# Would there be any advantage to removing the wye fitting on the DC inlet?



## xphnmn (Dec 7, 2009)

I'm getting ready to plumb my DC (getting tired of moving one hose around and sometimes don't). My plan is to use 4" thin wall PVC with blast gates throughout since all my machines have 4" dust ports except a couple (disc/belt sander - router table fence) that have 2" or 2 1/2" (which I can use my shop vac on) and maybe a PSI remote system or the system that turns the dc on when you open a blast gate. My dust collector is the HF 2hp model. The inlet in it is 5" with a split 4" wye. Would there be any advantage to removing the wye since I only use one leg anyway and replacing it with a single 5" to 4" reducer? I'm also replacing the 5 micron bag with a Wynn canister filter. I elected to get the nano filter version since it is capable of picking up finer particles and flows better. Lastly I'm considering mounting the motor/impeller on it's side and directly connecting the output to the collector ring as a few others have done. Seems like that would improve the air flow by eliminating the flex hose currently between them and also removing a 90 degree bend.


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## rrbrown (Feb 15, 2009)

xphnmn said:


> I'm getting ready to plumb my DC (getting tired of moving one hose around and sometimes don't). My plan is to use 4" thin wall PVC with blast gates throughout since all my machines have 4" dust ports except a couple (disc/belt sander - router table fence) that have 2" or 2 1/2" (which I can use my shop vac on) and maybe a PSI remote system or the system that turns the dc on when you open a blast gate. My dust collector is the HF 2hp model. The inlet in it is 5" with a split 4" wye. Would there be any advantage to removing the wye since I only use one leg anyway and replacing it with a single 5" to 4" reducer? I'm also replacing the 5 micron bag with a *Wynn canister filter. I elected to get the nano filter version since it is washable* and the paper filter is not. Lastly I'm considering mounting the motor/impeller on it's side and directly connecting the output to the collector ring as a few others have done. Seems like that would improve the air flow by eliminating the flex hose currently between them and also removing a 90 degree bend.


Careful the Nano filter is not washable. This is the link to the filters and the *35A100SBOL *which is the 100% spun bond polyester which is washable.

After testing the canister filter you should get 50% improvement on suction over the bags. I'm switching to 6" mainlines because it should improve the suction at the tool which would reduce to a 4" just before the blastgate.

Here is a link to my thread on this subject

As for turning it on its side and connecting directly to the exhaust baffle I am looking into that also. Some of those DC systems you have seen are from the factory like that.

You should also consider a Thien separator.

*Edit*
Answering your original question there is no advantage to removing the wye.


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## xphnmn (Dec 7, 2009)

rrbrown said:


> Careful the Nano filter is not washable. This is the link to the filters and the *35A100SBOL *which is the 100% spun bond polyester which is washable.
> 
> After testing the canister filter you should get 50% improvement on suction over the bags. I'm switching to 6" mainlines because it should improve the suction at the tool which would reduce to a 4" just before the blastgate.
> 
> ...


 
It is true that the nano filter is not washable but Wynn doen't reccomend washing the spun bond on a regular basis either. Their reccomendation on washing the spun bond is to only wash it when regular cleaning doesn't help with air flow as much as it should.
Occasionaly washing the spun bond id ok but not every time you clean it. Blowing out the nano fiber filter on a regular basis at 50 PSI (as reccomended by Wynn) should make it last a very long time and it catches more and smaller fines than the spun bond.


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## rrbrown (Feb 15, 2009)

xphnmn said:


> It is true that the nano filter is not washable but Wynn doen't reccomend washing the spun bond on a regular basis either. Their reccomendation on washing the spun bond is to only wash it when regular cleaning doesn't help with air flow as much as it should.
> Occasionaly washing the spun bond id ok but not every time you clean it. Blowing out the nano fiber filter on a regular basis at 50 PSI (as reccomended by Wynn) should make it last a very long time and it catches more and smaller fines than the spun bond.


I know about it's washable but not recommended and I never said you should wash it. I just noticed you said the Nano was washable and I didn't want you to ruin a $165 filter.


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## xphnmn (Dec 7, 2009)

rrbrown said:


> I know about it's washable but not recommended and I never said you should wash it. I just noticed you said the Nano was washable and I didn't want you to ruin a $165 filter.


Thanks for the caution. I realized my mistake after calling Wynn. It would have been awful to ruin an expensive filter. I'll correct my text.


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## thegrgyle (Jan 11, 2011)

If you are planning on running 4" thin wall pvc, then I suggest you leave the wye there and gate if off..... you never know when you might want to hook up something that you DON'T have piped, and then you will have a place to hook up that item. If you were to run your mains in 6" like previously stated, then I would take the wye off so that the difference in the volume of air being displaced in not as drastic (from 6" to 4").

Some good reading regarding this in on Bill Pentz's site... google it and you should find what we are talking about. There is ALOT of info there, and may take a little while to find.

A separator is would be an excellent addition too:thumbsup:, so as to separate most of the dust and chips before they even hit your DC.

Great choice on the Nano.... I have one and love the fact that it has a merv rating of 15 (17 being hepa quality). I also saw somewhere that the nano was washable, but once I contacted Wynn when I started to think about washing it, THEY CORRECTED ME AND TOLD ME TO NOT WASH IT! :wallbash:

Hope this helps.... 

Fabian


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## xphnmn (Dec 7, 2009)

thegrgyle said:


> If you are planning on running 4" thin wall pvc, then I suggest you leave the wye there and gate if off..... you never know when you might want to hook up something that you DON'T have piped, and then you will have a place to hook up that item. If you were to run your mains in 6" like previously stated, then I would take the wye off so that the difference in the volume of air being displaced in not as drastic (from 6" to 4").
> 
> Some good reading regarding this in on Bill Pentz's site... google it and you should find what we are talking about. There is ALOT of info there, and may take a little while to find.
> 
> ...


 
Thanks for the comments. I'm picking up a 50 gallon plastic barrel with a removable lid tomorrow to make a seperator. Probably not as elaborate as the Thien seperator but I will use the Rockler kit to make it a seperator. I've read Bill Pentz site through a couple of times and it has me so confused I decided to go with 4" throughout at least partially for that reason. Mainly because my main run will be less that 25 feet long with juat 4 active and one future drops. It will be horizontal so nothing will have to go uphill (except in and out of the seperator) to get to the dc. He talks on his site about using 6 inch mains all the way to the machines and cautions about reducing to 4 inch because it will kill the cfm but all the machines have 4 inch ports so unless you start hacking on your machines to replace the 4 inch ports with 6 inch ports you HAVE to reduce to 4 inch somewhere. As a practical matter, the design of some machines (like my Grizzly band saw) would be next to impossible to convert the port to 6 inch. So in other words,, why put in 6 inch mains if you have to eventually reduce to 4 inch anyway? The reduction would seem to me to negate anything you gained with the 6 inch main. Plus, the inlet to my dust collector is 4 inch anyway so I can only move so much air through that and even if I remove the wye a 6 inch main would still be bigger than the 5 inch inlet on the dust collector so my guess is any gains with 6 inch mains would be minimized with the reduction to 5 inch at the dc. Maybe my thinking is all wrong though. Thoughts anyone?


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## rrbrown (Feb 15, 2009)

xphnmn said:


> Thanks for the comments. I'm picking up a 50 gallon plastic barrel with a removable lid tomorrow to make a seperator. Probably not as elaborate as the Thien seperator but I will use the Rockler kit to make it a seperator. I've read Bill Pentz site through a couple of times and it has me so confused I decided to go with 4" throughout at least partially for that reason. Mainly because my main run will be less that 25 feet long with juat 4 active and one future drops. It will be horizontal so nothing will have to go uphill (except in and out of the seperator) to get to the dc. He talks on his site about using 6 inch mains all the way to the machines and cautions about reducing to 4 inch because it will kill the cfm but all the machines have 4 inch ports so unless you start hacking on your machines to replace the 4 inch ports with 6 inch ports you HAVE to reduce to 4 inch somewhere. As a practical matter, the design of some machines (like my Grizzly band saw) would be next to impossible to convert the port to 6 inch. So in other words,, why put in 6 inch mains if you have to eventually reduce to 4 inch anyway? The reduction would seem to me to negate anything you gained with the 6 inch main. Plus, the inlet to my dust collector is 4 inch anyway so I can only move so much air through that and even if I remove the wye a 6 inch main would still be bigger than the 5 inch inlet on the dust collector so my guess is any gains with 6 inch mains would be minimized with the reduction to 5 inch at the dc. Maybe my thinking is all wrong though. Thoughts anyone?



Maybe it's because its a 1 hp but if they have a wye with (2) 4" ports on it then there is already a problem because (2) 4" ports have a smaller area (25.132") then (1) 5" which is (19.635") where as a 6" port has an area of (28.274"). Are you sure it's a 5" inlet ? My collector is a 1 1/2hp with a 6" inlet and a 5" outlet. 

The reason 6" is better then 4 " is because you can move more air at lower speeds then reduce down at the machine which causes a greater vacuum at the blast gate with higher velocity. When you have runs of 4" duct, the further you move from the DC the air slows more and more. Low velocity= poor dust collection. The fact that you have only one straight run will help drastically especially with a 1 hp collector. 

If you can build the Thien separator I believe you will get better results then the trash can separator that you buy. Those trash can lids work OK, but leave lots of turbulent air movement in the can that slows the air velocity. The Thien separator contains the cyclone air to a specific area causing less turbulence.


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## xphnmn (Dec 7, 2009)

rrbrown said:


> Maybe it's because its a 1 hp but if they have a wye with (2) 4" ports on it then there is already a problem because (2) 4" ports have a smaller area (25.132") then (1) 5" which is (19.635") where as a 6" port has an area of (28.274"). Are you sure it's a 5" inlet ? My collector is a 1 1/2hp with a 6" inlet and a 5" outlet.
> 
> The reason 6" is better then 4 " is because you can move more air at lower speeds then reduce down at the machine which causes a greater vacuum at the blast gate with higher velocity. When you have runs of 4" duct, the further you move from the DC the air slows more and more. Low velocity= poor dust collection. The fact that you have only one straight run will help drastically especially with a 1 hp collector.
> 
> If you can build the Thien separator I believe you will get better results then the trash can separator that you buy. Those trash can lids work OK, but leave lots of turbulent air movement in the can that slows the air velocity. The Thien separator contains the cyclone air to a specific area causing less turbulence.


 
My dust collector is the Harbor Freight 2 horse power. I took the wye off and measured the inlet. It's definately 5". 5" PVC pipe doesnt exist so I would have to use metal if I wanted to run a 5" main or even transition to 6' and that's simply too expensive, especially the fittings. I think I'm just going to stay with 4" and forget about removing the wye. BTW it's not a trash can seperator. It's a 60 plastic drum and I can seperate the inlet and outlet far enough so that I don't pull from the incoming stream or scrub from the bottom. The drum is 35" tall and 21" in diameter. If it doesn't seperate as well as I would like I can always add a baffle later. I don't expect a lot of excess turbulence inside it since the walls are smooth unlike a metal trash can that has ridges in the walls. If the 60 gallon size proves to be an issue I can always blank off part of it later.


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## thegrgyle (Jan 11, 2011)

xphnmn said:


> My dust collector is the Harbor Freight 2 horse power. I took the wye off and measured the inlet. It's definately 5". 5" PVC pipe doesnt exist so I would have to use metal if I wanted to run a 5" main or even transition to 6' and that's simply too expensive, especially the fittings. I think I'm just going to stay with 4" and forget about removing the wye. BTW it's not a trash can seperator. It's a 60 plastic drum and I can seperate the inlet and outlet far enough so that I don't pull from the incoming stream or scrub from the bottom. The drum is 35" tall and 21" in diameter. If it doesn't seperate as well as I would like I can always add a baffle later. I don't expect a lot of excess turbulence inside it since the walls are smooth unlike a metal trash can that has ridges in the walls. If the 60 gallon size proves to be an issue I can always blank off part of it later.


FYI .... 5" pvc DOES exist.... only it is usually a special order and mucho dinero$$$$$$$ 

The thein separator seems to be the prefered way to go because Mr. Thein experimented many times with many different variations to come up with the best separation with very little dust actually making it into the DC. There are many other variations out there.... I can't tell you if they are as good, or possibly better (doubtful).... I do know that anyone that has followed Mr. Thein's design is extremely happy with the results, or at least I have never read any bad reviews regarding his design.

Here is a link if you didn't know what exactly we are talking about.

http://www.cgallery.com/jpthien/cy.htm

From that page you can go to the discussion forum and just about every question has been answered on there regarding its build, and a few variations as well.

hope it helps.... It seems like you are working in the right direction, that is for sure.

Fabian


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## xphnmn (Dec 7, 2009)

thegrgyle said:


> FYI .... 5" pvc DOES exist.... only it is usually a special order and mucho dinero$$$$$$$
> 
> The thein separator seems to be the prefered way to go because Mr. Thein experimented many times with many different variations to come up with the best separation with very little dust actually making it into the DC. There are many other variations out there.... I can't tell you if they are as good, or possibly better (doubtful).... I do know that anyone that has followed Mr. Thein's design is extremely happy with the results, or at least I have never read any bad reviews regarding his design.
> 
> ...


 
Thanks Fabian. I may reconsider turning the drum into a Thien separator. If it will help keep my filter cleaner it would be worth it and I have some mdf and/or plywood around.


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