This maximum resistance is also very close to when we need to deep clean our felt filters in a washing machine and start all over building up a whole new cake of dust. With "chip collection" only moving about 400 CFM these filters only need about 15 square feet of filter area. My own shop while using the "best" rated cyclone with fine filters tested with over double the daily allowable maximum average and a 12,000 times higher than medically recommended particle count. Because our eyes cannot see particles smaller than 10-microns without magnification, these particles are invisible. He said I would have been better off without any of those units as they just stirred up and kept the fine most dangerous dust airborne and trapped inside my shop. Although this tells us what we have to do, it does not tell us how to get that job done when almost none of the existing hobbyist tools, dust collectors, cyclones, ducting, ducting designs, and filters will do the job providing good fine dust protection.
The sad part of this is the better quality Jet and Delta units that actually move more air, tested below the "best" rated units that were burning up their motors. To better understand think of wood as made up thin glass tubes lightly glued together.
a part time hobbyist woodworker in a few hours work gets exposed to far more dust than most workers in larger commercial facilities receive in months. 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. Heavy pressure remains on the politicians who run the Department of Labor, Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA). Browse our equipment to find the system that meets your needs. By definition airborne wood dust consists of particles sized 30-microns and smaller. 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. Sadly, with far too little filter area many hobbyist filters in our dust collectors, vacuums, and even air cleaners quickly clog and stop moving the air we need for good protection. Plus these vendors fail to spend the tiny amounts needed to ensure the workability of their dust collection products. Those with tiny shops and minimal ducting can get by with 1.5 hp motors and efficient cyclones, but most need a 1.5 or larger dust collector that gets put outside. 4" Ports (for top side of separator) 2 ea. That resistance is at a minimum when a filter is new and clean.
The only real advantage of these cyclones is at higher airflows than needed for "chip collection" all these cyclones continued to provide the same separation meaning close to 100% of the airborne dust went right into the filters. Dust in these piles and filled down drops pose a potential explosion hazard and a serious fire hazard.
It also means that our airspeed will fall off at roughly the same rate as that sphere area grows. Patent pending. Filter material makers share this clean new filtering level so engineers can comply with the ASHRAE standard for indoor air quality. Keep the air speed (FPM) fast enough to move the dusty air so we do not get plugging or dangerous dust piles in our ducting. 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. Those that make lots of dust frequently fail with surges over six times higher than the OSHA fifteen minute maximums. Each branch reduces in size until it reaches the size of the down drop at its end. MANUFACTURER LIFETIME WARRANTY - If the dust separator ever fails or is damaged, it is covered by a lifetime manufacturer warranty. This is why we are here to help! Common applications: woodworking, cutting, grinding, machining, buffing, and polishing. My respiratory doctor says the medical recommendation is those with existing problems always wear a good NIOSH approved mask during dusty operations and use 0.2-micron filters. 2022 Laguna Tools - All Rights Reserved. A pressure sensor detects when a filter clogs too much and institutes an automatic cleaning cycle. The indoor filtering issues are a little more tricky made worse by vendors either in ignorance or intentionally providing bad information. Buy or make good quality dust hoods and ports for every tool. long, JET JCDC-1.5 Cyclone Dust Collector, 1-Micron Filter, 763 CFM, 1-1/2 HP, 1Ph 115V (717515). You can also find woodworking dust collection systems that are acoustically insulated to minimize noise and vibration. If you have larger professional units, then you need to do the work. The peer reviewed medical research clearly shows every fine dust exposure causes a measurable loss in respiratory function, some loss becomes permanent, and the greater, longer and more frequent the exposure the greater the damage. For more related content, subscribe to our newsletter! Although a few shops get duct plugging, a far more frequent problem occurs when the airspeed drops below what will keep the dust airborne. I have it coupled to a portable shop vac. Unfortunately, bigger is not always better because once we reach that 800 CFM we need to be very careful to not use such a large pipe that the airspeed in our ducts drops too low and causes plugging or dust piles. 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. 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. Frankly, the price of the newer tools with dust collection built in remains so ridiculously high they have not yet earned my interest. I have mine hooked up to my miter saw and it does a good job and doesn't noticeably reduce the suction/air flow. There are a lot of concerns with the airfoils that need considered before going that direction. It also set a maximum personal exposure limit (PEL) for any fifteen minute period. We also must use a blower large enough to ensure moving ample air at our tools. A filter sized half the manufacturer's recommendation will only last a quarter as long. 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. Small shop dust collection purchases show a serious lack of knowledge and high influence of vendor advertising efforts that recommend inappropriate and marginal solutions. Wed appreciate your feedback or correction if any dust separator mentioned here is incorrect, out of date, outdated, irrelevant, or otherwise inappropriate. Pay particular attention to the building instructions for each as they have been refined from thousands successfully building their own units. The bottom line comes out the same for almost all who have normal hobbyist machines. We have a final layer of filtering because we place reader satisfaction at the top of our list. Reinforced, quick-release, cyclone lid allows for quick and easy emptying. Unless we have an allergic reaction few ever feel anything more from fine dust exposure except irritation. This causes these piles to get "topped" and simply grow longer and longer. Now buy good quality filters. Cleaning our filters also opens the pores quickly wearing them out. To know how a blower will really perform, we must know its fan curve showing the CFM at different static pressure levels. The poly-cellulose (paper) blended material is used mostly in filter cartridges. Verifying these calculations with testing is expensive and takes lots of work. That OSHA standard set the air quality limit at the same eight hour average airborne dust level found in most large commercial facilities that vented outside. 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. Our artificial intelligence then evaluated them based on quality-to-price ratios using industry-standard criteria to find the dust separator on the market! When the airflow is restored from opening a larger gate the pile breaks loose and surges all at once down the ducting. My doctor started off my research on dust collection. Using a little algebra with our 4000 FPM and 800 CFM requirements and this formula shows we need almost exactly 6" ducting to move enough air at ample duct speed for good fine dust collection at most larger hobbyist tools. Sure, you get out on some luxury features. The goal is to capture the fine dust at the source and get rid of it. With no government oversight and uninformed buyers, hobbyist vendors have long sold "chip collectors" that do a great job gathering chips, but do little to protect our health from fine dust. Since 13" impellers are very difficult to find, we mostly end up buying 14" or larger impellers turned by a motor smaller than could handle an unrestricted airflow, or just use a larger more appropriate motor as I recommend and get even better fine dust collection. Ideally, a dust separator is going to live with you for years. These shops test with particle counts that average 10,000 times higher than regulated monitored commercial facilities.
I would not buy another one. Good protection is easy. It also set no government standards or oversight on the small shop tools and dust collection equipment used by most small shop professional and hobbyist woodworkers that is known to cause the highest dust exposures.. As a result wood dust collection standards remain contentious and there is no enforced standard in the U.S. except what we as woodworkers exercise with our purchasing decisions. Opening more than one duct requires more airflow than our blowers can deliver, so fails to collect the dust. Almost all air engineers say the only way to provide good fine dust collection for most hobbyist and older tool designs requires us to replace the hoods, sometimes remake the tools and provide nearly double the air volume to collect the finest dust as it did to collect the heavier chips and sawdust. Mufflers will add resistance depending upon type. A little study showed that shops that must pass regular air quality inspections and filter their air almost all use 0.5-micron filters. Our bodies have a very difficult time getting rid of this finest dust. 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. Each down drop provides just the airflow needed for the connected machine. They made no effort to improve this product and it continues to be sold exactly as was still being advertised as one of the best and most efficient. Our particle counters show the mask and fan need to go on before we start making fine dust and both should stay on for about a half hour after we stop making dust.our particle counters show the best protection against residual fugitive dust is not an air cleaner because these work too slow, but instead. 4 inch Dust Separator Cyclone Dust Collector Kit for Use with Barrels Trash Cans Buckets or Custom Cen-Tec Systems 97470 Quick Click Dust Collection Separator, Translucent. Picking a big enough blower can be a fairly exact science where you calculate all the resistances in your system then pick a blower that is big enough to overcome those resistances and still give that 800 CFM air volume at your larger machines. Vendors advertise these maximums forgetting to tell their customers that the performance is a curve with real maximum in use performance about half the advertised volume. When we use our shop vacuums they only pickup up right next to the end of the hose. Since most small shop systems use filters and a separator, almost all dust collection systems are configured just big enough to move the desired air at the higher resistance level. | This is less dust than we get from slapping a dusty apron or hand sawing just over seven inches of typical three-quarter-inch thick wood. This is why I strongly recommend using a pair of the 300 square foot poly blended filters on my cyclone design when we could get by with just one. You have obviously come to this page to learn more about Cheap dust separator Reviews. When downscaled and brought indoors for hobbyist use, blowing that finest dust into our filters creates a serious fine dust problem; Regulated large commercial woodworking facilities use cyclones with no filters or bag houses with large very open filters that allow the finest dust to simply blow away outside. Because the spun bond filtering material is quite a bit thicker, the thicker material requires twice as many cartridges to equal the same area as cartridges made from the thinner less expensive blended material. As the filter plugs the airflow drops causing the motor to do less work and drop the amp reading. Air engineers use this fully caked resistance level to size our filters large enough to flow the volume of air we want to move. This means these blowers are moving at close to maximum airflow at minimum resistance. Using this equipment builds such dangerously high levels of fine invisible airborne dust that gets stirred airborne again and again even when we are not making more fine dust. Current weight based industrial testing all but ignores the finest lightest 2.5-micron and smaller airborne dust particles now known over time to cause significant health damage. All filters start new able to effectively filter some fixed size of dust particle at a given airflow. Most hobbyists have shops sized about the same as a two-car garage and end up with about 8" of resistance. These units should be only be used outside without any air returned to our shops. In addition to having ports that are too small, most hobbyist tools are not designed for good fine dust collection. This resistance moves through a considerable swing. Most small shop vendors offer dust collectors that move too little air volume to provide the needed airflow to keep our ducts clear with a hobbyist system designed to only run one machine at a time. OSHA testing shows roughly every one hundred pounds of sawdust created contains about 5 pounds of airborne dust.
National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) rules require collecting the heavier sawdust, chips, shavings, and wood strings that fall to our floors and work surfaces. American Air Filter (AAF) was one of the leading firms who built fine dust collection systems and filters to meet government air quality requirements.