cyclone shopvac dust kits

[Dominic]

Hey Jeremy, Marcus has it. I started the other way around, I heard about Bill Pentz and found his web site. He had gotten sick from wood dust and found the available collectors were so poor he decided to dseign his own. There are free spreadsheets you can use to make your own. He goes into every aspect of the design from motors, impellers, housing, inlets, outlets, filters, duct work, blast gates and turns, everything to get the best out of your system and improve your health. It is him that says that often you are better off not have a dust collector in your workshop with you as it can be more dangerous the way they throw up the finest dust. Then a few years ago I heard he had got together with Clear Vue to manufacture cyclones to his specs. He has single handedly changed the dust collector market and the way they are measured. I think Bill has been working with the other companies as well and they have got a lot better, I have not read what he had to say about the new units. What do the Oneidas cost in Australia? The CV 1800 is about the same as the chinese made carbatec ones with the squat cone and smaller motor.

A few differences.
Plastic cyclone is tougher and quieter than steel and so is also much lighter.
round to square inlet, less turbulance than round
Inlet angles down slightly
cylinder before the cone, the dust deputy the inlet goes into the cone at 90 degrees and that air is supposed to get organised and cleanly spin down. The CV ones have the tansition from tube to cone and the tube section has internal fins that get the air spinning in the right order before it hit the cyclone. Everything has been done to avoid the tiniest bit of turbulance which makes a more efficient cyclone. There are lots of other points but its worth reading through his massive web site to get the basic points of good design.
The angle of the taper on the cyclone is very important so when I see those squat looking ones I know they have been designed to fit a certain height restriction rather than be the most efficient.
Hope this is what you were after.

Cheers
Dom

PS, the review I read measured the flow of extractors as they put a full drum full of dust through them. The ones with cyclones stay operating at close to 100% while the single stage units had dropped to around 50% by the time the drum was 3/4 full. And as Bill would say, there is not enough air flow to pick up the finest dust out of your tools. Pleated filters need cleaning after every use to maintain performance.

[charangohabsburg]

[...] One thing I found was critical was to have zero leaks. Even a small leak meant most of the dust went through to the bag. So I recon that might be what your problem is. It took a while getting it all sealed but once I did it work brilliantly.

Hey Dom, I was sure that everything was sealed perfectly tight. And it was, indeed. And still you were spot on with you comment above!

So this is what I tried first: a nicer adapting piece for the intake and sealing everything a second time with scotch tape.


After that, this was left in the dust bin (good):


...and this was left in the shop vac container (not so good ):


Then I had a closer look what I had done here:

A base (= dust bin cover) made of particleboard! Particleboard is not airtight!

So I proceeded to seal up the offending part with acrylic sealer. The aesthetically not very pleasing result reflects my state of desperation at that time:


The vac container after sucking up the same amount of wood dust as before looks much better now :


Ready for making sawdust.

[Dominic]

Cool, glad you got it sorted. Its well worth the effort getting one of these set up. Think of all that super fine dust that is no longer being pumped out by your dusty.
Cheers
Dom

[charangohabsburg]

Think of all that super fine dust that is no longer being pumped out by your dusty.

Sorry Dom, I believe it is not exactly like that, and it is certainly not what Bill Pentz told me during an email conversation I had with him 2 years ago. This is what I had written to him (excerpt of a long email):

[...] The bad thing is that a dust collection system of that size [I was referring to a "full size", 5HP cyclone system] simply does not fit in my shop, the good part is that I have nearly no power tools: the biggest stationary tool I have is a bandsaw (Inca 710), then I have a small drill press and a small belt sander / grinder. The latter one I nearly don't use at all. [...]

And this was his his answer to my observation above (he patiently responded to each and every question and observation I had made in my long email to him):

[...] Then you should setup some fans so that they keep blowing fresh air through your shop and wear a good dust mask, then worry about chip collection. Any of the 1.5 hp dust collectors should work pretty well. [...]

So, for Bill Pentz the mini cyclone is clearly a chip collector (vs. dust collector) , although an improved one. A mini cyclone will do two or three things: eliminate the use of dust bags, extend the life of the fine dust filters (HEPA), and maybe even reduce the output of fine dust. What a small cyclone hooked to a shop vac it will not do: suck up all the fine dust produced where the cutting action takes place - there will still be a significant amount of airborne invisible fine dust!

Have a look at the Clear Vue Cyclone datasheets: CV claims that their big cyclones will remove 99.999% of the 0.5 micron particles, while they only claim "99.6% dust & debris removal" plus a 5 times longer life of the HEPA filters for their CV06-Mini.

If I had the space I would order y big cyclone right now.

Stay safe.
Cheers,

[Mark Fogleman]

Phil Thein has created a low cost DIY design which works well (and has been copied by Clearvue and Jet):
http://www.cgallery.com/jpthien/cy.htm

[charangohabsburg]

Phil Thein has created a low cost DIY design which works well (and has been copied by Clearvue and Jet):
http://www.cgallery.com/jpthien/cy.htm

To say things a bit more clearly: Clear Vue never has offered separator lids.

J. Phil Thien says here that Clear Vue had copied the baffle of his separator lid, calling it now dimpled diffuser plate (used in the CV06-Mini). Obviously J.Phil Thien does not know that vortex cones had been used since decades in industrial separator cyclones! That he now attributes this idea to himself is... hmmm, you say it! That he says that others stole his "idea" is even worse.

A separator lid is the perfect solution if one wants to reduce the amount of shop vac bags used through the year. But I seriously doubt it will be more efficient than a properly designed cyclone. Before believing that I would like to see some numbers. I couldn't find them on J.Phil Thien's website.

[Mark Fogleman]

I love dust collection posts...always entertaining.

Markus my post above was not to criticise your work I and apologise if it came across that way. I was attempting to show a different option for dust collection and management that may be within reach of someone without sheet metal skills for a DIY Cyclone or the budget for the retail versions. If you or anyone else takes the time to read all 25 pages of forum posts going back to 2006 http://www.cgallery.com/smf/index.php?board=1.0 I think you will see that the Thein system has been a huge improvement to doing nothing and is comparable to the current CV and Dust Deputy mini cyclone products.

My purpose was also to say that Thein's baffle design came before CV's and Jet's latest iteration and to show that the Thien design has merit. Let the Lawyers sort out any issues about design copying, etc. Not my worry. I am concerned about the sub-micron dust particles I am exposed to. I'm using, since 2007, a Thien Cyclone Separator Lid w/ the Thien Cyclone Separator Baffle on a 20 gal metal trashcan placed between a Fein Turbo II w/HEPA filter and the source...mainly hand sanders and routers. I have a large cyclone with 6" pipes for my large tools and it has a large pleated HEPA filter on it's outlet. I don't have access to an airborne particle counter so I can't give you any hard numbers. Similar to you I go by the amount of dust ending in the bottom of the vacumn to measure the efficiency of the separator and that amount is very, very small to zero.

[charangohabsburg]

Hi Mark, I did not feel criticised by you at all!
It doesn't even bother me if Phil Thien thinks he would be really smart because he made reasonable use of available knowledge (or reinvented the wheel - it does not matter which one is the case if the result is OK). But it bothers me that he thinks he must be the only one who was able to make good use of available knowledge (or to reinvent the wheel), especially because at the same time he calls others plagiarists. The next one he attacks might be me or you, that's why I wanted to clarify things. And no, I don't believe Phil Thien and his projects ever will land on the desk of any lawyer. He is just a dreamer: only for example, have a look at how he thinks a patent should have worked for him. His vision seems to be "here I am, please discover me". Oh well, yes that's his problem, not mine.

I agree that Thien's enhanced separator lid has it's merits. As any of the small cyclones it separates visible dust from not visible dust. Clear Vue is the only manufacturer who can tell (and tells us) the cut-off size of the particles (less than 1.7 microns), and of which size are the smallest particles (4.7 microns) their cyclone separates by 100%. This is why, in my opinion Clear Vue is superior: they actually know what their cyclone is doing. Even if I know that not all invisible dust gets eliminated by all those small cyclones I prefer to choose the system/design of which I can get some reliable data, rather than hoping the product which gets promoted by unfounded promises, suppositions, wishful thinking and dodgy marketing gags would leave the air with less invisible particles.

If Thien claims the Clear Vue mini or the Dust Deputy to be systems that let pass visible amounts of dust and even chips (!) he simply was looking at the wrong end for what had gone wrong and who was to blame for that failure! Talking bad about other's products just to make some lousy donation dollars is what I call unfair, at least.

Cheers,

[Dominic]

Think of all that super fine dust that is no longer being pumped out by your dusty.

Sorry Dom, I believe it is not exactly like that, and it is certainly not what Bill Pentz told me during an email conversation I had with him 2 years ago. This is what I had written to him (excerpt of a long email):

I don't know, your bucket looked very clean in the pick, no fine dust bluring the shine. Bill is referring to collecting dust in machines I assume for which you need volume. And without that the dust escapes into the air. But my small cyclone is connected to my vac which is used as a vac and to connect to sanders and routers which it is well suited for. But it would never work on one of my bigger machines. I have a big extractor for that which sits outside my workshop so I don't have dust issues but it needs cleaning often. I would love to make a decent sized cyclone for that ... like I woulld love to make about a million other things.

Cheers
Dom

[charangohabsburg]

Think of all that super fine dust that is no longer being pumped out by your dusty.

Sorry Dom, I believe it is not exactly like that, and it is certainly not what Bill Pentz told me during an email conversation I had with him 2 years ago. This is what I had written to him (excerpt of a long email):
[...]

I don't know, your bucket looked very clean in the pick, no fine dust bluring the shine. [...]

Right. But the super fine dust, the really nasty stuff are the particles that are too small that we could see them; smaller than 10 um which is still huge when talking of hazardous dust. I am sure that my vac's bucket will get cloudy after some reasonable use.
Regarding the dust that enters the shop vac we completely rely on its filter. The CV06-Mini cyclone catches "only" 60% of the 1.7 micron stuff (see this John Hopkins University Test report I already have mentioned and linked to before), which of course is a great relief for the shop vac's HEPA-filter (according to Clear Vue's specifications a 5 times greater lifespan for the filters), but nothing more.

[...] Bill is referring to collecting dust in machines I assume for which you need volume. And without that the dust escapes into the air. [...]

Correct. He was referring to my "small stationary tools" such as my table top drill press and my small belt sander which is comparable to a hand powertool:



I had shown him these pictures and his answer was the one I have quoted in my former post.

[...] I have a big extractor for that which sits outside my workshop so I don't have dust issues but it needs cleaning often. I would love to make a decent sized cyclone for that ... like I woulld love to make about a million other things.

Yeah, the no-time-blues we all suffer from...
If you want to use the blower of your actual extractor you have to make your own cyclone and according to this guy material costs alone will sum up to about 200 $ which is half of the cost of a ClearVue 1800 cyclone (body only).

I got my small cyclone pretty quickly built: one day cutting, bending and brazing, plus some hours on subsequent days for gluing the not brazed parts (I don't have a decent brazing equipment) and installing it on the bin and making the hose connections. But a bigger cyclone does not only mean to handle more material but also needs to be properly installed and connected which I think also eats up a considerable amount of time.

Cheers,