# Dust Collection Help - chip separation, fine dust filtration, over all suction improvement



## fryemw (Jan 19, 2021)

Hello everyone,
I need to make some improvements to my dust collection set up. My goals are to improve the chip separation, fine dust filtration and over all suction.
1) I have been doing some research on Thien baffles and built one for my shopvac to play around with. It seems to work well but the suction loss was about 30%, understand that suction loss is normal when running through a baffle or cyclone. My thought was to build a Thien baffle to fit on my larger dust collection system that I use for the larger tools. As I am doing my research I don’t see a lot of comparisons between a Thien baffle and Cyclone. Noticed a few discussions on this forum but didn't see any data. There is one video on youtube that shows the baffle creates more suction loss than a cyclone. The video showed 440CFM through a Thien baffle and 636 CFM through an Oneida Cyclone. I wanted other opinions. Has anyone done comparisons on the suction loss difference between a Thien baffle and a Cyclone such as ones that Oneida manufactures?

2) I bought an anemometer off Amazon to measure airflow. As everyone says, I have measured firsthand how much resistance the filter bag causes as compared to removing it. Maybe my bag needs cleaned however the loss between bag vs no bag was about 21% on my Delta unit and 54% on a smaller Protech unit I have. Not sure if that much loss is normal or not. I would love to vent outside however I live in a climate where I pay to heat my shop, so I do not want to blow all my heat outside. My question is, has anyone experimented with building a box to exhaust the dust collection unit fitted with standard HVAC filters using a Merv 12 or 13 to filter out the fine dust? or is it simply best to invest in an aftermarket filter like the ones Wynn offers to filter out the fine dust? Assume both cases would improve airflow as compared to the filter bag?

3) Last question, my large collection unit is 1hp and I would like to upgrade to a 2hp unit. I see lots and lots of people buying the Harbor freight unit and applying it with Thien baffles, Cyclones, Wynn Filters and making upgrades to the inlet size, impeller. The initial price seems great, but my question is after all the upgrades I would probably have $600-$700 in it. The idea of incrementally upgrading overtime is good but in the end with that much money are there other options you guys would recommend that would be a better result for the money?

Thank you for any help and guidance you can offer.
Marty


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## _Ogre (Feb 1, 2013)

30% loss is quite a bit, i suspect everything is severely undersized
i suspect you used a 5 gal bucket and sized the thien baffle accordingly
post up a pic

i made one for my shop vac with an old shop vac (bad motor)
suction loss is minimal and it filtered out all but the finest dust
my test was to dump a 1/3 full shop vac on the ground and vac it up using the thien
very little ended up in the vac or filter

i'm sold on the thien baffle and would size it up for a bigger system
plastic barrels have pretty heavy side wall vs trash can

sacrificial vac top used for thien. i cut off the motor, saving only the flange and latches
i ripped melamine surfaced board at angle and glued up to make the circle
used thien's calcs for the drop out plate and an extra shop vac pipe for inlet










blue is the thien baffle bottom section, estimate 99.99% drop out from the thien
orange is the shop vac, very little fines in the shop vac or filter


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## TomCT2 (May 16, 2014)

without getting all tangled up in opinions requiring certain "numbers' be sacred....

- to get large chips out of an air stream, kill the velocity. this can be done with a large corrugated box. chip ladened hose in, large interior volume, baffle to prevent incoming stream (& chips) from being immediately sucked out, outlet hose to vac. air goes in, large interior volue causes air velocity to go to near nothing, chips fall out, bingo.

- for fine particles, you need a cyclone effect where the air is forced into a tornado type cone - heavier materials (i.e. dust particles) are flung outward by centrifugal force onto a wall where they hit, stop, fall down.

any upstream device will cause a loss of "suction"
no upstream device can cause an increase of "suction"
the usual and customary "mystery" suction loss is leaky joints/long runs/many turns&elbows.
the little stuff can add up a lot faster that one might initially suppose.

anything that generates a large volume of chips - thickness planer/joiner/router table/lathe,,, are the usual suspects - requires at minimum, a 30 gal trash can size collection. this will be adequate only for a hobby shop and if you're planing down rough sawn lumber - you get about 30 lineal feet (both sides...) before it's full. not workable for a full-on pro shop planing/joining all day long.

can't offer much for the 'fine dust' issue - I use a ShopVac with 2.5 inch hose, pleated filter. hooked through a 30 g can for some devices. I empty it as needed, in a hobby scenerio it's not a big problem.


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## Bernie_72 (Aug 9, 2020)

I can't speak specifically to any details on actual suction loss but if you do some searching on YouTube you'll find dozens of videos on how the Oneida Dust Deputy performs and what kind of suction loss can be expected. In every video I've seen the suction loss has been minimal.

I have a Harvey dust collector hooked to all my large tools but I have a small $200 single HP Grizzly dust collector hooked up to all of my small 110v tools which are setup along one wall in my shop. I used that for about a year with just the simple bag that came with the Grizzly unit. I recently added a small canister filter and the 4" Oneida Super Dust Deputy to that setup. 

Grizzly 1HP Wall Hanging Dust Collector​Grizzly Canister Filter​Oneida Super Dust Deputy (4” Cyclone Kit)​
I think the Oneida is way too expensive for just a simple piece of plastic and a cardboard drum, but the performance of this simple setup is really amazing. Almost nothing gets through the Oneida to the canister filter and bag. I think the only time I ever see anything in that canister filter bag is when I let the drum fill up that the dust deputy is connected to.

If you go this route with a small 1 to 2 HP inexpensive dust collector and then add a canister filter and the dust deputy you are correct on your estimate of $600 to $700. Not counting shipping I have $635 invested in this setup.


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## allpurpose (Mar 24, 2016)

TomCT2 said:


> without getting all tangled up in opinions requiring certain "numbers' be sacred....
> 
> - to get large chips out of an air stream, kill the velocity. this can be done with a large corrugated box. chip ladened hose in, large interior volume, baffle to prevent incoming stream (& chips) from being immediately sucked out, outlet hose to vac. air goes in, large interior volue causes air velocity to go to near nothing, chips fall out, bingo.
> 
> ...


The part about planers is the one that I'm particularly concerned with. Forever I've used no dust collection since my old craftsman saw has nowhere to extract anything so everything has gone on the floor as well as my planer, but I'm about to purchase a cabinet saw very soon and don't want the cabinet to fill up and gum up the works inside sooo...dust collection ill finally be in the plans, but i also use the planer more often than not which has also gone straight to the floor. I'm kind of tired of spending a day just to clean up the mess. Now the planer will generate a HUGE amount of mess quickly and fill up a 30 gallon drum in no time at all on a busy day say nothing about the floor. The saw will generate a lot, but not like the planer. Quite often I'll plane 2x12's with multiple passes down from 1 1/2" thicknesses down to less than an inch so imagine what a few 10 foot 2x12s cut into shorter lengths might generate in a day.. a LOT is an understatement..


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## TomCT2 (May 16, 2014)

certainly one can come up with a larger chip container, bigger may create more work moving/emptying/etc than a small one - depends a lot on where the chips go for disposal, and how easy is that....

this is my chip set up - the 30gal is on wheeled dolly which I can push to the door for dumping....


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## ORBlackFZ1 (Dec 25, 2013)

Welcome to the world of dust collection...it can be quite a journey with lots of challenges along the way. Most woodworkers have gone on the journey, but not everyone has reached utopia. If you haven't yet read my threads on my journey to "dust collection utopia" here are the links:

Pipe Diameter vs Performance
Grizzly G0440 Cyclone Dust Collector

Yes, they are fairly long, but there is a lot of good information that may help you get to your dust collection utopia quicker than you think. You can also skip to the last page of posts and find how my shop has been running for the last couple of years in my "dust collection utopia".

Let me know if I can answer any questions for you.
Eric


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