I got this 4hp cyclone with the 4 sider i bought, i have no experience with cyclones. seems like the middle opening (8") is the suction side and the top square opening the clean exhaust air. and the bottom hole is where the dust falls out.
first i'm not sure if this cyclone will be able to extract 5x 5" ports,
second, i started the thing but it was laying on the ground and it seems like the bottom hole is sucking alot of air which wouldn't be good. tomorrow i stand the cyclone up and do another try.
i would like to expel the dust outside the building, will the dust fall out of the cylone just by gravity? i will add a 30 degree elbow and then a 8' straight pipe outside to the building. does this idea work?
@YellowHammer (https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?action=profile;u=11488)
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The cyclone as it is configured now is working properly, and the funnel is on the suction side, as is the inlet port. So it's a vacuum configuration. In order for the cyclone to work, the bottom funnel opening must be sealed, either by going into a sealed drum where the debris falls until, or a rotary airlock must be mounted to the bottom of the funnel. Rotary air locks, like mine, work like a revolving door in a hotel, keeping the funnel sealed while rotating and letting the debris fall out the paddles, like people leaving the building on the revolving door.
So you need a sealed drum, sealed dumpster, or an airlock attached to the funnel, to make it work the way it is configured now.
In order to use the cyclone as a positive pressure centrifuge, you need to take the motor off the top, seal it, and have it blowing into the funnel, not sucking. Then the whole system is positive pressure, and it all the opening get balanced, then yes the sawdust will fall out of the bottom of the funnel.
I've done both and both will work.
what a pita, i have two normal 2hp dust collectors and they're just hooked up and good to go.
can i just close the bottom port and the dust will fill up the cyclone and eventually blow out the upper port? i really don't need a dumpster, i blow all my chips just outside the workshops and a guy who has a cattle truck picks them up with a showel.
what do you mean by sealing the motor?
you need to take the motor off the top, seal it, and have it blowing into the funnel, not sucking
if the motor blows down the funnel (can do it by just reversing the current?!) then the upper port will be suction inlet and the debris will pass the rotor and blow down the funnel and straight down the bottom opening??
i need it the easiest and most powerfull way connected
you have a foto in one of your posts where the debris fall into the dumpster with a elbow and a short straight pipe, i would like it to function this way. where is this rotary air lock located??
Think of that type as a big shop vac. The bottom needs to be over a sealed rigid bucket, bin or have an airlock on it. The big stuff spins around the sides and drops to that outlet. The round port up high is the suction inlet. The square port off the fan is the fan discharge containing fines and if indoors goes to a bag to filter out the fines. You could dump that port outside but it is fine floating dust, it will travel.
Those fans are generally lighter than one intended to push material. They are not intended to have much hitting the blades. I've got an older one with sheet metal blades where an old blower really intended to have all the material go through the fan has 1/4" thick blades to handle knots and chunks of wood striking the blades. I welded together a fan for the sawmill out of 1/8" steel that has worked well but it does have some bent blades from chunks going through it.
That does not look like enough suction for that machine to avoid chip marks on your work. If you cant pull all the chips off the head as it cuts the chips come back around and beat on the wood leaving shallow chip impressions in the finished surface, chip marking.. ok for rough lumber, not good for finish work.
The photo with the cyclone elbow was my previous pressure side dust collector, which was made from cannabalized parts like your suction side cyclone. Since it it reconfigured to run on pressure instead of vacuum it is essentially plumbed in backward, and all it takes is a round plate with a piece of ductwork extending on both sides. Basically, remove the motor assembly off the top, which also removes the exhaust port, and replace it with a round flat plate with a piece of ductwork passing through with sides, maybe a foot through both sides. This is now the air exhaust port.
The round inlet pipe of your current collector will be plumbed into the exhaust of a trash blower which is hooked up to your tool. When the exhaust is plumbed to the cyclone, then chips will fly out both the bottom and also the exhaust top ports of the cyclone.
Then put a smaller piece of ductwork on the bottom of the cyclone funnel to start constricting the air flow (I went from a 10" to 8") and this will force the majority of the air out of the cyclone exhaust port in the top plate, and will cause the majority of the dust to spin out and fall through the funnel into a dumpster. When the airflows are balanced correctly, it works great, and Oneida said I was the first to modify their system to do it, and they were amazed it worked so well. They now sell capped off cyclones for just this purpose. This is what it looks like. The pipe going into the wall of the barn is the exhaust of a conventional 5 hp blower. The top elbow is the round flat plate that was used to blank off the motor area. The bottom of the funnel shows duct tape and a slight reduction on pipe diameter which is all it took to allow the cyclone to spin out the chips into the dumpster. So the mostly clean air goes out the top, the chips fall out the bottom, and the inlet air comes ion the the side. This doesn't require an airlock, or for that matter, any moving parts at all.
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The system you have is a vacuum or suction side cyclone, and it is a different animal. As you've seen, the bottom of the cyclone is a suction side, so what is required is to attach that to a sealed drum or even a dumpster with a sealed top and will work fine.
Here is link to a system similar to yours, but which uses a sealed drum to catch the dust. So that's really all you need for yours, a drum with a removable top, and a hunk of pipe from it to your cyclone.
The most efficient way to run a vacuum side system, which uses a "clean air blower" is with a drum at the bottom so that the blower doesn't have to move chips. A clean air blower is designed for high efficiency so has light weight ports, close tolerates, and can't really handle much debris until it gets damaged. However, if the chips are removed, it will run full flow and high efficiency. The same hp in a clean air cyclone will move much more air than a conventional trash blower, which are designed with loose tolerances, heavy blades, etc. So they are much less efficient for the same horsepower. That's one advantage of a suction side cyclone, high flow, high dust removal, high efficiency where a normal pressure side blower like the two you have are lower efficiency and lower flow rate for the same hp.
Cyclone Dust Collectors | Donaldson Industrial Dust, Fume & Mist (https://www.donaldson.com/en-us/industrial-dust-fume-mist/equipment/dust-collectors/cyclone/)
To back calculate your particular cyclone design flow rate capability, calculate the cross sectional area of the current 8" inlet, which is Pi* Radius^2 or 3.14*(4^2)=50 square inches. So its designed to work with 50 in^2 of cross sectional area of pipe, whether it's from one big pipe or multiple smaller ones.
If you want to run five 5" diameter pipes, that comes to cross sectional are of:
One 5" inch pipe has a cross sectional area of 3.14*(2.5^2)=20 square inches, and five of them would add up to 100 square inches. That is twice the capacity of the system you have, so it would be able to run 2 maybe 3 of your 5 inch pipes, but not all 5, at design capacity. However, that doesn't mean it won't pull air through the, it just means th dust collection won't be optimal, just maybe not as much as your tool would need.
My current system is a suction side cyclone, but instead of a sealed drum, I have installed an airlock, which keeps the bottom of the cyclone sealed and under vacuum, but has a paddle wheel which drops the sawdust into a bin, so is the best of both worlds. High efficiency, lower horsepower, and easily collected sawdust.
thanks guys, very informative. i did do the math and got to the conclusion that it will suck 3 of the 5 pipes, however, the machine will probably work 90 % with just 4 pipes suction as i do alot of S4S lumber. i will definitively install this cyclone and see where i'm at and then look for a solution. the guy selling me the moulder told me that the cyclone was 7.5hp so i was confident it was enough, turned out to be 4hp. well, the guy didn't charge me for the cyclone so i can't fight with him.
the propeller is pretty sturdy and i'm convinced it would stand up to the trash going thru. it's 1/8" thick metal. i could take off the whole engine and with his funnel attached it would work like a normal suction extractor. but what mister yellowhammer said makes alot of sense, clean air thru the impeller equals improved suction.
i will try the drum system first, it's just a four sider will fill the barrel in no time and i won't be emptying barrels every 5 minutes!
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need 6000m3/h or about 3500cfm for the moulder
I've seen them where instead of a barrel they used a square top dumpster with a seal.
However, the best way is to use an airlock, which maintains a vacuum seal at the bottom of the cyclone and allows the debris to be dropped into an open top hopper, or on the ground.
After buying an airlock and seeing what they look like, I bet you could build one very easily, it's essentially a paddle wheel with rubber flaps maybe 10 inch diameter, run by a geared down small electric motor. The paddle wheel spins at about 25 rpm, just fast enough to keep the cyclone emptying.
What did the guy who owned it before you do? Did he also have a frame or legs for it so you could stand it upright?
Those look like pipe pockets for legs on the sides.
I always wondered what an air lock did. Good posts.
I forgot to post this picture, it works good but i'm sure it will lack some suction. i could take the whole top off and use it as a normal trash blower which would simplify the installation and investment. i can use this and buy a used 2hp trash blower for cheap, maybe 250$, and connect one or two pipes to the small collector, we will see.
i think i can optimize the aspiration because there will be a max of maybe 6' of piping between the collector and the finger which divides the 5x 5" ports and then 5' more of flexhose. so no elbows or anything. I will build a wooden room around the machine and stand the blower up on top. right above the 4sider.
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2 days for the electrical installation but now everything works like a charm. those vfd's are the cats meow, nice softstart and softstop, 380V 50hz trifase output, european machine.
trifase from the electrical company was 15-20k $, so that was not an option and would a have been 60hz, 420Volt.
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Quote from: YellowHammer on May 29, 2022, 10:57:56 PMWhat did the guy who owned it before you do?
no idea, machine came from spain and went thru 2 middle men, salesmen, the tell you bunch of BS just to sell you anything. the blower came of the machine he said, i'm pretty sure that wasn't the case. machine was supposed to have 210mm wide capacity, now it's 160mm. blower was 7.5hp, now it's 4hp.
but the machine is in excellent shape!
What is the diameter of the impeller? I have a 3 hp cyclone, and can fill a 55 gallon drum in just a few minutes when planing lumber. That is a long cone cyclone, probably works great. About the air discharge, I blow my cyclone outside my shop, and there is no dust on the ground, when running my wide belt sander there is a little dust, but the cyclone gets most all of the dust. When I look out the window running the sander, there is a little dust in the air, but it blows away before reaching the ground. I have a filter, and can make the air go through the filter by closing a blast gate, but it cuts the air flow in half. Only use it on very cold days, or very hot. If I run the cyclone over, there is sawdust and chips everywhere outside. Try to watch that close.
I have a slightly smaller system, 3hp, and made for interior, but this is my setup. Motor is 220 1ph.
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For all you Cyclone guys Oneida also makes a top of the line dump for your system that you need to complete your system instead of the old junkie container your using.
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You Cyclone guys what is it going to take to incorporate the Oneida air lock or cyclone to get these chips to drop into a container from the two five hp Timberking blowers piped outside that's coming from my four sided moulder planer. On the outlet end it's a mess. I've got plenty of suction but I'm getting furious jacking around on the outlet end with a mess!!! I put a fine screen on my container that I posted 🙄. It works but still a mess!!
Putting one on the outlet is a little trial and error, but I did one with an Oneida cyclone body, on the pressure side, not vacuum. It significantly eliminates the mess, but needs to be flow and pressure balanced, and is a trial and error DIY project. Oneida was no help because they hadn't ever done a pressure side cyclone spin out before. Basically, it requires plumbing and running the system backwards from what it was designed. Inlets are outlets, and outlets are inlets. That's me, doing everything backwards. They were surprised I got it to work, and said I needed to patent the system, but I didn't and used it for years until I upgrade to the current vacuum system. Notice since it's on the pressure side, there is no airlock and no exhaust seals, I'm using ductwork diameter changes to induce pressure losses in the piping to induce the cyclone to operate backwards. No moving parts, no electricity, just pipes and duct tape. Look Ma, no hands....it just works.
Here is a link and picture to one of my previous posts on this. It works, and I was using a single TK 5 hp blower. The first picture is me blowing sawdust all over the place, probably 50 feet in every direction, the next photo is me dropping it straight into the bin, about 95% of the heavy dust has been contained.
Sawdust blower in Sawmills and Milling
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Thanks for the advice and link Yellowhammer! I think I'm going to try that. What size cyclone is that and do you think I need a bigger cyclone for the two blowers or do you think that size will be fine
I been thinking about this and this is what I come up with and see how it works. Im thinking it will relieve enough pressure to drop the chips into the container. The first configuration I'm doing is the straight through with double screen on end of pipe. The next configuration is the T with various configurations with exhaust. Any other ideas welcome
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Works like a charm
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That's pretty cool. I was thinking if you wanted to go to an open top design, you could adjust the size of your downspouts so that the chips would loses velocity and the air would still go thought the top pipe. The you could drop into a bin from higher up, use a larger bin with an open top, and have the chips spread more so they wouldn't pyramid as bad. Also you could even put a vertical spout on the air flow to let gravity do some of the work of the sifting as well. Either way, that is nice the way you have it put together.
I will definitely keep that in mind. I like that idea 👍
Big shout out to Yellowhammer!! You got my wheels turning the first time and then the second time. Now it is even better than before. The top one relives enormous amount of pressure but the second one doesn't because it's screen is on the side of the flow but with a little reduction in size on the outlet end it creates enough reduction that the exhaust air really comes out on the second one so now everything just drops out very nice. There is no effect on the suction side
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That is a great system! I love the double outlet idea. Well done!
It looks like you are beginning to build up on the screen, that is going to be the problem, an upturn and self dumping screen? It also looks like you are on the way to making a cyclone. I've got layout methods and specs if you go that direction. Quite similar methods to making a moonshine still :D
So, if you get tired of woodworking, you can make liquor?
Always good to be cross trained ;D.
I always figured that you were a man of some flexibility and knew that you were multi-skilled.
Sawing is less work :).
The book with cyclone layout and all sorts of fan stuff is still in print, cheap too, worth it for the understanding whether you build from it or not;
How to Design & Build Centrifugal Fans For the Home Shop (gingerybookstore.com) (https://www.gingerybookstore.com/product36.html)
The link to the book is sold out Don 😂