# Newbie question



## davehafelein (Feb 17, 2013)

Greetings. I've been investigating a new table saw and acquiring my first dust collector and came across Bill Pentz's website. Now I am sufficiently motivated to do it right. I had hoped to get a portable DC and just move it from tool to tool. Outside venting is not an option.

From the Pentz site I see his recommendation that 1000 cfm are needed at the tool in order to capture the harmful airborne dust. And in order to achieve that you need at least a 12" impeller, minimum 1.5 hp ( preferably more) and six inch hose, not four. My biggest concern is all the table saws I have been looking at have four inch ports. The particular saw (Ridgid r4512) I have been looking at would be difficult to adapt to six inch port. Plus it seems like the retailers have only four inch dust collection accessories. 

Am I looking at this wrong? Has anyone adapted their TS to run with a six inch hose? Or maybe two 4 inch hoses?

Your experience and advice is appreciated.


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## woodnthings (Jan 24, 2009)

*Probably not*

I've never seen a 6" line run to a machine other than in an industrial shop, with wide belt sanders, 16" jointers and such.

For most of us in the home/semi-pro shops a 4" flex hose runs to the machine ports. Some of us run 5" pipe to the flex hose, others use all 4" as main line. We probably have under powered and undersized blowers according to the theory, but they seem to work. To extract the last fine dust is great in theory, but an inefficient filter will pass more fine dust than you can imagine.
So, what do we do?
We run a hanging room air filtration unit to filter the air in the room and recycle it.
If you are going to run a lot of large machines and have more than one in operation at a time, then go big in the main lines. 
In my experience, the soon you can collect the dust at it's source the more efficient the entire system will be. Over blade guards on the table saw, under the table shrouds on the bandsaw, router housings that surround the cutters and direct port to hose connections on portable sanders work well for me.

We have a lot of creative folks here that are experimenting with Thien baffles, cyclones and other dust collection innovations with good success. The Dust Collection Forum/Section is a good place to get ideas for your new system and often includes links to other sites. :yes:


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## Dave Paine (May 30, 2012)

I have also not seen any home owner equipment with 6in dust port. My new Delta Unisaw has an unusual 5in dust port necked down to a 4in connection.

A table saw is going to throw dust around inside the cabinet and outside. Many saws do not have shrouds for the blade. Mine does, but it is mounted to fit the lowest height of the blade/arbor, which means it is normally way below the blade. So it does not collect as much dust as if the shroud had been mounted on the moving part of the arbor. I do not have an above the table dust collector, so I do get some dust being thrown forward from above the table.

I have a 1 1/2HP Jet cannister dust collector. I installed a Thien baffle inside the DC, which has helped to minimize dust build up in the cannister, so my performance does not degrade as much as it used to. 

I run 4in line around the shop with 4in flex to the machines. I recently replaced the 90 deg fittings with long radius 90 deg elbows. This improved airflow at the machines.

The machine which generates the most debris and fine dust in my shop is the wood lathe. Even with my improved airflow, there is still fine dust which is not captured.

I installed an air filter/cleaner in the ceiling above the lathe. So when sanding on the lathe I have the dust collector hose pulling air from underneath the piece, and the air filter pulling air from above my head. This helps a lot to give me cleaner air to breathe. 

Bill Pentz knows his stuff. There is theory, and then there is practical. If I recall Bill is very sensitive to dust. So far my setup is working for my needs.


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## rrich (Jun 24, 2009)

While everything that Bill suggests is correct and, at times, all of us tend to think in extremes when it comes to dust collection.

A basement shop probably needs more extreme dust collection than a garage shop. (We need to keep the SO happy.) HOWEVER we are not striving for operating room cleanliness. 

So just think about what YOUR real dust control needs are and build accordingly.


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## davehafelein (Feb 17, 2013)

Woodn and Dave,

Thank you for taking the time to share your experience. I appreciate it.


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