Keep your Lungs Healthy.
If you are involved in woodworking by now you know that every woodworking workshop no matter how small it is needs a dust collector.
Many say that the heart of a woodshop is the table saw, others say, it's their router table, band saw, planer... and so on.
Which ever it is, one thing is for sure, the lungs of every woodshop is the dust collector.
When you making chips most of them are heavy enough to fall on the floor, but when you have wood dust or other sort of it, that will fly in the air you breathe. These fine particles of wood can easily find their way into your lungs and are a serious health hazard.
Now there are many ways to protect your self like wearing a good dust mask (they don't come cheep but are good) or the inexpensive throw-away paper filters air respirators (not a very safe way to go, but is better than nothing).
Then you can have an air filter which is mounted on the ceiling to purify the shops air (the dust must first pass from your face before it reaches them, so these are good for after work), and finally you have the dust extractor systems which can be complex or simple (if you can afford one they are very good up to a point).
Regardless how good your dust extraction may be, there is still ambient dust that escapes from it, especially if you are sanding or routing you need something which is easy to use, portable, and powerful to suck the dust from your tools. Here is where a shop vacuum comes in handy.
The problem with shop vacuums is that if you connect them direct onto the tool it will suffer from dust clogging within 10 minutes, and also is not that easy to empty it so often, even if you push it to collect more it could burn out.
An alternative to this is to have an intermediate system between your tool and the vacuum, and this is the cyclone dust collector bucket.
The cyclone dust collector bucket will collect 99% of the dust and throw it into the bucket below, leaving your vacuum almost dust free and clean.
My cyclone dust collector bucket is very inexpensive and efficient. It only cost me under 20 euros (about 25 U.S. dollars), easy to build in a weekend, so here is how I build it.
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Materials List:
1 Vacuum cleaner (1600 watt +)
1 Paint plastic bucket 20L
1 Metal (tin) paint bucket 20L
1 Plastic Funnel
1 Electrician's plastic pipe about 30cm (12") long
2 pipe joiners
1 90 degrees plumbing elbow fitting
1 Extra vacuum flexible hose
4 bolds, nuts & washers
8 self taping screws
5 minutes Epoxy Glue
Some sort of filler (builders bog or similar)
2 pieces of plywood or MDF 30X30X18mm (12X12X3/4")
The diagram shown here below is the one I worked on to build the cyclone bucket
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I'm going to build one of these, however I was thinking of making it out of plywood. Basically two boxes stacked, would the square shape hinder the functionality? I'm still going to use a cone.
Thanks,
Scott
I've finished my version of a cyclonic dust buster, simple design really. Just a cuboid with two sections, the top one has the cone in obviously. The cone goes right to the top so the cyclone is maximized. I tried it out yesterday and it works a treat, I'm using a brand new vac, not a single spec of dust in it.
On the downside, it is quite heavy. However, I'm going to mount it on wheels so it's not much of an issue.
Thanks again,
Scott
The reason that the top part is cylindrical is to give to the collected dust and chips the cyclonic action needed to drive them down through the funnel and into the bucket. Now, if you want to have a top box, with a cylinder insight and a cone, that's ok.
The lower bucket could be a plywood box if you like as long as the top cylinder locks safely on it. I believe that will be a much more complex build up without any advantage.
Regards
Stelios
So depending on the diameter of your bucket there’s another idea here, you could go on any car accessories shop and buy an emergency street/traffic cone (those white and orange striped cones), and cut it down to your diameter size and length (and they do come in various sizes)... that will work nicely too.
Good Luck
Steli
I had a look at the dust extractors on here and picked this one as best suiting my needs. (I loved the silent dust sniper too but as I am inherently lazy I decided that whilst it is amazing, it was too much work for me).
Just finished it and gave it a test run - works perfectly. Mine differs slightly - based on the 2 buckets I could get my hands on. You will see it's massive - in fact it is probably too big, but I needed something and until I get round to finding a smaller cyclone part, it will do.
I used a massive funnel (Yep PVC) that my local hardware store had in stock (4euros) and had bought and fitted it yesterday - used hot glue and expanding foam filler (Hot glue - perfect, expanding foam - nightmare) . Last night I came online to see if I had missed anything in the design and saw all the comments about static build up and possible explosions. This made me slightly worried. However - my simple (and works well) solution was to strip a length of wire I had lying around. Drill a hole just above the funnel in the side of the barrel and feed the wire through the barrell, down the funnel into the bottom barrel. I hot glued it flat and there is no static build up.
I now look forward to cutting mdf with less risk to my lungs. Big thanks to Steliart for this 'ible.
I am expecting most people to do changes in their model and depending on the matterials you can get your hands on, but the basic idea is there and as we say in woodworking - What ever works for you... :)
Thanks for sharing with us.
I cut a bucket into thirds: The bottom, a 'ring' from the center, and the top - inclusive of the stability ridges. Inverting the 'ring' from the middle section and sliding it inside the top made it so the bottom wouldn't fall out when placed inside. Basically, this made the bucket a bit over 5 inches deep.
I cut the input port between the top's two ridges using the ridges to support the input adapter. The middle ring and the bottom were notched to match the hole through the top ring to allow for the input. A circular dust and debris notch was cut into the bottom for about 200° against the side wall about an inch wide. The bottom of the bucket seemed flimsy to me, so I left two spots intact without notching them.
I put the output port in the center of the lid as shown in this tutorial and extended it down to within about 2 inches from the bottom of the modified bucket.
I used 5 minute epoxy as my adhesive and hot melt glue sticks for filler around the gaps. I used caulking around the inside to ensure no dust nor debris would fill in the minor gaps.
You can use 2" ABS pipe from your DIY store (Home Depot, Lowes, etc) for the input and exhaust ports. 2" pipe couplers let me accept my 2.5 inch shop vac hose.
I didn't have the vacuum hose lying around and ended up buying an additional 12 section of shop vac hose online. (By the way, the $3 per foot price you pay through these stores was unbeatable by my search. I envy this author having his extra hose at his disposal!) That way, the shop vac can still function as a wet vac with all the original tools and hose and I can dry vac with the purchased extra hose.
Future plans call for me to make a second one for use with the work bench to collect the dust from the table and chop saw. I plan to 'plumb' in the work bench using 2" ABS rather than the pricey vacuum hose.
I will take pictures and make this tutorial easier to understand if there is enough interest...
I don't know if it is true or not but I hear it is pretty important to ground plastic pipe if you use it in a dust collection system. Maybe you can let us know.
I will try to get some taken for where I am now -- the first one is built and the second one is nearly completed -- and see if I can augment them with drawings.
Thanks for the interest!
Here is the link to the instructable and pictures:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Dust-and-Chip-Separator-for-Shop-Vac/
It's my first instructable and I struggled with the editing and posting. Any suggestions for the project or instructable improvements are welcome.
Thanks!
May i Add that if you can make simple holder attachments to the collector hose, so it can stay pointed at the chips being thrown off, it could collect it in Mid Air-Mid Flight, and make Post Operation Cleaning a lot more hassle free.
Thank You Very Much ---- for this product -----
The Eagle
Stelios
and does the vacuum cleaner fill up with dust much ?
The vacuum is almost dust free.
Thanks for visiting
Word of caution, if it happens to suck in any larger objects, they could clog the funnel. When this happens a lot of the dust will be channeled back into your shop vac. Keep up the good work. Thanks Phr@nk
Cloging is a general problem with most DC systems, so this is no exception.
It will be nice if you like to post some photos and look at your new mini cyclone.
Thank you
Steli
@1010tbone; you might want to try stores that sell lawnmowers and landscaping equipment. They usually have larger diameter funnels for filling (lawn)tractor gastanks.
Take a few photos for us and post them when you done. I would love to hear your comments on it.
No need to worry about static in such small hoses.
Actually even in the big dust collectors unless your ducting is 8" plus there is no real static danger. Static combustion occur in big dust collection systems like farmers cyclones. I believe its more of a marketing sales thing for metal ducting instead of the use of soil pipes. From what I red from professionals who are in this line of business, there was never a recorded incident of static dust combustion in 8” or less in ungrounded soil ducting pipes. There is a much higher danger from floor sweep dust collecting if your collector picks up small metallic things like nails etc. those may hit the fan and trigger a spark that can result to combustion.
IT IS possible for a static discharge to happen inside this PVC. I would never use PVC plastic for a dust collecting system. It is not a sales gimmick. I have designed dust systems for many years and have seen plenty of results from dust explosions.
With a smaller diameter pipe you are probably just keeping the air moving at a high enough velocity with a small enough amount of particulate that an explosion is less likely to occur. Should a spark get into your buckets while a dusty environment is inside, they are certainly large enough to cause a large explosion. Most people are shocked at how volatile dust can be when they are first around a dust explosion.
I love your idea and will probably use it as a basis for something similar but I want to warn others about using materials that could lead to unhappy consequences.
Now if this was the case will so many woodworking companies by allowed to sell their plastic mini dust collectors, without anyone raising the subject on that size of collectors?
As I said I am not an expert, I just build it based on what’s in the market, and been using it for couple of years now without any problem.
But if it makes you feel safer by own means you can run a copper wire and ground it very easily and inexpensive.
Thank you for visiting and for your constructive comment.
Some plastics are ok. PVC is not safe even with ground straps. Size does not matter in this case. Just want others to be informed.
Nice instructable!
those may hit the fan and trigger a spark that can result to FIRE.