Veritas Cyclone Lids

[Slavo]

G'day folks,

I was wondering whether anyone has had any experience with these cyclone lids from Veritas.

Veritas Cyclone Lid (http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.asp?page=30282&category=1,42401&ccurrency=2&SID=)

I know that there has been a fair bit of discussion in the past on building your own mini-cyclone, which has been useful as I am currently looking to make my life as dust free as possible.

Cheers
Slavo

[craigb]

G'day Slavo

Yes there has been a lot of discussion on these boards about cyclones.
Somebody over on the triton board posted details of how he turned his triton dust bucket into a mini cyclone for the cost of a plastic funnel and some tubing.
I plan to make it myself when I get a chance.
Anyway it's worth checking out and I think a search over there should turn it up.

It will probably be a lot cheaper than importing the Veritas.

Craig

[DPB]

I checked out the Veritas Cyclone Lid when I was in Canada in December. I couldn't bring myself to spend the money then, and I could have brought it back to Australia as baggage, i.e. no freight cost. I can't imagine what that would cost. The material from which it is vacuum moulded is very light. Just didn't seem to be manufactured in the normal Veritas quality.

As for the concept, it works OK. When I got back, I was in Carbi-Tool's Melbourne showroom in Moorabin, and saw a similar lid, much heavier construction which I picked up for around $15, if I recall correctly. I believe it was a discontinued product which they had imported from the USA for resale purposes.

I had a little trouble finding a waste bin that would fit it, but eventually found one at Mitre 10. I've installed it in-line immediately prior to my 1HP DC. I just checked it out this afternoon, and the waste bin is almost full. Unfortunately, there is also about 12" of waste in the bottom of my DC bag. The cyclone has filtered out larger chips, and the DC bag finer dust. I suspect I may have left the cyclone bin too long without emptying it. Perhaps there would be less in the bag if I'd done so earlier. However, since the DC is under my house any escaping dust has not landed in my shop. And I can't see much dust that I would identify as wood dust on surfaces under the house.

So is it working, I think so - sort of - maybe????
:confused:

[soundman]

Gregory machinery( & probably other woodman group) have the jet version of the cyclone lid (it aint a cyclone BTW not even close).

But why would you bother a disk of mdf & some plumbing pipe & two crocked holes & you are away.

better still $40 worth of sheet metal & some high school soldering practise & you have a real cyclone. search this bb & bill penz site for heaps of info.

[Slavo]

Thanks guys,

The major difference between the mini-cyclones on this BB and the Veritas one is the outlet on the home made ones have a vertical pipe running from near the funnel through the centre of the lid.

I've been thinking that for the outlet, a 90 degree elbow pointing the opposite direction to the inlet may be the go. Looks like I'll be doing a bit of experimenting to see how it all works out.

Thanks again for your responses.

Slavo

[kevinmcc]

I have had a lot of problems with a 1 hp dust collector that continually blocks up with chips when thicknessing softwoods such as pine. The chips quickly collect at the coarse screen mounted in the fan intake pipe. I happened to notice the JET cyclone bucket lid on a Carba Tec website and it looked like a great idea to put a rubbish tin with the cyclonic head on it between the thicknesser and the DC to reduce my blockage problems. I spoke to Carba-Tec today and they advise that (a) the original JET bucket lid was discontinued because it did not work - it stirred up the contents of the dustbin and re-entrained it. (b) There may well be a reworked model in the new Carba-Tec catalogue due out in about a week. (c) The problem can be solved in another way by simply cutting out the caorse metal screen at the DC inlet. Apparently this must be present in the machine by law since it stops dolts from putting their frayed ends into the gubbins of the fan. However, in practice the DC won't work properly until it is removed. Hooray!:D

[davo453]

I had that “coarse screen” off my dust collector within an hour of starting to use it, wonderful things tin snips.

Once you’ve permanently attached the hose you would need a pretty long arm to entangle your fingers in the fan I reckon.

Dave

[soundman]

slavo mate drop in on bill penz site. you will come away with a prety good understanding of the works of these things even if you don't want to build a full blown cyclone.

do a serach of this bb or go to google & search in dust cyclones & go for anything with bill penz in it.

cheers

[outback]

I'm with soundman.

Cyclones sound scary, especially when faced with the prospect of building one as opposed to buying a "readymade" whatever.

But, a home made cyclone will probably cost next to nothing at most to make, and are really efficient.

[Gumby]

Originally posted by Slavo
Thanks guys,


I've been thinking that for the outlet, a 90 degree elbow pointing the opposite direction to the inlet may be the go.
Slavo

Not from what i've read about cyclones it wouldn't. The central pipe picks up the clean air at the point ijn the middle of the cyclone where the air direction reverses. The dust has been flung to the outside of the cyclone so it is very clean in the middle. A pipe pointing the other way would just stuff the whole process up.