Are manufacturers stupid.

[Tonyz]

After spending hours of qualified quality reading about dust and its effective removal, No1 priority is bigger holes in machinery, surely we aussies and Bell Prentz (sp) are not the only one to discover this, why do the designers (and I use that word loosely) and manufacturers still build with 100mm outlets,

surely some mumbo is going to wake up one day and suggest to his bosses, "we all know that bigger outlets creates better suction, why dont we be the first and grab the market." or is it ignorance is bliss?

[Lappa]

Simply put, not everyone can afford $4000 to $6000 to $40000 on a dust extraction system. Hence smaller ports to suit smaller, cheaper extraction systems. In most cases, if one reads the manufacturers blurb, it often states "suitable for connection to one machine at a time". Even those with two inlets often state " use one inlet at a time. Close the other when in use". Often people try to use extraction equipment for a purpose for which it was never designed.
Manufacturers often design their equipment around the most common foreseen usage situation.

[Lappa]

Here's another scenario after a scan of some rather large industrial equipment with 4" outlets.

- I will note here that the main ducting running down the workshop on many is 150 to 200mm.

All the manufacturers using 4" equipment ports are right, and Bill Pentz and his loyal band of followers, who advocate opening the equipment outlets, over zealous:D

[elanjacobs]

How large and industrial do you mean? All the gear at work (that's not so old that it didn't come with ANY extraction from the factory) has bigger than 4" ports

[Bohdan]

How large and industrial do you mean? All the gear at work (that's not so old that it didn't come with ANY extraction from the factory) has bigger than 4" ports

I agree, it wasn't until relatively recently that when I ran into toy machinery that I first saw 4" outlets and the toy extractors that are supposed to go with them.

Prior to that the smallest outlet that I had seen on industrial wood working machinery was 6". (Except for an edgebander that had small outlets on the trimmers)

[elanjacobs]

I normally try to be a bit less blunt about it, but they really are toys :D

[doug3030]

After spending hours of qualified quality reading about dust and its effective removal, No1 priority is bigger holes in machinery, surely we aussies and Bell Prentz (sp) are not the only one to discover this, why do the designers (and I use that word loosely) and manufacturers still build with 100mm outlets,

Hi Tonto, I know from reading other posts from you that you are a smart man and you probably have a good idea why this is.

The manufacturers provide machinery to wholesalers/retailers, who then sell them off to end-users like you and me. The retailer wants to stock items that us back-yarders can afford or can justify the expense of for hobby use. They can do this because of the absence of any meaningful legislation defining minimum requirements for dust collection. They provide the equipment and we - the enduser - have to use it in a lawful way. In a home workshop there is no minimum legal requirements, unlike a commercial workshop.

About 2 years ago, BobL posted this (http://www.woodworkforums.com/f200/improving-machine-cabinet-dust-ports-187936?highlight=dust+ports+6%26quot%3B%26quot%3B) describing the ideal configuration for 6" dust ports on machines. I made a cardboard mockup of the resultant dustport and it was 290mm diameter and would fit on very few home hobbyists machines and not too many machines you would find in a professional woodworking workshop.

It all gets back to the power available in the average garage which makes the ubiquitous 2 hp dusty the weapon of choice for home hobbyists dust collection. 2 hp dust collection with two or three 4" pipes on the adapter or a single 4" inlet 1 hp blower has created the environment where manufacturers feel they are giving us what we want by providing 4" ports on machines.

If you look at the Generic 2hp dust collection thread (http://www.woodworkforums.com/f200/generic-2hp-dc-171247) you will find the instructions that I posted detailing how to modify the 2 hp dusty out to 6" in the third post in this thread .


... All you have to do is remove the impeller cover plate that comes with the dusty, usually held on by 8 or 12 screws and replace it with a shop-made one made of ply, MDF or Perspex with an inlet for a 6" PVC pipe. Its just a big flat disk the same diameter as the original plate with a hole cut in the middle the same size as the inside diameter of the 6" ducting with a 16mm - 18mm circle placed concentrically on the outside of the plate with an inside diameter the same as the outside diameter of the ducting. The ducting will fit inside the outer circle but the flange created by the smaller circle in the larger plate will stop the ducting being drawn in to the impeller. This will give you 28 1/4 sq" of inlet area as opposed to just under 16 sq" through the 4 1/2" port that Bob was measuring.

Now to the outlet port. Typically on these generic 2hp machines, the outlet is connected through an adapter to a 5" flexy hose and round a 90 degree curve into the collector and filter bag. Once you have opened up the inlet port, this is the new choke-point. The 5" hose has a cross-section area of 19.6 sq". This is about 2/3 of the input capacity so this is a serious choke-point even before we consider that is is going into a flexy hose, around a bend and into a filter bag, all of which will restrict flow to at least some extent.

The good news is - the actual outlet from the sheet-metal housing of the impeller is 6 1/8" x 4 1/8" or just over 25 1/4 sq". This is only 3 sq" short of the input but a whole 6 sq" bigger than the 5" flexy that it would normally flow into. Dont forget it is also orientated to the ideal shape for the output from the impeller, being a bit wider than the impeller itself and just under half the diameter. The rectangular shape of this outlet is made to optimize the relationship between the impeller and the housing. Choking it into a round 5" pipe through a 6" adaptor cant be good for airflow. ...
Doug :2tsup::2tsup::2tsup:

BobL pretty much followed these instructions to modify the blower but for some reason nobody calls it the Doug3030 2hp dusty modification but if you read through the thread from the start it is pretty obvious that BobL started it in an effort to prove for once and for all that the 2hp dusty was useless.

I had to encourage him every step of the way to build and test it as I do not have the testing gear to prove it's worth myself. If you read it carefully you can see that he only did it to prove me wrong but it actually worked.

I was only interested in improving the blower so that I could use it on my cyclone, but when BobL got all enthusiastic and went on to modify the bag ring I continued to offer support and suggestions.But the mods to the blower in that thread were posted by me and followed by BobL the following day, after making posts in the forum about how he thought they would not work.

Just my 2c worth

Cheers

Doug

[woodPixel]

Sometimes Buzz Aldrin gets the fame.

Perhaps it is time to consolidate this all into a single comprehensive HOW-TO wiki on the site rather than a thread with 470 posts.

A wiki would be good for the site.

[BobL]

The modified 2HP DC system does "work" in terms of it being better than what is a "dog" to start with.
However, it still does not work as a real DC.
I know I was very enthusiastic about it to begin with but you need to bear in mind that the improvement obtained was for a DC system not connected to any significant ducting, junctions or machinery.
As Bill Pentz demonstrated years ago small DCs have a fundamental problem in that their fan curves are just not up to the work needed to pull the required amount of air required to grab wood dust at source.
The net result is that the improvements made to the 2HP DC are rapidly lost when this DC is put to work in real applications.

The DC mod alone also does stuff all unless the ducting is all 6", with minimal junctions, and runs shorter than 3m (which severely restricts the length of ducting inside a shed if the DC is to be located outside a shed).
Running a chip collector on a modded DC will immediately lose most of the gains. Even greater care than usual needs to be placed on enlarging machine ports and air inlets on machines. 3HP and bigger machines are far more forgiving of longer ducting runs, more junctions and constricted machinery which inevitably happens in a real shed.

Various people have asked me to modify their 2HP DC for them but I have managed to talk them out of doing this and, if needed to upgrade the power to their shed and, purchase something better.
The 2HP DC I modified hasn't seen the light of a shed since I did it and it's stored in a seatainer at the tree loppers yard and has never been used on a machine as I have always had something better to use.
If it worked I would have been using it.

The issue of power is an important one but bear in mind that even a 2 HP wood working machine and a 2HP DC should be connected onto 2 separate 10A circuits.
If you put them on the same 10A circuit you are tempting fate.

As discussed by me in other threads, for woodies with 2 x 10A power lines in a shed a better solution than a modified 2HP DC would be to get a 3HP DC with a 240V 3phase motor and run it with a VFD.
I know that not everyone is capable of dealing with this up but for a cashed up renter that is not permitted to install a 15A line, it remains a viable alternative.

If you only have 1 x 10A power point in your shed and no chance of anything else, then perhaps consider hand tools, or find another hobby.

[BobL]

Sometimes Buzz Aldrin gets the fame.

Perhaps it is time to consolidate this all into a single comprehensive HOW-TO wiki on the site rather than a thread with 470 posts.

A wiki would be good for the site.

I agree, the way the forum works means long term info eventually gets lost, diluted and mixed in wth loads of dross.
The loss of most images pre-2012 has put a severe dent in the good stuff that was on this site.

[ian]

The modified 2HP DC system does "work" in terms of it being better than what is a "dog" to start with.
However, it still does not work as a real DC.

The issue of power is an important one but bear in mind that even a 2 HP wood working machine and a 2HP DC should be connected onto 2 separate 10A circuits.
If you put them on the same 10A circuit you are tempting fate.

As discussed by me in other threads, for woodies with 2 x 10A power lines in a shed a better solution than a modified 2HP DC would be to get a 3HP DC with a 240V 3phase motor and run it with a VFD.
I know that not everyone is capable of dealing with this up but for a cashed up renter that is not permitted to install a 15A line, it remains a viable alternative.

If you only have 1 x 10A power point in your shed and no chance of anything else, then perhaps consider hand tools, or find another hobby.
Bob, while you are no doubt correct with this assertion, it's not particularly helpful to the vast majority of "weekend warriors" who are neither "cashed up renters" or have multiple 10A and 15A circuits in their sheds.

perhaps to help those who are cash constrained or who only have a single 10A circuit in the shed, we should have a discussion around what is the best achievable DC outcome where you only have one or at most two 10A circuits to work with.

The starting point of the discussion might be that the "solutions" presented won't capture all the fine dust generated by a machine, but short of upgrading the shed to multiple 15A outlets, or 3-phase, you can still achieve a reasonable outcome if you do these relatively simple things.

For example, this guy https://youtu.be/lkTVwE_8oHM has a relatively simple, low cost, low amperage "solution" that, based on his particle detector measurements, seems to work for his belt sanders, but not his table saw.

An option I'd like to see more discussion on is the effectiveness of room air filters. While I know that they are useless at collecting the fine dust at the source, if you only use cut with the table saw for 2 to 3 minutes per hour, and collect the larger particles at the saw using a shop vac and cyclone or a directly connected 1HP or 2HP DC, is a room air filter effective at scrubbing the finer particles from the shed's air in a reasonable time.

Another area where I would like additional information is fine dust from planers and thicknesses.
We all know that these machines will quickly bury any shed in large chips, but how much fine dust do they typically produce? is it 1:10 compared to the large, visible chips (for every kg of chips in the collection bag are there 100g of fine dust in the air, or is it 10g, 5g or even less).

[Mobyturns]

we should have a discussion around what is the best achievable DC outcome where you only have one or at most two 10A circuits to work with.

The starting point of the discussion might be that the "solutions" presented won't capture all the fine dust generated by a machine, but short of upgrading the shed to multiple 15A outlets, or 3-phase, you can still achieve a reasonable outcome if you do these relatively simple things.

An option I'd like to see more discussion on is the effectiveness of room air filters. While I know that they are useless at collecting the fine dust at the source, .....

Another area where I would like additional information is fine dust from planers and thicknesses.
We all know that these machines will quickly bury any shed in large chips, but how much fine dust do they typically produce? is it 1:10 compared to the large, visible chips (for every kg of chips in the collection bag are there 100g of fine dust in the air, or is it 10g, 5g or even less).

DC is a topic that I don't think we will find many acceptable low cost solutions for in a hobby environment. Even in well setup "hobby" sheds with 6" ducting, & upper end quality brand "industrial" DC systems there is still a lot of very fine dust that has not been captured and has settled out on surfaces over time. Room filters will capture some of this very fine dust but operators are still in an environment that contains substantial amounts of dust in suspension, or about to be released back into the air at a later time.

BobL is on the right track, capture as much as possible at the source is the real answer, but we don't have the financial means to do that nor is the equipment available to hobbyists up to the task. Much of what we do is window dressing - feel good - solutions that probably capture 75% at best of the troublesome dust in the air. I know I don't have all the answers or solutions but I feel that significantly reducing troublesome dusts is at least a step in the right direction.

[WoodyNZ]

My suggestion for a cost effective solution would be to modify a 2hp unit according to the sticky and vent it outside. And wear a good quality mask. Use the 2hp unit on whatever you're working on (with a mask), but accept that it won't have captured everything. Then continue to run the unit for x minutes after your cut (so that it replaces the air in the room) before taking your mask off.

Someone smarter than me could adivse on what x minutes is. It will depend on the size of your shed of course.

[Tonyz]

Hell didnt mean to create a hornets nest.

What is a VFD :-

[BobL]

Bob, while you are no doubt correct with this assertion, it's not particularly helpful to the vast majority of "weekend warriors" who are neither "cashed up renters" or have multiple 10A and 15A circuits in their sheds.

I think I have been more than helpful but I also want to be completely up front about it.
I have said many times a 2HP DC with modification is better than without.
Is it modified 2HP a solution I can recommend in ALL situations, one I could sleep with if someone paid me money to make a recommendation - well no it isn't.

Risk of being affected by wood dust is related to your particular predisposition to the problem (X) and long term exposure (Y) which is a product of exposure time and dust levels.
X is a lottery, you can chose to ignore it or hit it on the head with a Bill Pentz stick.
Y is the domain we largely work in and here is the range of what I see.
The DIYer who dabbles with a few power tools a couple of days a month through to the retired blokes (mainly woodturners) who spend 40+ hours a week ankle deep in sawdust, possibly with a mask and shop vac.
The same range of blokes ask me, Is a 2HP a solution to their problem?
Clearly in the case of the DIYer it is but for the wood turner it simply isn't.

The blokes ankle deep in sawdust often have many thousands invested in WW gear, one bloke I met had over a thousand in turning chisels alone, they typically own their own homes and burn money on other things. I simply won't tell them the modified 2HP is an acceptable solution and neither do I have any sympathy for them.

Where's the line in the sand - well there isn't one - risk will increase with increases in Y and what you are prepared to gamble on X. I can recommend what is most likely to work - it's not my business to solve your financial or power problems.



An option I'd like to see more discussion on is the effectiveness of room air filters. While I know that they are useless at collecting the fine dust at the source, if you only use cut with the table saw for 2 to 3 minutes per hour, and collect the larger particles at the saw using a shop vac and cyclone or a directly connected 1HP or 2HP DC, is a room air filter effective at scrubbing the finer particles from the shed's air in a reasonable time.

I'm a bigger fan of high flow ventilation than room air filters and have posted many times about this. Large door and window openings that work as cross flow ventilation are the WWWW best friend. A 1/3HP squirrel cage fan draws about 2A, is quiet and can draw large volumes of air. Unfortunately they are not easy to find. Despite a fair DC system I also have two of these squirrel cage fans in my shed. Yesterday I was sanding the 7 layers of (Leaded) paint of some 100+ year old doorway architraves on my belt sander with a 40grit belt. I had the DC and a 1600 CFM room ventilation fan running and a mask on. There was paint chips all over the floor which I vacuumed up with the DC.


Another area where I would like additional information is fine dust from planers and thicknesses.
We all know that these machines will quickly bury any shed in large chips, but how much fine dust do they typically produce? is it 1:10 compared to the large, visible chips (for every kg of chips in the collection bag are there 100g of fine dust in the air, or is it 10g, 5g or even less).

I have posted on this several times. Provided they are sharp, planers and thicknesses do produce less fine dust per kg of chips but because the produce such a large total volume of chips they still produce large amounts of fine dust.

[BobL]

My suggestion for a cost effective solution would be to modify a 2hp unit according to the sticky and vent it outside. And wear a good quality mask. Use the 2hp unit on whatever you're working on (with a mask), but accept that it won't have captured everything. Then continue to run the unit for x minutes after your cut (so that it replaces the air in the room) before taking your mask off.

Someone smarter than me could adivse on what x minutes is. It will depend on the size of your shed of course.

for a 2HP and 6 x 4 x 2.4 m shed I would suggest between 2 and 20 minutes.
~2 minutes for a few saw cuts, ~20 minutes after running a sander or planer thicknesser for a couple of hours.

The solution your outline is sensible approach for a WWWW but its not sensible for a woody who spends all week in their shed making dust.

[BobL]

Hell didnt mean to create a hornets nest.

What is a VFD :-

VFDs are a user programmable black box that can do many things including enabling some 3 phase motors to run from single phase 240V supply.
They used to cost thousands but now thanks to China they cost ~$100s.
However, they are not yet plug and play and are not something the technically challenged should dabble with.

Similar devices are often found in inverter air conditioners and they are widely used in industry.
VFDs are able to use power efficiently and can provide high levels of machinery control.
For example they can enable, machinery to start slowly thus reduce start up currents and reducing wear and tear, speed control, and rapidly (0.1s) stopping machinery for safety purposes

Most of the machinery in my shed (DP, BS, 3 grinders, Belt sander, 2 lathes and one of my ventilator fans all have VFDs) I also have few spares that I use to test motors with.

Within a few years/decades I reckon they will come standard on (at least higher end) machinery

[John Samuel]

Just to add to BobL's post ...

VFD means Variable Frequency Drive. In Aust the mains power has a frequncy of 50 Hz. In the US it is 60 HZ. A motor will spin 20% faster on 60 Hz compared with 50 Hz.

I have a 3.3 kW motor on my cyclone driven at 60 Hz by a VFD. So, using the VFD gives me 20% more airflow than I'd get with standard 50 Hz power. It also gives me a soft start. It will do many, many other things I don't need and don't concern myself with.

Originally, my cyclone ran off a 10 Amp circuit. This worked pretty well until summer, when the extra load (and, I am told, disturbances caused by solar power being fed into the grid) caused my cyclone to trip off on hot days. A 15 Amp circuit was installed ... problem fixed.

[woodPixel]

Isn't it odd that systems are not sold with such simple upgrades/downgrades as the choice of a port.

6" standard hole-in-the-machine, with a plug-in a 6-to-4 adapter. Do the same for DC's.

Whats the harm? They can still sell all their legacy 4" pipe and bendies, but for those who want 6" it means less pain.

This is such a trivial thing, really. How hard is it to sell a 2HP 10amp system with a well engineered impeller, side-mounted to the collector, a 1 micron or less pleated filter and 6" ports. The unit could be priced at $1000.

They can still sell their $300 4" death inducing needle felt bag horrors.

As an aside, I've been talking to a few excellent filter suppliers about wood dust over the last fortnight. This was mainly due to my desire to soup up the 1/3rd HP Carba room filter. The lack of decent filters direct is abysmal. The filter companies were excellent - they could supply amazing filters at 1/4 the price.

It is time for the industry to get real and offer real filtration solutions.

[BobL]

Isn't it odd that systems are not sold with such simple upgrades/downgrades as the choice of a port.
6" standard hole-in-the-machine, with a plug-in a 6-to-4 adapter. Do the same for DC's.
Whats the harm? They can still sell all their legacy 4" pipe and bendies, but for those who want 6" it means less pain.
A few of us have been saying that for a few years.


This is such a trivial thing, really. How hard is it to sell a 2HP 10amp system with a well engineered impeller, side-mounted to the collector, a 1 micron or less pleated filter and 6" ports. The unit could be priced at $1000.
They can still sell their $300 4" death inducing needle felt bag horrors.

There's two types of needle felt (NF), thick (and almost as dense as hat felt) and thin (as T-shirt fabric).
There are also several types of PFs.
Some are initially as leaky as the thin NFs and because of the large surface area stay leakier for far longer.
Once conditioned NFs are equally efficient as PFs.
PFs will not clog up as quickly and can be cleaned more easily than NFs.

Irrespective of what filters you use the thinner the filters the more they will need conditioning otherwise their first few hours of use will fill your shed up with fine dust.
This is done by putting a bucket or two of sawdust into the DC and running it outside the shed - evert 20 minutes of so shake or rattle the filters so the dust falls back into the collector bag.
The swirling action inside the collection bag will mince the saw dust into finer and finer fragments.
For thin NF you need a hour or two for PFs double that.

This is not relevant if you put the DC outside the shed.

[elanjacobs]

It is time for the industry to get real and offer real filtration solutions.
They do, but you'll need to leave your wallet at the front desk.

[richmond68]

surely some mumbo is going to wake up one day and suggest to his bosses, "we all know that bigger outlets creates better suction, why dont we be the first and grab the market." or is it ignorance is bliss?

If this recent addition to the market is any indication, don't count on it happening any time soon. Yes, it is a pretty low end disc/belt sander, but somebody still had to design this. It's not just that they use 4" ports, there's often little thought given to how to even use that much properly.

396959

[bueller]

Yeah Carbatec have upgraded extractors coming in soon and still the same 4" nonsense even on the 3HP units. Hilariously those now have 4 x 4" inlets.

[Lappa]

Yeah Carbatec have upgraded extractors coming in soon and still the same 4" nonsense even on the 3HP units. Hilariously those now have 4 x 4" inlets.

The two 3hp models on their website have 200mm dust ports. Admittedly, one comes with a 100mm reducer :?

[bueller]

The two 3hp models on their website have 200mm dust ports. Admittedly, one comes with a 100mm reducer :?
Didn't see that one, I was looking at this unit.

https://www.carbatec.com.au/dust-control/dust-extractors/dust-collector-twin-bag-1ph-3hp-240v-old-code-ct-003vb-1ph

[BobL]

If this recent addition to the market is any indication, don't count on it happening any time soon. Yes, it is a pretty low end disc/belt sander, but somebody still had to design this. It's not just that they use 4" ports, there's often little thought given to how to even use that much properly.

http://www.woodworkforums.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=396959&stc=1

That's a classic.

http://d1r5wj36adg1sk.cloudfront.net/images/misc/quote_icon.png Originally Posted by Tonto http://d1r5wj36adg1sk.cloudfront.net/images/buttons/viewpost-right.png (http://www.woodworkforums.com/f200/manufacturers-stupid-209169-post1981622#post1981622)

surely some mumbo is going to wake up one day and suggest to his bosses, "we all know that bigger outlets creates better suction, why dont we be the first and grab the market." or is it ignorance is bliss?

Bigger outlets used in conjunction with a small DC won't pick up chips so users with small DCs will end up stoppering the ports down and complain that the ports are too big!

[Lappa]

Didn't see that one, I was looking at this unit.

https://www.carbatec.com.au/dust-control/dust-extractors/dust-collector-twin-bag-1ph-3hp-240v-old-code-ct-003vb-1ph

But it's a double filter unit so it needs four inlets :D

[bueller]

But it's a double filter unit so it needs four inlets :D
2 + 2 = 4

Checks out!