Thread: Group Buy of Dust Collectors

Originally Posted by Clear Vue Ed

Hi Everyone,
First of all, I hope this is the right place for this post. If not, I apologize. My name is Ed Morgano and I'm president of Clear Vue Cyclones, Inc. We have had a lot of interest in our products from woodworkers in Australia. Unfortunately, the shipping costs are prohibitive. We have talked about solutions but on an individual basis, nothing is really workable. I have decided to put this out and see if there might be enough interest to warrant a larger shipment where we could substantially reduce shipping costs. I'm not sure what the best way to organize such a group buy, but we are open to any suggestions from you. You can contact me directly at [email protected] or just post here. If you e-mail me, please put AU Group Buy in the subject line.

Thanks for any help or ideas.

Ed Morgano

Hi Ed, sounds like a great idea. Just a thought on reducing freight: would it be feasible to send the things unassembled and have them put together here? It may reduce the volume enough to make the project viable. I have the shed space to do just that for anything up to a couple of container loads at a time if that helps.

Craig,
That sounds like a good idea on some of the items. We could ship the blower housings unassembled and that could save some space. The cyclone however is another story. We haven't figured out a way to make a bolt on cone and I would be afraid to send them over with the cones separately because of the way we fit and seal them. If we could, that would save a lot of space because we could stack the cones.
Rick Wynn (Wynn is the company that supplies our filters) is much more familiar with overseas shipping than I am and I have asked Rick to check into prices for either 5 or 10 units to see how much money we could save. Also, I plan on talking to Leeson to see if we can get a 50 Hz motor for our units for a reasonable price. I will keep this forum posted as I learn more.

Ed

I'm keen to get a couple of minicyclones, and filters to go with the pentz cyclone i made,
If you get the freight cost, we will try to get a few people interested

Im interested depending on pricing etc

I'm in also. I'd prefer a turn-key cyclone with a 2 or 3 hp motor. I'd also consider a no motor option to fit my own 3 phase unit.

Thanks

Greg. (I am also willing to be a Melbourne drop location for local units at no charge)

Originally Posted by Clear Vue Ed

Also, I plan on talking to Leeson to see if we can get a 50 Hz motor for our units for a reasonable price. I will keep this forum posted as I learn more.
Ed

Ed,
The motors thing is more to do with volages than frequency. We are looking at 230VAC single phase or 415VAC across phases for 3 phase. The frequency will affect the motor speed, and your induction motors typically run 20% faster than ours due to the 60Hz vs 50Hz factor. There is little that can be done re motor design to change this.

As a consequence, the flow rate for the fan system will be significantly lower than it would be in US, and it might be appropriate to upgrade the fan unit to compensate, probably requiring the motor power to be upgraded as well. No doubt you will be in a better position to do all the sums than I am.

Hope this helps outline the situation.

could we purchse the motors here in australia and fit them on arival?

I don't think the speed is that much of an issue, those are no load speeds so it's not gonna go at those speeds anyway, and 5hp is still 5 hp.
All the cyclone on offer here seem to be 14" fans with cheap chinese 2 or 3 hp motors, so 16" with a real 5hp is gonna suck (in a good way)
I'd look at sourcing a motor here as there are bargains to be had in used quality motors, but those old ones can be heavy!

Originally Posted by hugh reid2

I don't think the speed is that much of an issue, those are no load speeds so it's not gonna go at those speeds anyway, and 5hp is still 5 hp.
All the cyclone on offer here seem to be 14" fans with cheap chinese 2 or 3 hp motors, so 16" with a real 5hp is gonna suck (in a good way)
I'd look at sourcing a motor here as there are bargains to be had in used quality motors, but those old ones can be heavy!

Hugh

I don't think it's that simple

there's a complex relationship between motor power, speed, the size and shape of the impellor (fan) and the size of the fan housing

change one factor (e.g. the motor) and you almost certainly have to change some of the others.



ian

Does Ed use Taiwanese motors? If so then Australian spec'd motors could be bought from same supplier and imported seperately, although it would probably be cheaper to do a bulk order here.

prozac

Originally Posted by prozac

Does Ed use Taiwanese motors? If so then Australian spec'd motors could be bought from same supplier and imported separately, although it would probably be cheaper to do a bulk order here.

prozac

We use a Leeson (American made) 5hp compressor motor. We have them available in 1 phase 230V 60 Hz which won't work on your 50Hz current....or at least Leeson doesn't recommend using them. I believe it's because of the centrifugal switch. It opens at 75% of full speed to take the start windings out of the circuit. Because of the 50 Hz current your motors run 20% slower and that only gives a 5% margin of error for the switch to open and I believe that is the whole issue. If the switch doesn't open, the start windings will burn up in a minute or less.
For anyone who has 3 phase current, we do have 3 phase motors that will work with your 415V at the same price. Also, if we can get up a bulk shipment, the shipping cost would not be an issue because from what I understand, price is determined more on the volume of the shipment than on the weight so the motors could be shipped for almost nothing extra.

Now I want to talk about impeller speed vs. CFM. Our CV1800 (18" diam cyclone) is rated at 1440 maximum CFM. Your system with a 15" impeller would produce 20% less or 1440 x 80% = 1152 CFM. While that is good, you could easily power the 16" impeller and get about 1300 CFM. We have sold a few 16" impellers to customers with 50 Hz current and that seems to be a good fit so that is what I'd recommend.

If we can't find a reasonable 1 phase motor from Leeson and you want to source a motor there, we can make a motor plate to fit a different mounting and we can supply metric taper lock bushings for our impellers. The motor would need to have a "C" face on it so it could mount from the end of the motor. We have made special motor plates for several different metric C Face motors. We have 24 mm and 28 mm bushings in stock which would be the two most common sizes. Hope this helps.

I will get back and post some shipping prices as soon as I hear back from Rick Wynn. That will probably take him a few days.


Ed

Originally Posted by ian

Hugh

I don't think it's that simple

there's a complex relationship between motor power, speed, the size and shape of the impellor (fan) and the size of the fan housing

change one factor (e.g. the motor) and you almost certainly have to change some of the others.



ian

It is and it isn't that simple,
Yes there will be a drop in airflow, and those who need to know exactly what CFM they have can hire an Anemometer,
While calculating the exact result might be 'complicated' (the static pressure, ie ducting length, smoothness, layout, filters etc. will have a huge effect), the principles are very simple
ALL the single phase DCs here run at 50hz, and they suck air.
If 14" and 2hp suck 'X' amount of air then 16" and 5hp will suck more than 'X' amount of air.


It's not like if you 'need" 15" and 5hp at 60hz then you 'have to have' 15" and 6.658hp at 50hz or it won't work
There is a range within which the results will be acceptable and by acceptable i mean it will get more of the dust than what you have already

Hugh

you and I are getting too technical for the subject of this post, and the intended tennor of my comment.
Surfice to observe that your first chart shows two 2HP 12" blowers with totally different curves

I'm happy to continue the discussion but suggest it should be in a separate thread.



ian

Originally Posted by Clear Vue Ed

Hi Everyone,
snip
My name is Ed Morgano and I'm president of Clear Vue Cyclones, Inc.
We have had a lot of interest in our products from woodworkers in Australia. Unfortunately, the shipping costs are prohibitive. We have talked about solutions but on an individual basis, nothing is really workable.
I have decided to put this out and see if there might be enough interest to warrant a larger shipment where we could substantially reduce shipping costs.
I'm not sure what the best way to organize such a group buy, but we are open to any suggestions from you.

Thanks for any help or ideas.

Ed Morgano

Ed

Firstly I fully support what you're trying to do.

Thinking back to the group clamp order placed through Lee Valley about 3½ years ago issues that needed to be resolved, i.e. paid for by the end purchasers were:
Australian excise and GST on the whole shipment including the freight costs
Customs fees
stevedoring charges
unpacking the container and forwarding the items to the ultimate buyers
any warranty claims were the responsibility of the end purchaser, not the "agent" who shepherded the shipment off the wharf and through customs

I'm sure that we will be able to organise what needs to be done this end to get the container off the wharf, unpacked and the cyclones forwarded to the ultimate buyer

BUT you might like to think through how any warranty issues might be addressed


In respect to your cyclones, I'm concerned that any electric motors imported into Australia might need to be fitted with an Australian compliance plate.
Maybe it's as simple as having a local sparky check the motore before it's plugged in, may be not.
Hopefully someone more knowledgeable will chime in.



ian