J. Phil Thien's Projects

For what it's worth, at the printing plant we blow paper waste (trim) into a cyclone and baler system, same principal as wood shop dust collection.  It uses a very simple electric eye, looks like the safety sensor setup on your garage door,  to cycle the baler when the hopper gets full.  What makes it work is a timing mechanism that requires the break in the light beam to be 5 minutes before it cycles.  So it undoubtedly gets blocked when we're blowing paper in, but even when the paper flow is from multiple machines the flow isn't continuous. 

So I think you would need the timer to, especially when using something like a planer.  I go for the translucent garbage can. 

Hi everyone, I've messed around with woodworking all my life, but am getting close to retirement and about to get much more serious about it.  Was able to do an addition to our garage so I have room for a real shop - so that part was/is sweet.  The next step is to figure out what to do about dust collection.  A shop vac with a Thien separator is looking like a very logical starting point even if it turns out not to be the ultimate solution.  Haven't poked around the discussion group a lot, but have picked up other good ideas already and look forward to more.