The above CFM requirements table only provides the airflow required for good fine dust collection at our larger stationary tools. Just because at some of these claimed filtering levels filters pass almost no air does not bother these vendors a bit. The fine invisible fugitive dust we miss collecting just keeps building in shops that vent inside. So instead of just being a mild irritant, every fine wood dust exposure causes a tiny, almost unnoticeable amount of permanent damage. Clearly these vendors were selling filters based upon outdoor fully "seasoned" ratings. Many have written that their sensitive particle counters show almost every hand tool and other woodworking operation generates lots of fine dust even when we produce little or no larger sawdust particles. Independent medical school testing on my cyclone design found the same results as our testing. Only one in seven will also have allergic reactions, but all will slowly build undetected respiratory damage that worsens other age related health issues and significantly shorten our lives. Resistance is called static pressure that is measured as inches of water. The resistance of our pipes can kill the airflow we need for good fine dust collection because a small pipe diameter acts just like a water valve. If someone tells you that they are getting more CFM with a smaller motor, you should ask at what static pressure and what motor amperage. Enough direct sales firms market these mostly copied "tools by the pound" to make the competition for entry-level small shop woodworker business beyond fierce. Sucking pulls air from all directions, so airspeed drops off at the same rate as the area of a sphere. Now buy good quality filters. In the late eighties commercial woodworking concerns had to make change to meet government air quality standards, but our hobbyist market failed to follow. Filter fabric makers provide guidelines on how much surface area is needed for each type of their fully "seasoned" filter material. Turn your shop vacuum into a 2-stage dust extractor with the Dust Right Vortex! Reinforced, quick-release, cyclone lid allows for quick and easy emptying. Is finding an excellent dust separator a stressful experience? Although the math is fun, the bottom line is airspeed drops below the 50 FPM we need for good fine dust collection very quickly. A customer review gives you authentic and reliable information about dust separator, coming from real people who have used it. Privacy Policy | Terms of Use. Careful testing by a number of my professor friends showed most small shop vendor "fine" filter bags advertised with clogged fully loaded filtering level as their filter rating. That directed stream of air goes quite a distance before friction will slow down the air. I had that firm identified on these pages and was quickly hit with a threat of a law suit demanding I remove that information. Airspeed and air volume are related by a simple formula FPM = CFM / Area where area is the ducting cross sectional area measured in square feet. Their testing showed that airspeed of at least 50 FPM effectively moves airborne dust. The AGET Pull-Through Cyclone Dust Collector incorporates design simplicity with industrial quality materials to provide years of dependable, low maintenance dust collection. A pressure sensor detects when a filter clogs too much and institutes an automatic cleaning cycle. For most to get best filter life today we need cyclone separators to amply protect our fine dust filters. The mains build up dust piles that pose a fire hazard and when airflow is restored these piles slam into and can ruin our impellers and filters. On my Deciding Dust Collection Needs web page are the detailed steps along with a resistance calculator to walk you through deciding your own blower requirements. The bottom line comes out the same for almost all who have normal hobbyist machines. That amount is decided by the capacity of your blower and how much you choke down its inlet and outlet. The increased pressure pushes the finest particles through the filters tearing open the filter pores as they pass. Its not just about having a good dust separator, you also have to offer a popular, growing product. Dust collection manufacturers provide dust collection design firms with both Air Volume Requirements tables and Airspeed Requirements tables so these firms can design commercial air systems that will carry materials without plugging or building up piles in the ducting. For example, proper use of a sharp plane or a well-tuned scraper can save a lot of time over using a power sander. Air engineers also long ago did their testing and found that we need to move between 3700 to 3800 FPM to pickup the heavier chips produced during normal woodworking operations. We also tested the separation ability of the various dust collectors and cyclones. Just knowing what level of filtering we want is not enough. The result is the same, most of these filters turn our dust collectors and cyclones into "dust pumps" totally inappropriate for indoor use. That small pipe is normally the down drop that goes right to the tool. With some tools, internal resistance so badly messes up the airflow between ports that we still need to balance using a diverter valve and test gauges; All small shop trashcan separators and almost all small shop cyclones pass most of the finest unhealthiest airborne dust right through. For occasional woodworkers my doctor strongly recommends we work outdoors while wearing a good properly fit NIOSH approved HEPA level cartridge filtered mask like the 3M 7500 series with HEPA grade filters that provide 99.99% efficiency down to 0.3-microns. LONGER FILTER LIFE: Extends the life of your filter and impellers by extracting the larger debris before it enters the dust collector.
You don't have to spend a fortune to enjoy a cleaner, safer work environment. Have you ever been unsure what model to buy when considering the purchase of dust separator in general? You can see the minimum air volume requirements that air engineers use to design commercial dust collection systems on my CFM Requirements Table; Most small shop ducting designs fail to keep the air moving fast enough. Too many younger workers getting ill who were never exposed to the higher dust levels show that assumption is wrong. Air at typical dust collection pressures will hardly compress so duct diameter and resistance sets maximum airflow at a given pressure. If you just blow the air outside without adding a separator and filters, that inlet size is often the ideal ducting diameter for optimum efficiency and minimum resistance. Buy well made tools with built in dust collection that controls the fine particles without spraying them all over. Patented bucket lid design maximizes the cyclones separation efficiency, and see-through feature lets you see how full the bucket is. There is a huge difference in collection requirements for smaller tools. Because too many people still get ill at OSHA air quality levels the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) recommends a five times tougher standard which needs about 12.5% more dust collection airflow. But isnt it not always easy to do that? Buy or make good quality dust hoods and ports for every tool. Supposedly good products such as dust separator no longer exist because the manufacturer will no longer support them? I no longer clean filters every few hours of woodworking and always have tons of suction power. To help make a little more informed decision, I learned a few things, some the "hard way" that are worth sharing. An excellent one is provided on my web pages, but after going through the work to do this calculation, most end up with the same results. Hobbyist dust collector makers rate their blower CFM as the maximum flow with no inlet or outlet blockages. If you have larger professional units, then you need to do the work. I have used it for a few months now and hardly ever get anything into me vac. This means they captured about 85% of the dust created by weight and sent that remaining 15% airborne dust into the filters saving lots of time and trouble emptying dust bags and collection bins. Fortunately, both materials come folded and made into cartridges that enable us to get this much filter area in a small space. We chose our best dust separator based on these criteria. They were kind enough to allow me to share their proprietary airflow tables to counter some of the massive confusion over airflow requirements for small shop woodworkers. In short, running the top rated dust collectors and cyclones at their advertised airflows causes those motors to burn up within minutes. In most even very clean looking small shops just walking around without doing any woodworking stirs enough fine dust airborne to fail EPA air quality tests. This resistance climbs until it builds a dust cake that provides maximum filtering with good airflow, known as when a filter becomes fully "seasoned". This certification says that filter will stop particles of a particular size and larger 99.9% of the time. Fortunately, almost all of this work was done for us and published ages ago. For instance a 1.5 HP blower rated at 1100 CFM will give about 550 CFM at a working level. Before assembling a list, we take into account several factors. If you are in need of a dust separator that provides high quality support. The run in a shop with the highest overall resistance can then be used to size the blower needed to overcome that resistance and to size the ducting needed to move ample air without clogging. When used with most power tools and shop vacuums, the Dust Right Separator captures sawdust, wood chips, and other debris before it enters your vacuum, preventing the loss of suction power caused by a clogged vacuum filter. Hose, barrel or container are required for this kit to properly work. This is an ongoing serious political problem because the 2000 U.S. Census showed that the woodworking industry which includes lumber and paper is the fourth largest employer in the U.S. Add in home construction and woodworking becomes the largest employer in the U.S. Our small shop vendors claim that shops and garages represent outdoor rather than indoor use so advertise outdoor filtering levels, yet deliver equipment that can only be used in covered indoor areas. They simply let the filters get dirty enough so they no longer pass any sized particle they want to claim. To know how a blower will really perform, we must know its fan curve showing the CFM at different static pressure levels. The tips of our saw blades and cutters are launching dust at over 100 miles per hour and a typical dust collection system has the air moving at less than sixty miles an hour. Many use same wide open filter sizing standards for the wide open 30-micron filtering material when sizing their finer filters for indoor use. This hose is so small and rough inside that it instantly kills half or more of the dust collector's airflow. I recommend all others do the same. Most can get by with one 300 square foot blended filter, but will have far longer filter life, less cleaning, and much better performance by buying a pair of filters. For more related content, subscribe to our newsletter! Many vendors also forget that we are filtering very dirty air and size their filters based on manufacture recommendations for filtering the relatively clean indoor air that only calls for about one square foot of the all poly filters for every ten CFM of air and double that for the paper blended filters. Fortunately again we can address these concerns by borrowing heavily from work long ago done and shared by air engineers (see my ducting page); and. When downscaled for small shop use, these designs sell well because they look pretty and give a small shop a professional looking large shop feel. These fine dust particles are so fine and light they don't settle quickly in normal room air currents which is why they behave like an odor and rapidly fill all shared air. MANUFACTURER LIFETIME WARRANTY - If the dust separator ever fails or is damaged, it is covered by a lifetime manufacturer warranty. Hobbyist vendors and magazines test our blowers running without cyclones and filters or ducting. COLLECTS VACUUM DUST TO PROLONG FILTER LIFE - The Delmar Tools dust separator separates vacuum dust into a separate container, keeping your filter clean and your vacuum running for longer. With a robust and durable dust separator, youll be able to use it for many months to come. There are a few reputable filter bag makers (AAF, Highland Hardware, possibly a few other exceptions, but not many). Airborne dust when vented outside settles slowly enough in typical outdoor breezes that it dissipates without a trace. The one who blows always wins because they move a directed stream of air that can push that balloon all over. Contaminated air is drawn into the cyclone where the centrifugal action forcibly pulls dust from the airstream, dropping collected particulate into the dust storage container. Air engineers who work for these manufacturers have done considerable work as have many of the universities to build careful tables that show just how much air needs to be moved and at what speed for each different type of material. Any restriction, small machine port, obstruction, or even sharp bend kills airflow just like opening a water faucet a little. In spite of the huge amounts of fine dust made by woodworking, most small shop woodworkers and hobbyists end up being blindsided by the fugitive dust that escaped collection. These piles grow in height until they restrict the airflow enough that the speed climbs back up where it will pull the dust along. With tools designed and built from the ground up to protect and control that fine dust for collection, the prior "chip collection" air volumes work well. Otherwise, we remain stuck with good "chip collection". Because of this range of performance, we need independent filter evaluations. The 4 Dust Separator Cyclone Kit is the perfect and economical solution for the everyday woodworker with a smaller to midsize workshop. Most, including me, then turn to the experts who mostly use HVAC pipe and fittings because they are cheap, available, and will work for chip collection. Almost all hobbyist cyclones are downscaled versions of commercial cyclones engineered to use very high internal turbulence to break the finest dust from the heavier sawdust and chips. He said air engineers long ago learned they had to modify our tools, often very extensively to protect, control and capture the fine dust at the source right as it is made at each tool. Normally small shop dust collection systems almost never flow a large enough dust concentration to present an explosion hazard, but when a large pile breaks loose, any spark say from cutting a piece of staple could cause an explosion that can level a shop. We found every small shop vendor who offered a ducting design service used professional shop ducting designs that presume no blast gates and full time collection from all machines at the same time. As a result a poor design, undersized pipes, rough ducting or flex hose, sharp bends, etc. The result is a simple, compact, and economical collection system for use in lighter duty or intermittent applications. To capture the fine dust at the source the air engineering firms who deliver systems guaranteed to meet air quality standards found most tool hoods need upgraded. I have it coupled to a portable shop vac. Our 6" that supports 785 CFM at 4000 FPM only supports 50 FPM out to about 13.42". This theory approach works fairly well and shows most large hobbyist stationary tools need between 350 to 450 CFM of air volume for good chip collection. Good chip collection on almost all hobbyist larger stationary tools requires between 350 to 450 CFM just as calculated. Specifically, the top magazine rated small shop dust collector provider who continues to pretend an authority role in dust collection which is not borne out by either their information or actual performance of their products said the CFM numbers to meet "chip collection" standards were more than enough to pull in the fine dust. This is known as filter "seasoning". Laguna Tools uses cookies to improve your experience on our site. Once airborne, it takes hours for the fine dust to settle. The cutting shatters and launches all kinds of tiny airborne shards such as the particles shown on the electron microscope picture on the right. Unfortunately, most small shop vacuums, dust collectors, cyclones, and air cleaners create a bad false sense of security because they get rid of most visible dust to leave clean looking shops while freely passing the fine invisible unhealthiest dust. Although this provides the airspeed needed at each specific tool, what happens when this severely reduced airflow hits a larger main is bad news. This makes for a mess for small shop woodworkers trying to make an informed purchasing decision. Although perhaps provable, the information provided fails to give the facts needed to make an informed decision. Right? When that reading drops enough we need to clean our filter. However, you may decide you dont need one so high. With no standards or legal requirements many tools are designed with just enough dust collection to make the claim without actually working. Most hobbyist vendors never mention overall resistance because their blowers generally lack the power to move the needed air and overcome the resistance for a small shop, so in spite of advertising claims do a poor job collecting the fine dust. Our over 151,000 milligrams of fine dust in every twenty pounds of sawdust is enough fine dust to cause over 15,000 typical two-car garage sized shops to fail their EPA air quality tests. ADAPTABLE MOUNTING: The JET Cyclonic Separator inlet and outlet fits standard 4-inch diameter hoses, and can be placed on the lid (bin connection diameter is 5 inches) of almost any size container. ATTACHES TO 5 GALLON BUCKETS IN SECONDS - The dust separator clips to a 5 gallon bucket in seconds making for incredibly fast and easy setup. Likewise, for tools with multiple ports it is best to divide our down drop into two equal sized and length pipes because unequal sized pipes require balancing to keep the airflow going where we want. Years of experience have taught chairmaker Russ Filbeck a few steam-bending secrets: Consequently, spending a lot of money on a product that has no real value is also not a good idea. Too little area also requires much more frequent filter cleaning. That same test killed the performance on the best dust collectors by choking their airflow with too small a test pipe. In summary, the fittings, attachments, flex hose, ducting, fine filters, shop vacuums, air cleaners, dust collectors and cyclones we buy to protect our health that do such a good job of chip collection create a bad false sense of security. Fine bag type filters use thinner filtering strands.
We all know when we put on vacuum hose on the blow port we can blow dust all over but that same hose when sucking will only pickup next to the nozzle. Venting outside can make us pretty miserable in hot or very humid weather, but most find even with venting outside a couple of infra-red heat dishes will keep us comfortable even in the coldest sub-zero weather. Unlike commercial shops that have a huge blower sized to run all ducts open at once hobbyist blowers are mostly only big enough to collect from one machine at a time. Most air engineers target for a duct speed of roughly 4000 FPM because this is what we need to pickup most woodworking dust and keep our vertical ducts from plugging. Cyclone collectors are low in cost, require little or no maintenance, and effectively collect most particles over 10 microns in size, allowing less material to be sent to a second stage collector. Those with larger shops must do the detailed calculations themselves. As the filter continues to clog, the airflow drops until the airflow all but stops and the filter is at maximum resistance. I got the same airflow results, but also found every single cyclone and all but the Jet and Delta dust collectors drew more than maximum motor rated amps when tested the same way because each let in too much air. To stay competitive many firms engage in an ugly advertising war. As a result most hobbyist dust collectors, cyclones, vacuums, and air filters provide less than half the advertised airflow and nowhere near the airflow needed for good fine dust protection; Motors for an instant while starting draw four or more times their maximum working amperage. This version does not include a hose**. I decided to never rely upon magazine testing for their information when those magazines depend upon the same vendors advertising for their livelihoods; Many small shop woodworkers rely upon their intuition and experiences with a lifetime of using vacuum cleaners to configure their dust collection systems. REMOTE CONTROL: Included radio frequency remote control works from up to 50 feet away. Welcome to your destination. This leaves us with poor health protection and left breathing the fine particles through much of each filter's performance cycle. If you don't use two pickup hoods on your same tools as shown in this table, you need to follow the song's advice and change your evil ways! Medical experts and woodworker unions continue to fight to have government standards set to protect woodworkers from airborne dust exposure. They also learned they had to move far more air to capture this fine dust with our older tool designs than is required to just capture the heavier sawdust and chips. In summary, we need to carefully control airflow to: Make sure the fine dust is not blown away and scattered all over the shop before it can be captured by having well designed or carefully modified tools and hoods; Provide enough air volume (CFM) at each tool to collect the fine wood dust at the source before it escapes; Make an efficient system with large enough ducting and cleanly designed duct runs to efficiently move the volumes of air we need at each tool. Worse, the finest invisible dust which makes up about one pound out of every twenty spreads so quickly that neither air cleaners nor exhaust fans can bring that dust level down quick enough to avoid failing the PEL fifteen minute exposure limits. We found all small shop vendors provide misleading airflow advertising. To work without wearing a mask all the time we need to collect the dust at its source before it escapes then get rid of the dust. You can do lots of homework, or make it easy on yourself and just look up the answer by using a CFM requirements table designed to capture the fine dust. Most of the magazine tests measure airflow with no ducting, no filter or a brand new clean very open filter, and a special test pipe and over sized ducting much larger than we would use. #6833016, #7282074, #RE40048, #D933321 and patent pending, Collects debris before entering your vacuum to extend filter life, Low-profile design is ideal for any job site or workspace, Sets up in under a minute, no additional hardware needed.
Here are some of the reasons why good fine dust collection poses more difficulty and expense than getting good fine dust protection or getting good "chip collection" which collects the same dust we sweep up with a broom. In a pull-through cyclone collector design, the large particles are separated out before the fan wheel, allowing AGET to design for maximum airflow without worrying about the fans ability to withstand the impact and abrasion of debris. OSHA testing shows roughly every one hundred pounds of sawdust created contains about 5 pounds of airborne dust. Moving enough air is not enough. Those with three-car garage sized shops have about 10" of ducting resistance. That OSHA standard set allowable airborne dust levels five times higher than the minimum recommended by industrial hygienists and fifty times higher than now recommended by medical experts. That resistance is at a minimum when a filter is new and clean. These particles build until a filter gets saturated and will take in no more particles. The peer reviewed medical research shows fine airborne dust of any type so unhealthy that if more than 0.1 milligrams per cubic meter goes airborne the EPA can shut down monitored buildings until the air quality is restored. This means that the advertised maximum airflows are just over double what we get in real use when our systems have to overcome the normal resistance from our hoods, ducting, separators, and filters. Our website is constantly updated to provide you with the most up-to-date and relevant information. Woodworking creates huge amounts of fine dust compared to how little it takes to harm our health. Likewise, most machines come with too small of an inlet port to support the needed volume of air for good dust collection. It also means that our airspeed will fall off at roughly the same rate as that sphere area grows. After about nine cleaning cycles most fine filters are at their maximum dust cake and provide their best filtering. We also need to know how big of a volume of air is needed to be moved at each machine to collect the dust. Unlike commercial shops most hobbyist blowers are too small to even provide good fine dust collection from one machine at a time, let alone a whole shop full. Unlike air from a compressor or vacuum cleaner, at typical dust collection pressures air is little more compressible than water, so just about any tiny opening, small hose, small duct, rough duct, poorly made fitting, or bad ducting design will seriously harm the airflow we need for good fine dust collection. It is important that each tool protect, control and direct all dust made during use to its dust hood and not blow the dust all over. Facility owners continue to fight back hard saying providing the recommended protections will bankrupt the woodworking industry. They are so fine and light they also almost never break the surface tension enough to harm our finishes. The oversized mains end up with too little airspeed to keep from building up piles and plugging. There are 28349.5231 milligrams in each ounce so every twenty pounds of sawdust we make contains about 5 1/3 ounces which is over 151,000 milligrams. Contact our teamto learn more about how our tools can craft anything you have in mind. This resistance moves through a considerable swing. So, when we vent dust collection systems inside into our dry shops the fugitive dust that escapes collection just keeps building to dangerously high levels. There are many people who have difficulty finding the perfect dust separator for themselves. Meanwhile, I continue to agree with and support the standards from those who want to replace the hoods and move more air because my pocketbook is not up to replacing my tools. They are commonly used as the first stage in multiple stage dust collection systems, or as a product separator in air conveying systems. To build your own more efficient cyclone and blower please read over the Cyclone Plan page followed by the Cyclone Building Instructions and Blower Plans. When using this calculator note that it allows you to add in other system overhead that affects our airflow and blower needs: Trashcan separators will typically add about 4.5" of static pressure if used. By definition airborne wood dust consists of particles sized 30-microns and smaller. Sadly, the magazine and independent testing I oversaw badly upset many small shop vendors. When youre working with power tools, you need a way to keep your workshop clean. Efficient Dust Collecting: Our 10-gallon translucent workshop vacuum system bucket is easy to empty and easy to tell when it's full. People with the Dylos air quality monitors find that just walking around in their clean looking shops will often launch enough fine invisible dust to fail and EPA air quality test. The buckets five casters make it stable yet easy-wheeling, and its distinctive translucent blue sides show when it needs to be emptied. I love this little guy. Again, the average cost of a new dust separator is between $$ and $$$. The spark-resistant, aluminum fan is located on the clean air side of the cyclone, protecting the fan wheel from abrasion. Portable design can be mounted directly to the vacuum. Rockler also sells the fittings/hardware with your supplying the catchment container but I agree, the transparent container with the kit lets one see how quickly the add on picks up and fills up! Air at typical dust collection pressures is similar to water in that it will barely compress at all. Sadly, even professional small shop dust collection system designers do a lot of reductions and strange things that reduce the volume so much that the mains end up plugging because without the volume they also don't see enough airspeed. Current medical and government testing show that most small shop woodworkers including hobbyists receive far more fine airborne dust exposures that the exposures that triggered the OSHA and EPA air quality standards. Holds twice the capacity of competitors' products and is easy to see when it's full. With large shop woodworking already in financial trouble due to high pressure from off-shore inexpensive products, the owner organizations with political help and help from these mostly bogus studies convinced the courts to kill the 1989 OSHA standard before it even became fully effective. Sadly my home that shares only one connected sealed door to my shop also tested well over medical recommendations. Even with clean filters, at working airflow levels many hobbyist filters pass dust twenty to thirty times larger than advertised turning our blowers and air cleaners into dust pumps that recirculate these unhealthy fine particles; Tools are often advertised and come with ports and such that make them look like they have good fine dust collection built in. My recommended 600 square foot of poly-cellulose blended filters stabilized at only 0.25" of resistance. At the same time, this is not rocket science and hundreds if not thousands have already been through this exercise.
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