omg cyclone rocks!

[chylld]

just built myself a little cyclone, about 50cm tall including the 89c bunnings bucket underneath it. gave it a test just then and i couldn't believe how well it worked - i'd say over 95% of the dust was in the bucket! and the stuff in there was much finer than the stuff i thought i was vacuuming...

going to finish construction tomorrow and then take some pics :)

[gazaly]

Great stuff. Look forward to the pics:)

[seriph1]

me too!

[doug the slug]

ive just built 2 cyclones based on local mods of the Sturdee design. i cant fault them, they havent missed a single particle of sawdust, even after a couple of hours of ripping mdf. if i had known they were so effective i would have made them ages agohttp://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.au/images/icons/icon14.gif

[chylld]

that's the best avatar in the world, doug. :D

i'll be doing a couple of things tomorrow, first will be to lower the inner tube a bit, at the moment the tube ends where the cone section starts. gonna put it about an inch into the cone bit (which itself is only 5" long; this is a mini-cyclone). during my test i noticed that some sawdust did make its way to the filter so there's room for improvement.

second thing i'll be doing is making a brace for the cyclone as well as the vacuum cleaner, when it's standing upright and i turn it on it twists around because of the torque! :)

[Waldo]

G'day,

C'mon post the pics, post the pics! C'mon!

Just finished hooking my jointer up to the Dusty after having fabricated a dust chute for it out of sheet metal and sometime down the track I want to put in a cyclone - if possible.

And I need some instructions on how to make a cyclone - really simple and detailed ones to follow.

[chylld]

waldo, if i can get mine working... rather, WHEN i get mine working to the standard of other forum members' ones, then i'd be glad to make some simple instructions. it's really very simple and quite cheap if you have the right scraps lying around :)

[doug the slug]

that's the best avatar in the world, doug. :D........... ................. second thing i'll be doing is making a brace for the cyclone as well as the vacuum cleaner, when it's standing upright and i turn it on it twists around because of the torque! :)

thanks for the appreciation of the avatar, i can understand you needing bracing on a tiny cyclone like that. mine stand up pretty well by themselves, got a few MDF disks in them and the bottom bucket is metal

[BarryBurgess]

My two 'cyclones' the Peter the jig on the right and the dual cyclone on the left that was on the BB.
The dual works best with a strong vacuum but blocks up more often.
With a small vacuum Pete's works best.

[chylld]

aargh that sucks, did a nice write-up in the form of an edit to the first post but got denied by an error message. here goes again in slightly abbreviated form.

---

you can see the pics below, from left to right:
1) the whole setup (minus some hose extensions which i've yet to buy). the vacuum unit is a ~700w one that my parents bought about 25-30 years ago :) i have a feeling it won't be of much good when i plug the cyclone into the router so i'll be upgrading it probably to a pullman as-3 which is on special for $99 again :)
2) a closeup. the wood is from ikea and cost 1/3 of the price of pine at bunnings. metal is aluminium sheet i had lying around, bucket is 89c from bunnings, and the inlet/outlet tubes are 33mm OD from bunnings too.
3) the bottom.
4) the bucket after some light cleanup. lots of fine dust in here, if you tap the bucket moderately hard all of these specks fly up into the air :)
5) the filter. looks dirty but that's as clean as i can get it, it's a pretty old thing remember :) it looks as clean as when i started today's test so yeah - pretty good :)

materials... cyclone is made of a 440x125mm sheet of aluminium for the cylinder and a 90degree 140mm inner radius 280mm outer radius section for the cone. everything is put together with tape, and the tape job is much cleaner and smoother on the inside than on the outside, something to do with inner turbulence being bad for the cyclone effect.

at the top of the cyclone there's a 125mm wooden disc with a 32mm hole sawed into the middle for the outlet pipe. sanded/filed it back into the outlet pipe was a tight fit, there's 150mm of it inside the cyclone. at the bottom there's a 240mm wooden disc with a 76mm hole sawed into it. the cyclone is attached with lots of tape and secured with the wooden brace around the outside.

the big base piece also has some foam strip around the outside so that it fits snugly against the inside of the bucket. it seem to be airtight, if you block the inlet while the vacuum's running it sucks the whole assembly into the bucket :P

any questions about design/construction i'd be happy to answer, it was much easier than i thought and it's just fun listening to it run and seeing all the crap go into the bucket and not the filter :)

[Sturdee]

Looks good. Good to see another version of a mini cyclone.

However instead of the plastic bucket I would use an empty paint drum which would make it much sturdier.


Peter.

[chylld]

thanks for the comment sturdee :) yeh if it proves to be too wobbly in actual use i'll make the 'upgrade' to empty paint drum. i'm mainly interested to see how far the 89c bucket can go :) (even though i hear bunnings will give away empty paint drums for free)

my next step after buying more tubing (and a more powerful vac) is to make a power-sensing circuit so that when i turn my router on it turns the vacuum cleaner on automatically. i can't seem to find any info on that with my searches so far, has such a thing been done before? i'm on a tight budget so i want most of my money to go towards the $99 pullman AS-3.

[Gumby]

i can't seem to find any info on that with my searches so far, has such a thing been done before? i'm on a tight budget so i want most of my money to go towards the $99 pullman AS-3.

That's the one i have on my mini cyclone. Godfreys must have the special on again because others in here couldn't get one for that price (I was lucky , I did :D ) It's a damn good machine. Lots of suck :)

[Sturdee]

.......even though i hear bunnings will give away empty paint drums for free


Don't know about Bunnings but another local paint store would only sell them for $ 15.

Instead I went across the road where there was a redevelopment being built and got 2 empty drums with lids from the painters who were glad to get rid of them. :D


Peter.

[chylld]

hehe good on ya sturdee :)

Gumby: is the AS-3 loud in operation? i'm thinking of going to go buy it tomorrow. also how many watts does it draw? it'd be nice if i could run it from the same powerpoint as my 1200W router :)

[Gumby]

hehe good on ya sturdee :)

Gumby: is the AS-3 loud in operation? i'm thinking of going to go buy it tomorrow. also how many watts does it draw? it'd be nice if i could run it from the same powerpoint as my 1200W router :)

Soory, couldn't hear the computer...I had the vacuum on. :D :D

Yes. it whistles pretty loud but no kore than most vacs. It says 1200W/1400W max on the instruction book so i suppose it's 1200. There's one at Bunnies at the moment which is an Ozito 1100W for $89. I think i'd go for the Pullman at $99. last check they were about $150.

I've just be vacuuming out the inside of my Table Saw and there's lots of fine dust in there. A layer about 3 inches thick. I sucked it up with the vac and Triton Cyclone bucket (Sturdee's Mod , see www.tritonwoodworkers.org.au Newsletter section) and there isn't one scrap of dust in the vac. :D I also use a paint 20L tin. The metal clip on lid is very easy to take off and works very well. (it was free at my local paint shop - they usually crush them)

[BarryBurgess]

I am using W2000 vacuums on both versions of the cyclones and metal collection drums as the plastic versions are sucked flat. The triton bucket is helped by the funnel as reinforcing but it also distorts.
I am working on a full sized Bill Pentz's type cyclone at present with a 3HP motor and a piped system as I am tired of moving the hoze around.

[chylld]

hooked the thing up to my router and to my surprise it actually caught most of the dust! the dust that it didn't catch was being ejected at such a high speed i think i'd need quite a lot more power to catch it, or even better, a separate dust extraction thing (think big 4"-based one) under the table.

i was pleased with those results, so i went and got some hose and attached about 4m of it to the cyclone and turned the vacuum cleaner on... and the bucket imploded!!! it was really freaky, it started to crumple and before i knew it it was a quarter of its original size! looks like i'll be getting a paint tin on my next trip to bunnings :) or maybe i'll just find an unused jar from the kitchen or something...

[BarryBurgess]

i was pleased with those results, so i went and got some hose and attached about 4m of it to the cyclone and turned the vacuum cleaner on... and the bucket imploded!!! it was really freaky, it started to crumple and before i knew it it was a quarter of its original size! looks like i'll be getting a paint tin on my next trip to bunnings :) or maybe i'll just find an unused jar from the kitchen or something...
I use a 60 litre metal drum and put a black rubbish bag in it so I dont have to tip it into a bag when I am empting it. I found the 20 litre too small and I was empting it to often

[chylld]

wow 60L is quite big :) i've reserved the near-empty milo tin in the kitchen though, with any luck that'll be sufficient since i'm not making too much sawdust.

[corbs]

How small do you want to go... I have a nearly finished tin of Strawberry Quik in the cupboard :D, I am in the middle of the Sturdee mod at the moment. Went down to Godfreys this afternoon and they had just gotten rid of all their trades. The guy went out the back and came out with a little 850watt machine that he said I could have until they got some bigger machines traded. SWMBO will be happy that the dyson can come back inside. 850 watts wont be enough but its gotta be better than the current Fremantle Dr that I am using :o;)

Corbs