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  #1  
Old Mon 17 August 2009, 09:40
Rad Racer
Just call me: Wayne #25
 
Minnesota
United States of America
Dust collector - cyclone build

We completed the cyclone for my Mechmate dust collector system this weekend. This was built using the Pentz plans/design that many people use.

First things was to layout the cyclone in CAD, because Bill does not offer DXF files....you need to create your own. The CAD files allowed us to use a CNC plasma cutter for speed, ease and accuracy

We decided to use 20ga sheet steel instead for the 24ga galvanized steel reccomended, this allowed us to weld the assembly together instead of the solder process described on the Bill Pentz website.

The pictures below hilight our build.
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  #2  
Old Mon 17 August 2009, 09:48
Rad Racer
Just call me: Wayne #25
 
Minnesota
United States of America
more pictures
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  #3  
Old Mon 17 August 2009, 09:49
Rad Racer
Just call me: Wayne #25
 
Minnesota
United States of America
TaDa - it's done.

Not bad for a weekend
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  #4  
Old Mon 17 August 2009, 09:54
Kobus_Joubert
Just call me: Kobus #6
 
Riversdale Western Cape
South Africa
Send a message via Yahoo to Kobus_Joubert Send a message via Skype™ to Kobus_Joubert
Well done, nice if you have the tools... I see you have enough wood for the MechMate on your property
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  #5  
Old Mon 17 August 2009, 11:02
javeria
Just call me: Irfan #33
 
Bangalore
India
Wayne that's nice - was that a diy cnc plasma cutter?? looking forward for the completed build! do you already have a blower for this?
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  #6  
Old Mon 17 August 2009, 11:37
Rad Racer
Just call me: Wayne #25
 
Minnesota
United States of America
Kobus - Yeap, we have lot's of trees up here in the northwoods. Saves you a trip to the lumber yard.

Irfan - Yes this was a DIY plasma machine, my brother and I built it a few years ago. I do have a blower fan and motor, but plan to build a housing from MDF like Bill shows on his website.
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  #7  
Old Mon 17 August 2009, 11:58
domino11
Just call me: Heath
 
Cornwall, Ontario
Canada
Wayne,
Your going to have a MM and a plasma cutter in your shop? Now I am really jealous. Nice work on the cyclone.!
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  #8  
Old Mon 17 August 2009, 14:54
Rad Racer
Just call me: Wayne #25
 
Minnesota
United States of America
Thanks, appreciate the comment. The plasma is in my brothers shop......the MM is in my shop, we share the tools
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  #9  
Old Mon 17 August 2009, 15:06
jhiggins7
Just call me: John #26
 
Hebron, Ohio
United States of America
Wayne,

Congratulations on your cyclone. Very impressive!

Have you decided what your going to do for a motor and impeller?

Your entire build, and after-build progress continues to impress me a lot. Thanks for continuing to share with us. Keep up the great work!
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  #10  
Old Mon 17 August 2009, 20:11
sailfl
Just call me: Nils #12
 
Winter Park, FL
United States of America
Wayne,

Nice job.
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  #11  
Old Mon 17 August 2009, 22:15
buibui
Just call me: John #34
 
Seattle
United States of America
Awesome, Wayne. Your projects are always inspiring.
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  #12  
Old Tue 18 August 2009, 07:40
Rad Racer
Just call me: Wayne #25
 
Minnesota
United States of America
Thanks guy's, appreciate the kind comments. Projects like this are a lot of fun.....they tend to push you to learn new skills and improve your metalworking abilities.

John,
I have a fan and motor from some other equipment. Not sure it will work, but plan to give it a try.
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  #13  
Old Tue 18 August 2009, 22:13
lumberjack_jeff
Just call me: Jeff #31
 
Montesano, WA
United States of America
Can you share some of your design details? I downloaded Bill's spreadsheet and scoured his website, but I quickly became lost in the weeds.

I got conflicting answers to a fundamental question. Is 5 hp a minimum for his cyclone? Will his design scale down to a 2 or 3 hp?
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  #14  
Old Wed 19 August 2009, 03:23
Doug_Ford
Just call me: Doug #3
 
Conway (Arkansas)
United States of America
Those weren't weeds Jeff. That was elephant grass you got lost in. I know because I got lost in them too.
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  #15  
Old Wed 19 August 2009, 09:53
Rad Racer
Just call me: Wayne #25
 
Minnesota
United States of America
Jeff, Doug -

The design is scalable for different motors and duct sizes. Download the excel sheet, plug in your requirements (i.e. 6" duct and 3hp motor) and it will generate the cyclone dimensions required for that setup. To directly answer your question; no, Bills design does not reqire a 5hp to function.....it can and will work with different size motors and blowers. I intend to use a 3hp 3ph motor, with a 15" fan.

Although the webpage is a little confussing, there is a ton of valuable information if you spend a some time mining the data by reading and re-reading
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  #16  
Old Wed 19 August 2009, 10:56
Doug_Ford
Just call me: Doug #3
 
Conway (Arkansas)
United States of America
I gave up and bought the clearvue cyclone. But I like and it works great.
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  #17  
Old Wed 19 August 2009, 21:52
KenC
Just call me: Ken
 
Klang
Malaysia
Hi,
I'll have a stab at the 5hp & 3hp dispute.
If I understand Bill's info correctly, he refer dust collection as a wholistic system.
The cyclone and dust collection are actually different things.
The cyclone is one stage of dust/air separation & the exhaust filter is another stage. If both are there it is technically a 2-stage dust collecting system but here, "dust collecting" term actually mean dust/air separation, here you collect the dust for disposal.

The "other" dust collection is talking about how to collect dust from ambient. How much air speed to suck the particle of different size,
Basic parameters for dust collection are 1) Air Volume Flowrare, CFM 2)Air Speed, FPM
Then
For 400cfm is a compromised OSHA guide line, but 800 is what you should have to protect your own lung. To do that you really need 5hp to be sure.
Also he mentioned that the marketing tricks played, advertising the Max power rating & mislead consumers into believing the max power rating is the operation rating. hence the 5hp thingy.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Cheers

Ken
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  #18  
Old Thu 20 August 2009, 07:25
Rad Racer
Just call me: Wayne #25
 
Minnesota
United States of America
Ken,

I understand what you are saying about the cyclonic action required to "truly" seperate the dust from the air. According to Bill, different size motors require different size cyclones to work properly.

You will notice the diameter of the cyclone (in the design excel sheet) changes from 18" to 20" if you change the motor size from 5hp to 3hp. I believe this is to compensate for the hp difference while still maintaining proper cyclonic action.

As you point out, it appears the optimal setup is a 18" cyclone and a 5hp motor....but I believe 3hp and a 20" cyclone will be completely acceptable. My understanding is that less than optimal seperation is still safe...it simply means you will need to clean your output filters more frequently (or exhaust to the outdoors).
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  #19  
Old Thu 20 August 2009, 20:23
servant74
Just call me: Jack
 
Nashville (Tennessee)
United States of America
If I remember right Ken, there are some calculations on Bill's site that actually show the 'why' for the size of the pipes, and it to keep the debris flowing at the speed Bill takes. And to keep that much flow going he calculated the HP requirement.

But it takes a lot of reading and going through his design spreadsheet.

He does lots via formula, and some seems to be based on 'science' and some on huristics (rules of thumb), but it seems to be conservative in most of the calculations from what I can tell.

Just wish I had the where with all that either Bill or GeraldD has displayed in supporting the user community! Bill's web site is very extensive on air cleaning just like Gerald's is on MM.
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  #20  
Old Thu 20 August 2009, 21:12
Doug_Ford
Just call me: Doug #3
 
Conway (Arkansas)
United States of America
I agree Jack. Bill's site does have a lot of great stuff on it and he has been extremely generous in sharing his knowledge with everyone. However, even if Bill hadn't divulged that he was a college professor, I could have guessed it from the organization of his website. It is abundantly clear that this Mechmate forum was designed by an engineer and not a college professor. No BS, no superfluous verbiage, no narcissisitic avatars or slogans. Just pure information. It's refreshing. If I want everything repeated 3 or 4 times, I'll just talk to my wife instead of getting online.
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  #21  
Old Thu 20 August 2009, 23:48
KenC
Just call me: Ken
 
Klang
Malaysia
It is very noble of Bill to publish his work free to the public. My sincere admiration to his generous act.

Obviously he is not an engineer

Bill is contributing greatly to health and safety to mankind or at least to everyone who found his site.

I re-visit the site (yes, ever re-visit the site is a huge chore) and realised I did actually got all the figures wrong. Here is the quote. and please pay attention to the compromises made in general.

"1. Airspeed
Airspeed measured in feet per minute (FPM) defines what size and weight of chip we can pickup. Because woodworking makes a range of chip sizes we normally pick the airspeed for the largest type of material we use. During normal woodworking we make fairly large chips all the way down to very fine dust particles that are so small they are invisible. Major blower makers that provide equipment to use air and ducting to transport different types of material provide charts that tell us how much airspeed and the minimum pressures needed to transport various types of material. For fine wood dust such as created when using fine sandpaper we only need about 50 FPM airspeed to overcome normal room air currents and move this dust. For typical sawdust we need to move the air at about 3800 FPM and for larger chips we need to move the air at about 4500 FPM. Ideally we should move right at 4500 FPM airspeed for picking up the normal range of wood chips. Many air engineers design instead at 4000 FPM because this airspeed is ample to pickup the material most fire marshals consider dangerous.

2. Air Volume
Air volume measured in cubic feet per minute (CFM) defines how big of an area we can collect over. Air speed and air volume are tightly related by the air formula where FPM = CFM/Area where area is in square feet. In short if we know what air speed we need and the size of the area we need to cover we can compute how many CFM we need. To just collect the same sawdust and chips we would otherwise sweep up with a broom, known as “chip collection”, most large stationary small shop tools can use existing hoods and tool ports and get good “chip collection” with about 350 CFM. Tool makers like Fein and Festool have shown us we can get excellent fine dust collection with a big shop vacuum. To do so our tools must be built from the ground up to totally contain the dust. Unfortunately, most large stationary tools found in small shops are older designs that only have good “chip collection” built in. Air engineers have spent decades figuring out how to fix our older tools to get good fine dust collection. To collect the fine dust on our typical older tool designs we must upgrade hoods, often provide larger dust collection ports, and provide a bubble of air around the working areas of the tools that pulls in the fine dust. Although that bubble only needs the air moving at 50 FPM and faster to overcome normal room air currents and pull in the fine dust, the size of this bubble is large. This large area is bad news because airspeed for sucked air drops at about the same rate as the surface area of a sphere expands so we end up needing to move lots more air for good fine dust collection than is required for “chip collection”. The airspeed falls at roughly four times Pi times the distance squared which is the surface area for a sphere. We already know the effect of this decrease in airspeed from using our shop vacuums. They only pick up right next to the end of a nozzle. Air engineers calculated the minimum airflows at each size and type of large stationary tool then refined these values over decades of experience. They provide CFM requirement tables for each size and type of tool. These tables show our larger stationary small shop tools need to move about 800 CFM to meet the OSHA air quality standards, about 900 CFM to meet the five times tougher ACGIH standards, and only about 1000 CFM to meet the fifty times tougher standards set by the EPA and medical experts. "


Its easy to understand the conservative approach & extra miles from a person who had 42% lost of respiratory capacity due to dougy commercial dust collection system. He know better then most that commercial reviews & recommendation is just another form of sales letter. To him, it is better to be safe with this matter.

In deed, the cyclone can be sized to suite motor & fan, but if you read carefully between lines, there really isn't much gain from making thing compact. At the end of the day, the design depends upon your needs, how much you value quality air or your (& those around you) respiratory system.

IMHO, in centrifugal separation, size does matter. (rationally please) Sizing the motor to the cyclone is well worth the effort.
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  #22  
Old Fri 21 August 2009, 00:06
KenC
Just call me: Ken
 
Klang
Malaysia
And this,
"# My Cyclone Sizing

Another very positive benefit of this design is it ends up being scalable. Innumerable people have built and purchased little 6” diameter cyclones to use with their 2.5” heavy duty shop vacuums. The medical school testing on these smaller units ends up being just as impressive than the separation on the larger units. These small 6” versions provide 99.9% separation efficiency on particles sized under 5-microns versus the closest competitor providing only 99.9% separation on 25-micron and larger particles. The real proof is in the results that woodworkers get with these in real use. Even shops that make multiple 55-gallon drums of MDF dust daily find they can go six months and still see almost no fine dust in their filters. The same is also true in terms of scaling this design to much larger. I designed one of these for a huge cement processing facility and they went from having to replace filters monthly to every five to six months, plus were able to use a much smaller horsepower motor. The owner of that facility said his cost savings in energy and filters pays him back more than he spent to build this unit every three months. I’ve heard similar reports from a plastics maker, a coffee bean roasting firm, and innumerable woodworkers. Many have even built these units with oversized cyclones to permit them to use smaller motors. Although I don’t particularly like this idea because too much fine dust is not captured if the motor Instead of building my recommended 18" diameter cyclone, those with 3 hp motors have found they like instead to use 20" and those with 2 and even 1.5 hp motors prefer the 22 diameter cyclones. Often these bigger diameters end up requiring mounting the blower to the side as the result would be too tall with a top mounted blower, but regardless they still work very well. If you need a more powerful than 5 hp cyclone, have medical problems, or need to collect from more than one machine at a time, I recommend you seek professional engineering advice. "
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  #23  
Old Fri 21 August 2009, 00:30
Gerald D
Just call me: Gerald (retired)
 
Cape Town
South Africa
More and more people are going for smaller diameter cyclones because they do a better job of cleaning. If you look around at new factory installations, there are now pairs, or quads, of small cyclones where we used to see one big monster before. An illustration and another showing the advantage of small cyclones. Our problem is that we could have large chunks in our airstream and somewhere they would have to pass a "splitter" to go into multiple small cyclones. But that doesn't take away from the fact that smaller cyclones are cleaner.

If you increase the cyclone diameter, and then put a lower HP fan on it, you must accept that the outlet from the fan is going to be a lot dirtier.
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  #24  
Old Fri 21 August 2009, 01:23
KenC
Just call me: Ken
 
Klang
Malaysia
In my day job, I deal with cyclone at the rear end of winnowing systems a lot, there are 2 main cyclone type, high pressure loss type & high Veloity loss type. The slender cyclone is high pressure loss type and the fat one are those of high velocity loss type. Both does the job just as well. Both has their strength & weaknesses eg. slender cyclone is easier for handling & installation, fat one last longer, less choking... etc
In my observation, the choice between the 2 eventually boils down to preference at the time of decision.
I also observe there is a trend alternating between the 2 type... as these cyclone normally last between 3~6 years, between replacements, engineer in-charge might change & hence choosing a different design is fashionably common.
As additional info, in winnowing process, it is paramount to have dedicated cyclone for each point of intake to ensure consistency.
In all honesty, I learn more about fine details of cyclone from Bill's site then from my day job.
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  #25  
Old Fri 21 August 2009, 07:15
servant74
Just call me: Jack
 
Nashville (Tennessee)
United States of America
Some assumptions:

1.Bill being the poster child for where we do not want to go (significant respratory failure),
2.assuming that the majority of the 'dirty work' in our shop is done on a MM, (Ok, we may have one other tools we might use at the same time (bandsaw, etc). ... small shop.
3. we want to keep operating cost down, even if there is some additional cost on initial setup,
4. we want to keep the 'runs' of duct to minimal length, for both economic and performance reasons.

What are the parameters we would want to use to set up a cyclone for use with a MM?
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  #26  
Old Fri 21 August 2009, 08:08
KenC
Just call me: Ken
 
Klang
Malaysia
Assume that you use Bill's model for design.
In general, it is extremely difficult to design good efficient pneumatic separation if the intake variate. One solution is to design the system to have both suction points in use at all time (so that we can use Bill's model). hence, operating cost will go up and yet, there is another set of problem to solve.
The operating cost may be cheaper if dedicated cyclone+fan are use for each suction point. i.e. switch off excess capacity when not required.
Now, do you understand why factory owners oppose to the real medical requirements?
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  #27  
Old Tue 06 July 2010, 16:29
MetalHead
Just call me: Mike
 
Columbiana AL
United States of America
Move Bill Pentz welcomes here.

http://www.mechmate.com/forums/showt...76&postcount=1
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  #28  
Old Thu 08 July 2010, 22:13
makindue
Just call me: Minneapolis
 
Minneapolis
United States of America
Nice job Rad Racer! I think your weekend is worth it with that.
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  #29  
Old Thu 15 July 2010, 09:29
Rad Racer
Just call me: Wayne #25
 
Minnesota
United States of America
Thanks MD....it was a fun build.

Good to see that we have another (potential) Mechmate builder in Minnesota. I am currently aware of 3 operational machines and a 4th current under construction.
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  #30  
Old Wed 21 July 2010, 09:18
liaoh75
Just call me: David
 
Taibao
Taiwan
Wayne, your Cyclone looks beautiful. Please let us know how it turns out. I'm looking into building one of these. Would you be willing to share your DXF files?
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