iron, and the worst part of this job was grinding off the rivets to disassemble them. The cyclone has a small but strong circular ridge - shown in the photo above - where the cylinder is joined to the cone, and that provides a very handy flat rim to support the unit in a hole through a couple of pieces of ˝” plywood glued and screwed together that sit on the angle iron “shelf”. The hole is beveled to match the cone and is exactly its diameter. 3 small pieces of angle iron bolted through the plywood act as clamps on the rim to hold the cyclone in place.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
<img src="http://www3.telus.net/GLI/Cyclone/Cyclone%20STand.jpg">
<o:p></o:p>
The plastic barrel needed a top which was simple enough to make out of some recycled ˝” ply with the edged beveled to match the barrel’s rim, and some closed-cell foam weather-stripping to ensure the seal. I use 4 inexpensive draw catches to pull it tight.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>