Thread: Poll on DC location

DC's in an adjacent room. Means, no need for stuffy enclosure to dampen noise. Vents outside. And still the machines out of the weather and easily assessable.

I have a clearvue cyclone. It was designed especially for small workshops to capture as much dust as possible for our health. So has a 5hp motor.

Truth is, I couldn't give a **** about the health aspect because complete dust capture is quite impractical for some kinds of woodwork.

Ironically, I went for it, simply because the more efficient it is the more it pulls off big machines like thicknessers. And the further it can pull. And at the time I wanted something that had no resemblence at all to messy dusty bag machines, which can cover you from head to toe with crap every time you have to clean them.

Hi,
Mine is in my wood storage lean to, not its own enclosure.
Regards

I'm about to start venting mine outside the shed on the assumption it's better to keep the unit inside to keep the ducting run as short as possible... but notice most seem to have the whole unit outside. Are there further health benefits to this? or it just considered easier/quieter?

Dave

Mine is in an internal enclosure in the shed, but vented to outside.

Stud walled enclosure, sheet material cladding, sealant around all cladding joints and around floor. Normal internal door weather sealed to prevent venting to shed as much as possible.

Impractical for me to locate outside.

Originally Posted by davesmylie

I'm about to start venting mine outside the shed on the assumption it's better to keep the unit inside to keep the ducting run as short as possible... but notice most seem to have the whole unit outside. Are there further health benefits to this? or it just considered easier/quieter?

Dave

It does not matter whether the ducting is before or after the impeller it still ads to the overall restriction to flow so there's no advantage from a ducting point of view.

DC filters, especially once conditioned and provided they're in good shape, are surprising efficient at filtering fine dust. When new they are not very efficient and take a couple of hours of continuous use to reach a conditioned state so are not trapping fine dust during this time. The same happens if the bags are washed and to a lesser extent if they bags are shaken out. If you buy a new DC the safest way to condition the filters is to put a couple of buckets of dark sawdust in the collection nag and run it outside for a couple of hours. This will also reveal where some of the bigger leaks are.

Even once conditioned, if DCs are used for long periods and kept clean to maintain air flow, they will still release significant amounts of fine wood dust back into a shed. The longer filters are left unclean the more efficient they become but the more they restrict air flow which means less dust is captured at source and remains spread all over the shed.

Despite the above, ALL DCs eventually leak. The filters themselves have or develop holes, most are too small to be seen. Sometimes evidence for these holes can be seen as dark stains or plumes of fine dust on the filter bag itself. The plastic collection bags also develop holes because of sharp chips constantly swirling around inside them. Lightly filled bags are constantly bashed against the filter housing supports by the wiring action of the air as it passes through the system. This constant bashing against the base of a DC eventually wears holes in the plastic. The impeller and flanges between the impeller and filter housing are often not well sealed and the leakiest DCs are those that are moved around between machines presumably because they are constantly knocked.

Some of the biggest leaks are around the filter/bag to housing seal. These can often be seen if the DC is run for a while collecting dark wood dust. By then its too late and your shed is contaminated by dust which is a PITA to remove. Sometimes these are too small to be seen and will continue to leak indefinitely. The seals on Pleated filters (PF) are generally poorly fitted and as they get dirty or dry out over time and develop leaks. Cleaning and conditioning these seals with something like Armourall is an important part of PF maintenance.

And finally the emptying of bags performed inside a shed is a sure way of leaving a plume of dust behind..

Originally Posted by davesmylie

... but notice most seem to have the whole unit outside.

Not really. Looking at the poll it seems that just a little over 1/3rd of people have the unit outside. Most people currently have it located inside.

My Dust Extractor lives in it's own small room in the corner of the workshop, and is vented outdoors.

The room is built from pine studs with 12 mm Ply cladding on the outside. The door from the workshop into the dusty room is a standard internal house door, but I've installed rubber seals on the sides and top, and a draft excluder on thebottom, to try to seal the door gaps. Venting of the Dusty Room to the outdoors is via an existing 400 x 600 louvre window, with the louvres permanently left open at 45 degrees - seems to be plenty of cross sectional area that it doesn't seem to create any back pressure. The nearest neighbour in that direction is about 500 meters away, so any dusty noise going out the louvres doesn't make it as far as the neighbour's place.

I'm about to do some work on the dusty room. The dusty room needs to grow by 300mm in one direction to allow it to accommodate a new 3HP Dusty. I also want to try to sound insulate the room a bit more to further reduce the amount of dusty noise penetrating the workshop area. And as the workshop is the house's old double garage which is directly attached to the side of the house, I need to try to reduce the dusty noise being heard inside the house. At this stage, I plan to add a 12 mm MDF lining on the inside of the inside of the dusty room walls, and some "pink bats" compressed into the 75mm cavity in the wall. I'm using the MDF and the pink bats because that's what I've got laying around, and they were both "freebies" given to me by a local builder.

Roy

Originally Posted by Vernonv

Not really. Looking at the poll it seems that just a little over 1/3rd of people have the unit outside. Most people currently have it located inside.

Yup, changed now - was well different stats at the start - serves me right for not waiting until more people responded!

Mine is on wheels, I move it around to where every I need it.

It has the 1 micron truck filter on it but I often use a cartridge mask as well.

My Men's Shed has two DC with rigid ducting in a storeroom away from the work areas. They have 1 micron pleated cartridge units with cyclone pre-filters to take out the heavy stuff (and protect the material-handling fans).

Mine is currently under the carport (my workshop is a single garage), and I'm busy routing the ducting. Making a 175mm hole through the brick wall took longer than I thought it would. Once the ducting is in, I'll be able to swing it through 180 degrees and take it to the back of the garage instead of the front if I decide I need a dedicated enclosure for it to sit in. The garage door is usually closed when I'm working (mosquitoes in summer, cold air in winter).

Another alternative is to just hook up a length or two of ducting and dump it in the corner of the garden without filtering it at all. I'd need to make an adaptor from the blower outlet to connect it to the piping though, so it may never happen, even as an experiment.