Home Made Cyclone

[Studley 2436]

Hi all
This is my attempt on a cyclone for my DC that get's here tomorrow all going well.

It is a bin from Bunnies with a hole cut in its lid. A 20 L buckett on top upside down with a hole in its lid is glued on and holes cut with PVC pipe stuck in the side and top.

I will let you know how it works

Stevo

[Gumby]

Look promising but I'd like to know how big the ledge is which is formed at the junction of the two buckets. If it's wide, the shavings will fly around it without being able to drop down. You could put lots of bunnings cheap filler in there to form a slope for the shavings to slide down.

[Studley 2436]

I'll have a look at that Gumby. There isn't much but it is possible to trim it back a bit. I guess I should take a photo of the guts of it so you can see what is happening on the inside.

Stevo

[zenwood]

I'd like to know how big the ledge is which is formed at the junction of the two buckets. If it's wide, the shavings will fly around it without being able to drop down. Looks like a nifty and simple version of the complicated conical doovers.

I assume the air goes in at the side and out the top?

It could be that the size of the ledge is fairly non-critical; any shavings that get caught there will self-assemble into a pile down which new shavings will slide into the bottom section (see pic).

Studley: how do you empty the bottom bucket?

[Studley 2436]

It is all just glued together. There isn't much of a ledge at the bottom of the top bucket. The lids of the two buckets are both cut out and the bottom lid just goes onto the bin it was made for and held on by the standard hold downs.

Stevo

[Poloris]

Whilst I was in a Red Dot style shop I brought a plastic bowl with steep sides and a outside diameter of about 275 mm. I cut out bottom to make nice wide funnel for my mini-cyclone. That left a exit hole about 150 mm wide which seemed pretty big to me so I then brought and cut up a funnel and closed the hole down to 90mm.

I sure once I get it finished it will work just fine.

Poloris

[E. maculata]

Big heavy duty funnels (approx 300mm dia) from supercheap are quite handy for this sorta stuff as well :)

[Studley 2436]

What I noticed on using the first incarnation of my little cyclone was that all the shavings in the bin were spinning around like mad. SO I trimmed the centre extraction pipe back close to the top and took a 10 litre bucket and took the top and bottom off of it. I cut the tube along it's side and turned it into a cone. The collar that used to be the top of the bucket was cut so I could close it around the cone and it all went in the top bucket. Screwed it in and made a big improvement in my little machine.

Hope it is possible to understand from this and the picture

Studley

[dan_tom]

It is great to see that I am not the only one who decided to use the Bunnings bucket version :D :D :D . I shall post a picture in the morning of the way I constructed ours. But for those that cannot wait here is the description.

I made a cone out of acetate (clear, really flexible perspex stuff) that the apex could touch the bottom of the bucket and the top was level with the rim. I then cut about 120mm off the tip so that the cone (now funnel) sat further into the bucket. I made the hole in the base of the bucket just big enough for the narrow end of the funnel and duct taped it in place.

The inlet pipe I cut to match the curve of the bucket and again duct taped in place.

Using silicone and some rivets I joined the base of the bucket and the lid of the bin.
I have had it operational for about a month and so far is working a treat. The only issue I came across was when cutting some UHMW plastic that prefered to bunch up in the cone rather than drop into the bin.
Cheers
Tom :D :D :D

[dan_tom]

Here are the photos of the cyclone unit that I made. Only a day later than expected!
Cheers
Tom :)

[Skew ChiDAMN!!]

Hmmm... I was given a 1ph/2HP dust bag unit that had a nasty encounter with a forklift. The motor/fan survived though, so I'm thinking I might use it as the basis for a home cyclone.
Now even though I've followed up on a few threads on cyclones, I still don't know what I'm doing. Probably won't until I've built a failure or six, either.

What other traps/filters are recommended? I'm thinking of adding what's left of the DC bag above the top of the cyclone; the seperator bin will be floor level or below, so access height's not a problem. Or would I be better off rebuilding the bag unit as is and building a seperate cyclone in-line?

[Studley 2436]

After my earlier efforts I have gone back to a different thing now. I got rid of the bottom bag and put a wheelie bin in the space. Fits nice. A sheet of MDF goes across it and I cut a hole in the top to put the cone from the plastic bin cyclone in it. The middle of the DC screws on and the other bag is on the top as it was before.

The big reason for me doing this was to gain some space. Having the little bin and hoses really cost me space I didn't have.

Will try and get some pictures up tomorrow.

Studley