J. Phil Thien's Projects

I made my separator based on Phil's design and it worked great - unfortunately I had trouble knowing when to empty it.  I made a low tech indicator -  a length of dowel slightly taller than the barrel, drilled a hole through the top so the dowel would slide easily, then put a mark when the dowel was even with the top of the separator.  To use it, I pull up the dowel and let it fall -, if you try pushing it, you won't get a true measure because you can push past the chips.  So far it is working pretty well.

Todd,  the can that I used was so high that the hoses would not fit in the direction I wanted - the picture doesn't show it well but the hose that goes to the rest of the system has to bend a little to clear the motor assembly on the way up - at the original height it required a much more severe bend and I was concerned that would impact performance, so I raised the distance between the top of the bottom of the cart ( where the can rests ) and the bottom of the assembly that holds the motor.    The way I did it was that the poles on the top section of the cart fit over the poles coming up from the bottom of the cart (like tent poles or poles for a volleyball net.)  I made 4 dowels with bottom halves  that were just small enough to fit into the bottom poles with a friction fit, but with a ridge so they wouldn't sink all the way down, and the top half was sized to just fit into the top poles.  I thought I would have to drive screws to keep it together but it worked with gravity just fine. 

I just used some scrap cherry I had on hand and roughed it into rough dowel shape on a metal lathe. 

With that height you shouldn't need any modification.  Hope it works for you.  Barry

Yes, that is the only mod and you might not need it with a vertical intake if you tube is a few inches shorter than the barrel I used. From looking at pictures of other sites,  you wouldn't need that mod if you use a horizontal intake ( like the veritas cyclone lid ) .  Overall it is a nice machine, though I think everyone would agree it is pretty loud.   It is not a mod,  but in bolting the motor assembly to the metal frame I used felt in between in the hopes of reducing noise, though I can't say it was successful.  The barrel was from a ryobi dust collector ( the motor was on the lid ) that I got at a garage sale. I think it was originally offered as a part of the table saw package as an accessory when the BT3000 was originally introduced.

Hi,  I bought a Delta 50-760 and the cart had some room for a barrel.  The barrel is 25 1/2 high and about 19 inches wide.  The duct lines did not quite fit in place using a Woodcraft lid ( the intake is not in the middle), so I modified the cart a little so it would fit.  Then I saw this site and made my own lid and separator and they work great.  I attached a photo to show how you can get the barrel on the frame of the dust collector so that you don't use up too much space on the shopfloor.