Workers Of Wood

This is a Stumpy Nubs video about some of the common DC system mistakes. I thought it was pretty good. Most of this has been covered before I think but in a bunch of different threads. He does a good job of explaining what and why not to do some things.

@DesertRatTom
Stumpy mentions you HF... ((1:40)...

6:44 - that's Stick's picture of his 4100 set up...
it's very misleading... all that saw dust on the floor is from freehand rountering...

LabRat wrote: ↑Tue Feb 23, 2021 4:55 pm 6:44 - that's Stick's picture of his 4100 set up...
it's very misleading... all that saw dust on the floor is from freehand rountering...

damn if it ain't...

LabRat wrote: ↑Tue Feb 23, 2021 4:37 pm @DesertRatTom
Stumpy mentions you HF... ((1:40)...

Mine is similar but more powerful at 9 or 10 amps on 220v. I call it a dust redistributor. It's so bad that even my wife is insisting I modify it. So it's going outside in an insulated enclosure I'm building under a roof overhang this summer and return air will go through a multi stage filter bank. Where it's currently sttanding I'll put a cyclone to capture most of the bigger debris even if it does reduce the system efficiency.

@LabRat
The HF unit has some shortcomings, but I have two that cost me $162 each. I have an outside shop and a few big tools in ny garage, so I need two. The shop unit is now in an enclosed space between two sheds. It has a Super Dust Deputy on a chip collector, has a Wynn drum filter and there is also a filter over the return vent back into the shop. I used a little bit of flex hose to go from a 4 inch port through the shed wall, and there is a long piece of flex hose inside that goes to my tools.

All my cutting tools, sander, etc are within 12 feet of the DC port, and I hook the hose up to one machine at a time. There isn't much room to install hard pipe. One thing I got from this video is that I could run a 4 inch pvc pipe from the back of my router table across a wall so I could shorten the flex hose by nearly half.

The picture shows the shop DC setup inside its enclosure. You can see the short pieces of flex hose I used. I haven't figured out exactly the best way to put hard pipe between the Super DD and HF unit intake. I will say that this has greatly reduced the amount of dust, and during summer, the air return keeps the AC's cool air circulating gently through the shop.

I also have a WEN filter unit hanging from the rafters that runs for a couple of hours after I finish in the shop. It cost $99 on sale. I recently bought another Super DD for the garage chip collector, but haven't installed it yet. I'm thinking of getting a drum filter for the garage DC unit, but at present I just wheel it outside.

I'll look for a drum filter with the crank on top, a kind of beater bar to knock dust off the filter. I just blow air through the one I've got. Some dust falls out, but not much gets past the chip collector. And, the HF unit has a spiral between filter and collection bag that spins out what little sawdust makes it that far.

Nubbs comments on the difference between rated air flow vs real applies to just about any unit, regardless of brand, so all the connector information clearly becomes more important.

Tom just remember that with the RT Stumpy had a 2.5" and a 4" connection there. One of the things he stressed that I always have too is that you must have airflow to make a DC work. Necking it down kills efficiency. If Stumpy didn't have both inlets at the RT then the solution would be to open up a blastgate further up the main pipe so that the system can get enough air to work properly. Like you say the system specs are blown up for every maker just like HP ratings for routers are. The only saving grace is that they are lying more or less equally so the specs they give are relatable to comparable systems.

Stumpy said he had problems using galvanized duct pipe but I haven't. However I took the foil type duct tape, the stuff you actually are supposed to use on ducting, and I taped all the joints so I get very little leakage. The steel duct pipe is at least as smooth as PVC and more likely to stay that way since it takes more to scratch the insides plus it made it easy to ground the system to eliminate any risk of static charge starting a fire. I suppose a person could use hard piping all the way to a machine but it sure would be time consuming and a general PITA to do.