Thread: In The Market For A Dust Extractor

Heapsa people will disagree. BUT for me the basic DC-kit-whatever supplied b Carbatecorwhoever provides a really good starting point. If you want a big swallower, get one, but get the basic set and expand.

Originally Posted by outback

Heapsa people will disagree. BUT for me the basic DC-kit-whatever supplied b Carbatecorwhoever provides a really good starting point. If you want a big swallower, get one, but get the basic set and expand.

Do you mean the kit with 4m or so of flexi-hose, a few gates and wyes and asstd hoods? If so, I gotta agree that it makes a good starting point to get a small DC system up'n'running at reasonable cost. I also know that others will disagree, saying "but you won't need half of it." Considering it's all thrown in for the cost of just the hose, (or was when I bought mine) I don't really see what their point is!

Personally, the only parts I had no use for were the wyes. [shrug] The gates I'm replacing with quality units as and when I can, but were perfectly OK for getting my system up & running. The floor sweep is still a daily user, and the asstd hoods have all seen various uses, mainly as dust ports on larger home-made ply/mdf hoods for the hose to physically connect to.

Don't have the catalogue you refer to handy, so forgive me if this comment is not needed.

If at all possible, try to engineer a clean air intake for your saw, similar to the sleeve on the Triton dust bag. Though your dust extractor will be removing air and dust from around the saw, the air that will be passing through the saw will still have a concentration of dust in it.

By haveing a clean air intake you will keep your motor cleaner, help it to run cooler and ultimately, last longer.

Steve

I ended up making an adapter for my Triton WC2K table that used the existing Triton dust bag. This kept it portable (the TWC2K travels from site to site) while making it eeasy to hook to the DC on the rare occasion when 'tis at home

I could've sworn I've already posted pix of this beast but the only one I can find is the pre-assembly stage where I was mocking up and testing everything for fit... sadly, the finished product is now on-site with the rest of the table, so I can't take more pix of the beast in action.

Anyway, the pic should illustrate the basic idea. The funnel rests inside the top bag, the bottom bag is fastened to the bottom disk and the DC hooks up to the spare wye branch. What can't be seen in this pic is a ring of holes, the same size as drilled in the PVC wye, at the bottom of the funnel. The idea was that dust would fall through to be collected by the cross-flow of air into the dusty, while the.larger pieces/offcuts would be "filtered out" and collected in the funnel.

On the first use I realised this was just being silly and cut the bottom out of the funnel altogether, to let the larger pieces drop all the way through into the collection bag.

It also didn't take me long to realise that a 4" hose to the wye was overkill... it reduced the overall "suck factor" too much (remember, there's another hose to the overhead guard too!) so I made a 3-way wye (a 4" port with three 2" branches) and run one 2" hose to this doover and the other two to the overhead guard, which was modified to take the second hose. I'm pretty sure there's a "how-to" on this guard mod somewhere on these forums. :confused: A quick search should find it.

For me, this worked out very nicely. The three 2" ports don't "choke" the DC (where running only 2 would) and the extra suck at the overhead guard works surprisingly well in keeping things clean. It also avoids the problem Steve mentions (clean air to the motor) altogether.

I modified the above table guard to take 4" pipe
http://burgess.barry.googlepages.com...onnections.jPG
and below the table
http://burgess.barry.googlepages.com/SawBelowTable.JPG
What I do is only open the above table connection while cutting and open the below table after completing the cut to get the best results else the two connections are competing with each other.
Barry

Thanks to all who have responded

Sure a lot of good stuff to think about. I may yet take the advise that 4" was overkill and reduce to 2 x 2" - one under and one above.

Any preferences on suitable d/c units and suppliers would be a great help thanks.

Also any suggestions on trigger holders would be appreciated thanks.

May buy the Big Gulp chute and a 4:2 reducer setup:confused: (too much in the kit)
What value a d/c earth grounding kit pls.

thanks again

Keith S