Whole Shop Stationary Dust Collector

[Crusarius]

I tried

[DDW_OR]

Well, that is just as bad since my breaker box is in the lower level of the building, it would actually be quicker to use a ladder in that case.

put in a sub-panel for the shop floor. use cable at lease as heavy as the main supply, or one gauge heavier.

have a plug on a long cable hanging from the ceiling. that way you do not have to use a ladder.( that is the way we did it at work ). use 10 AWG 

[SlowJoeCrow]

Alright guys, I do like the idea of bringing the outlets down to machine height, thanks for the suggestions.  Right now I have 10/2 romex (solid wire) up in the ceiling going into outlet boxes.  Now I am thinking about getting some 10/3  power cord (stranded wire) for the drops, wire nutting it into the romex in the ceiling box and just putting a female 20 amp 230v plug on the drop ends.  All of the existing machines are rated at 15 amps or under so I thing 10 gauge is overkill but I wanted to plan for the future if/when I upgrade anything.

Let me know what you think.  I will tin the ends of the 10/3 wire inside the box to help hold up to the wire nuts.  Is there a better way to do this?

[Crusarius]

Twist lock outlet on the ceiling with heavy gauge extension cord to the machine plug. That will give you the most flexibility of any setup. Will make it expandable and able to be adjusted for the future growth

[btulloh]

in the floor

[Crusarius]

I have always thought about the floor but the amount of crap that gets into the outlet and if you ever move the machine then it stinks.

[Kbeitz]

You need to ask for SO wire or cord.

[SlowJoeCrow]

Yes, I have thought about running both electric and dust collection through the floor,  but I didn't want to do that.  The romex is already run in the ceiling, I am going to go that route.

K, the cord I was thinking of buying is type SJEOOW, should be good?  A 20 foot roll should do my three drops if I just cut it in thirds.

[YellowHammer]

You need to ask for SO wire or cord.

Yes, SOOW (commonly called SO) Flexible Service Cord is flexible stranded wire designed for for this type of thing.  Solid Romex will fatigue and eventually cause hot spots under vibration and movement.  Wire Romex to a junction box overhead, then convert to SO and direct wire to the machine.     

Extension cords do not meet fire codes if used for a long term installation.

Dust in outlets is a real problem.  They will fill with fine sawdust.  I get inspections by the local Fire Marshall once a year, and they look for that.  I was surprised how fast and how much it builds up. 
Here's a related thread.
http://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,96290.msg1486979.html#msg1486979   

[DDW_OR]

and add a strain relief to the drop cord
something like this
https://www.platt.com/platt-electric-supply/Support-Grips-Single-U-Eye-Closed-Mesh/Remke-Industries/2201013R/Product.aspx?zpid=223182
you pass the SO through the wire mesh. then attach the free end of the strain relief to a hook in the ceiling. leave a slight bend in the SO between the strain relief and the ceiling junction box.

[Kbeitz]

This makes the job easier...



  

[SlowJoeCrow]

No pictures to share, but the wiring is done and functional.  I did install cord drops as talked about and I am sure glad I did, thanks for the suggestions.  I put a junction box on the ceiling and the cord goes straight down through the center knockout in the flat cover.  The cord is suspended is by a twin screw cable clamp that seats in the knockout.  No strain on the connections inside the box and I plan on running the drops along the dust collection drops with zip-ties so there shouldn't be any tension on the wires.  I am now waiting on my order from Oneida so that I can finish up the dust collection.

[SlowJoeCrow]

The rest of the pipe and fittings that I was waiting on showed up yesterday, but I won't get out to the shop til the weekend. Hopefully I get it all installed and I didn't leave anything out of the order!

[samandothers]

Looking forward to the finished product!

[petefrom bearswamp]

Dont know how I missed it but just found this thread
Mine is an old surplus 5 HP belt driven.piped to an outside  chip/shaving wagon of about 192 cu ft. I built 15 years ago.
Plastic pipe with copper static wire outside the pipe with terminals screwed into the  the pipe at intervals.
My blast gates on the multiple machine  system are home made out of plywood.
Dont use it as much as I used to.

[SlowJoeCrow]

Well, I certainly didn't get as much done as I had planned on the dust collection this past weekend but that is ok, we did a bunch of other things as well.
Here is what I did get done - I have the table saw and floor sweep drop completed and the floor sweep is great, it has a ton of suction. 



The kids love the floor sweep, they started brushing everything off, sweeping the whole floor just to get chips and dust to send up the pipe.  In the next picture you can see how I did the electrical drop.  No tension on the cord this way and I am very glad I did it so that I can quickly unplug the machines when the kids are in the shop.  They love to touch everything including on/off switches and this way I don't have to worry about them powering up a machine and hurting themselves.



I was originally going to put the floor sweep up against a wall, but that takes up wall space which is at a premium and this is centrally located in the shop but doesn't interfere with my travel lanes.

I continued the main over to the jointer and planer but didn't get that drop finished yet.



To be continued...

[Kbeitz]

Lookin good...

[DDW_OR]

SlowJoeCrow, what do you think about my planed layout?
wood furnace will be located under a lean-too, the hot air will be duckted to the shop
the 30x24 Wood shop will be built inside the 30x64 pole barn.
the "open area" on the table saw will have a cabinet build to hold the router, making a router table
the red box is where the circuit panel will be
the dust collector closet will have a clean air return back to the shop.
the table saw, miter saw, and jointer will have their dust collection under the floor.
the planer will have overhead collection

[SlowJoeCrow]

Looks like a good layout to me, but it really depends on what you plan on doing most of the time in there.  I used to have my machines laid out to handle 8' boards.  That worked out fine until I wanted to process some 12' lumber.  Now I have a good setup where I can handle 12' lumber with 4' walkways around the stationary machines throughout the shop.  I use carts alot so I wanted 4' travel paths.  This setup will work good until I want to process 16' lumber :D :D  I guess I need to draw up a sketch of my layout some time.

In your layout,  I would run a dust collection line over to the timberking as well as to the other machines.  I have my planer and jointer grouped as you have, I think that makes sense.   The only limitation I see is if you wanted to process stock over 10' long, you might be a bit cramped ripping boards on the table saw.  Think about the longest stock you want to work with with those machines and go from there.

[DDW_OR]

Looks like a good layout to me, but it really depends on what you plan on doing most of the time in there.  I used to have my machines laid out to handle 8' boards.  That worked out fine until I wanted to process some 12' lumber.  Now I have a good setup where I can handle 12' lumber with 4' walkways around the stationary machines throughout the shop.  I use carts alot so I wanted 4' travel paths.  This setup will work good until I want to process 16' lumber :D :D  I guess I need to draw up a sketch of my layout some time.

In your layout,  I would run a dust collection line over to the timberking as well as to the other machines.  I have my planer and jointer grouped as you have, I think that makes sense.   The only limitation I see is if you wanted to process stock over 10' long, you might be a bit cramped ripping boards on the table saw.  Think about the longest stock you want to work with with those machines and go from there.

thank you.
yes i plan to add dust collection to the Timber King.
my current setup is; shop vac to a white 55 gallon plastic barrel, then to the saw discharge chute. it picks up 75% of the sawdust.

80% will be 8', and 10% will be 10'. for the remaining 10% i have the green garage door, and have the table saw on wheels.
the absolute longest the Timberking can do is 21'. IF i have to plain that then i will take the planer out. that is another reason for the garage door.

for the layout i just used Microsoft Excel. set the row and column each to 20 pixels, that way each square is uniform. then setup a scale system, 1 square = 1 foot or 4 squares = 1 foot

[DDW_OR]

i also measured the height of the table saw and will make the height of the work benches against the walls the same height.
cannot do that for the planer since the bed moves up and down.

i also plan to store some of my hand power tools in 4 drawer file cabinets.

[TACman]

Are you planning on building any kind of guards around the drops to prevent damage to the ductwork? Not only would it protect the duct, but could be used to store tools and spare parts for that piece of machinery. Therefore, keeping everything at hand and reducing time and steps to retrieve and replace. Just a thought.

[SlowJoeCrow]

And a very good thought at that, thanks for the suggestion.  While I won't do this immediately, maybe I will in the future, you are right, it would make a very good spot to store often used tools or accessories for that particular tool.

For example, the table saw used to be up against a wall and I simply hung different blades, wrenches,push sticks, miter gauges etc on the wall right next to it.  Now with the saw being an island, I will have to find a new convenient spot for all that stuff.  My immediate thought was to repurpose an old crapsman rolling tool box for storing these items next to the saw.  I have one that has been retired and I am going to bring it into the woodshop.

[samandothers]

SlowJoeCrow

You indicated you used 6" duct from Oneida. Why this approach versus 6" duct from a hardware or box store?  Are you gates 6" or did you reduce to a 4"?

[TACman]

10-4 and at the best you can do, you will bump it with something eventually if not protected and if your luck is like mine, it will be much sooner than later.