# Collection System Redo Questions



## Mike Burke (Feb 9, 2016)

I have a small shop in my basement. Its approx 12 x 30
I have a older Grizzly 2 hp (wired to 220v) dust collector that I have been using for a few years. I have been using spiral pipe and some flex hose for my connections. I have just been using 4” pipe and hose every where. I have all my 4” spiral pipe and blast gates.

It has been working fine but I would like to redo some of my piping layout and have some questions. 

The grizzly has a main inlet of 6 “ with a splitter/ Y into two 4” pipe. 
Would there be any advantage to do away with the Y splitter and go with 6” pipe and run 4” drops to my machines ?

Here is a rough skecth of my shop and machines

I have a : Router Table with 4” dust port
Contractors Table Saw bottom 4” port and 3” Excaliber blade dust port/guard
Craftsman 6” Jointer 4” port hopper
Miter Saw Stand 4” port for back dust catcher 

Any suggestion on pipe size or layout of the best pipe routing/layout 










My Grizzly is simulare to this:

http://www.grizzly.com/products/2-H...-Aluminum-Impeller-Polar-Bear-Series/G1029Z2P



Thanks,
Mike


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## TMA Woodworks (Apr 23, 2010)

Hi Mike

The only suggestion I have is to run your main trunk diagonal across the shop and use a y fitting to branch off for each machine. If this is a dedicated shop, move your biggest chip contributor closest to the trunk and the finer dust can move towards the end. I had the same type of inlet on my dc and I lost that years ago. I only use 4" pvc for my dust collection and had no problems. I know that will open up a can of worms because there are many that will disagree on size of pipe. They can quote all sort of studies but at end of the day I empty out the can that has filled up with chips so something must be working. 

On a side note, how do you like your excaliber? I have toyed with idea of buying or making one. The chips that I can't control is when I rip 1/8 off a board and it throws the waste all over. Does your excaliber catch that?

Bob


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## Mike Burke (Feb 9, 2016)

> On a side note, how do you like your excaliber? I have toyed with idea of buying or making one. The chips that I can't control is when I rip 1/8 off a board and it throws the waste all over. Does your excaliber catch that?
> 
> Bob


I think it does a fine job. I have a 4" main going to the bottom of my contractor saw and then a split of going to the Excaliber which goes down to 3". 
It doesn't get Everything. If your doing edge work like you said it doesn't get a good seal against the work piece and the vacuum suffers a little so it does miss a little.


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## UnisawGuy (Jul 20, 2014)

You need the fan curve for the dust collector. With that you can calculate the static pressures in the system and know the CFM in each part of the system. Then the pipe layout and size can be planned. Without the fan curve any pipe layout is just guesswork.


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