dustcollection

First rule of dust collection: Collect the dust at its source. Lathes produce a lot of shavings too so the dust collector shown here is NOT designed to collect shavings. There is a screen to prevent shavings from entering the system. (Even my commercial dust collector gets bogged down by turning shavings. They are so long that they hang up on the impellor so I do not try to collect shavings, but rather spend time with a aluminum shovel and shovel them into a container for deposit in the garden. I use both dust collectors so as to create as much suction as possible.)

Here is the dust collector that I made using a furnace fan and a plastic bucket turbine. A furnace fan extracts remaining dust after the turbine separates the majority of the dust. I have since (2007) updated this machine to increase its suction by installing a more powerful fan motor from a larger furnace. I also used a box of straws to direct the airflow into a vortex in the collector bucket which has increased my dust separation markedly, to the point that I seldom need to clean the furnace filter.

(In order to move more air a fan driven by a 1/8hp sewing machine motor was added later Still later (2007) removed).

The photo above shows the fan under the collector hood. This fan is powered by a sewing machine motor and is controlled by a light dimmer switch, as a result the fan can be cranked up during maximum dust production (noisy) or turned down to just keep collecting ambient dust. (I have now removed this and replaced the main blower with a more powerful one.)

A better view of the insides. The air is swirled by the wooden paddles - since improved with 100 straws - as it enters the bucket it rotates sending the dust to the outside where it drops into a removable bucket. The cleaned air then goes up the duct tape covered pipe and into the cavity above the furnace filter. Below the filter is the furance fan.

Here is the fan hood that was added to the system after I tried it for a bit and found that the furnace filter with 1/4HP motor was not drawing enough air to be effective for collecting the dust from the lathe. (This hood has been removed now. (2007))

What would I do differently?

-Improve the impeller system to improve the cyclone. (I have done this (2007) as mentioned earlier)

-Put the small fan lower down so the air is pulled through where I originally designed it to be pulled in rather than adding the hood. (I have removed the secondary fan and installed a larger furnace fan.)

I still have to use a Triton Powered Respirator even with two dust collectors. (When sanding only)

By the way the Triton powered ventilator hood required a fix to its hose to make it practical.

Triton has been super good about updating and this is no longer required but if you still have the old one: (Click on "fix" above if you have had problems with your respirator and see what my solution was)