Thread: blocked pipe

Originally Posted by legin

Gday fellow woodies.

I am having a problem with woodchips blocking at the entry of my dust collector when using my thicknesser.
It is a carbatec 2hp dusty which has a y piece covering the inlet to give you 2 inlets The metal inlet under the y piece has like a grille arrangement.
The woodchips are gathering in front of this grille and blocking up the y piece.

This has only started to happen since I started using pine for a recent project. This never happened when using jarrah.
I was thinking of cutting some of this grill away to allow the woodchips to get through easier.
I wasnt sure if this was a good idea just in case something thats not meant to be sucked up by the DC which could damage the impeller manages to find its way in there.

If I thickness a 100mm wide pine board or wider this will happen after 2 or 3 passes, which is quite annoying.

Any ideas besides cutting the grille?

At a minimum I would cut all of the grille out and remove the Y completely. The Y is too close to the impeller and generates turbulence and on some of these units I have seen the non-working arm of the Y choked up so badly it choked the air path of the other passage.

Better still I would modify the 2HP according to this thread.

Get rid of the grille, you don't need it. The impeller will take more abuse than 2hp can throw at it without being damaged.

Thanks for the replies. I will get rid of the grille and y piece as suggested. I only use one outlet anyway.

Interesting reading on the DC modifications there Bob.
I may look at doing something like that after the many other projects and jobs the SWMBO finds me.