Thread: Clear Vue installation

I am struggling to understand Safari's readings. I took my cyclone to bits to have the motor checked. As it was re-assembled it I re-took the noise readings (taken 3M from cyclone).

1. No exhaust/sound suppression at all ... 95dB (intake ducting was in place)
2. Fit the two layers of insulated ducting ... 72-74 dB (all gates closed) 75-77 dB with table saw gate open.
3. Fit the Sureform and polyseter fibre to sides of the impeller housing ... 64-65 dB (all gates closed) 66-68 dB with table saw gate open.

The reading at 2. above is higher than the first reading a few months ago, but I have moved a few things in my shop and the sound may be bouncing around differently. The final reading is close to what it has always been.

At about 95dB the darn thing screams. I could hardly hear myself think. Mine scared me so much at about 95dB that I shut it down quickly. Safari's readings with sound suppression in place are the same as mine with no sound suppression.

Safari, did you take a reading with no exhaust ducting at all? Chris reckons a naked cyclone with no ducting reads about 92 dB, which is close to my readings. Its difficult to imagine how yours can be reading that high after all your efforts.

Is it possible your instrument is misbehaving? Can you stand 4-5 metres away from the running cyclone and hold a conversation by raising your voice a bit? If you can, I reckon you are way lower than 98 dB.

Safari,

You might like to do this test. Set your VFD to 50 Hz and take a reading after a minute or so of running with all gates closed. Then open one gate and take a new reading. Now, repeat this at 60 Hz and take two more readings (gates closed and one gate onen). We can then compare your deltas with mine. This may be a good enough test of your instrument.

Thanks for the reply John. I took a bit of a break over the Easter period so have not done anything much in the shed. We used two different phones and three different apps and the results where very similar. Voice sound and still air sound outside the shed all seemed to correspond to accepted theoretical levels.

The exhaust was set up as per your system but the intake only had 3 metres of 8' inch Hvac attached. Yesterday I got a quote from Total Eden for the pipe so that might be another couple of weeks before I get it installed.

Chris Parks directed me to the Corrimal men's shed web sight which shows an affective silencer they made for their cyclone - I might have a go at something similar.

Could you please tell me what the material was that you wrapped the impeller housing with and were you purchased it.

Cheers

Safari

Safari,

The material I used around the blower is Sureform roof flashing. There is polyester fibre packed between the Sureform and the impeller housing. I stapled the Sureform into place.

Been thinking about your sound levels. They befuddle me. I used 6M of 200 mm duct and 3 M of 300 mm duct, and the exhaust is on the other side of a brick veneer wall, so that wall may be doing a good job of preventing the noise that is pushed outside from coming back. My noise levels outside are similar to the noise levels inside. The 300 mm duct is concertinaed to only about 1.5 M on the inside. The pix show my installation from inside and outside.
IMAG0022.jpgIMAG0239.jpg
At any rate, is's probably worth extending the exhaust line to 6 M. Its cheap, and just might make a difference. From memory, Bill pentz's site said at least 8-10 ft of HVAC duct was needed.

This has been a good read lots of info
I am also looking at putting a DC into my shed.
Have been looking at the clear vue cyclone system, but to now have not had any feed back from the current distributor or OS. Had a good long chat with Chris but he is no longer the distributor.
So if any one can help in this area would be appreciated....
Reading this thread has confirmed one of main worries is the noise factor. I will continue to follow to see how this can be made workable.

Russell

Corrimal Men's shed built a muffler, it is on this page.Corrimal Community Men's Shed Cyclone Dust Collection System - Automatic Blast Valves

There is another installation happening at the moment using the same muffler. This installation is in a big open industrial unit and the exhaust will be going through the roof after going through the muffler. I have heard the Corrimal installation and it has very low noise levels, literally a hum. The muffler is installed inside the sound reduction cabinet but the new one will I think be external to that but still in the building. Interesting that this cyclone main job will be to collect all the dust and debris from a CNC Robot that will be used to build prototypes for a large international engineering company.

I have found some detail on the muffler and will do a new thread later today if I get a chance.

Safari,

What is on the other side of the ply wall in your photos?

Is it possible that the ply wall is acting like a drum and that the noise exiting the exhaust duct on the other side of that ply wall is being "drummed" back inside?

It might be interesting to see whether noise levels drop once you have ducting in place.

Just a heads up, I have started a new thread on the muffler shown here....

Corrimal Community Men's Shed Cyclone Dust Collection System - Automatic Blast Valves

The thread is here..

https://www.woodworkforums.com/f200/m...yclone-170306/

Let me know if more detail is needed

Hi John,

The ply is 15mm thick and it is attached to three horizontal 2x4 spaced out up the wall. behind that is R4 batts followed by the tin wall. the cyclone is not connected to the wall in any way apart from where the pipe goes through the wall. I am in the process of building a muffler along the lines of the Corrimal mens shed.

The muffler will now be inside the workshop connected by some 229mm flexi pipe from Purple Pig and will exit the shed via a 203mm pvc pipe as per the picture on the mens shed page. In this way I will be able build a sound proof room around the lot like the mens shed if necessary.

Regards,
Safari

safari,

OK, look forward to seeing how you go. Your noise levels keep me awake wondering how it can be so high.

Good luck!

Things are progressing at last. Because of the excessive noise a muffler was a necessity so after some advice from Chris Parks who also referred me to the Corrimal mens shed web pageI started work on a muffler. I also emailed Tony Oyston from the mens shed who was very helpful.

I used their basic design and materials but instead of enclosing the muffler internals in a 12" metal pipe I opted to build a 2'x2' box out of treated pine to house the muffler reasoning that 25mm of timber together with extra layers of Bradford sound bats would dampen the sound more. This seems to have worked very well because there is a drop of 22 decibels which has made all the extra work worthwhile.
I may still build a wall around the unit but at present the sound level is easily low enough to work without any dramas.
Muffler (2).jpg

Good to see you have reduced the noise to suit your situation David as it has taken a while. I have always found the noise issue difficult to deal with as each customer's reaction was so different. I have had some who did not think it was noisy enough to even bother with and others who saw it as the major issue. I always presented it as I saw it and could do nothing more than that.

Hi Chris .I agree you presented it as it is and you were always very helpful with any questions I had. I am one of those people that have a fairly low tolerance of noise. Once I get it all set up I am sure I will be very pleased with the low dust levels in the workshop.

By the way, have you got any 6" blast gates left?

Contact Stephen Durley through the website and he can supply them.