J. Phil Thien's Projects

Y'know...I just stumbled across this item on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Delmar-Tools-Separator-Engineered-Peformance/dp/B09GYTSQRM/ref=sr_1_145_sspa?crid=3I33956TMREA8&keywords=drill%2Bpress%2Btable%2Bwith%2Bfence&qid=1648936879&sprefix=%22drill%2Bpress%2Btable%22%2Caps%2C407&sr=8-145-spons&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUExUzZKTklZME5TRlNFJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwODUxMjYxU0hQMzJRN0JHMTBQJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTAyMjEzMjcxUElVTEVQUEJFWUMwJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmX25leHQmYWN0aW9uPWNsaWNrUmVkaXJlY3QmZG9Ob3RMb2dDbGljaz10cnVl&th=1 and thought again about this crap with Huntley.

It kinda looks like a rip-off of Huntley's rip-off of Thein (and this forum's population's) ideas.  I'm not sure whether or not it predates this site or Huntley's offense.

I take it nobody has sued or stopped the guy yet?

--Mik

Eleven months after Kelly Bellis' response prior to this, and I happened to stumble across that DusTopper device while looking for other parts on the Home Depot site.  This matter still pisses me off!

Phil, are you still around?  Has there been any progress (in any direction) on this matter?
Do you need donations for legal fees?

--Mik

Thoughts:

1) Mr. Thien, you really need to get together with Mr. Stone to get your design patented and get in touch with his legal contacts.

2) According to Rio Vista Andy in the Someone is Patenting Our Ideas thread this idea is apparently not completely new, just new to wood dust applicability.  Nevertheless, my thoughts are that Mr. Thien needs to lock down that patent ASAP so that, if credited if/when the micro-viral particulate separator is patented, his ducks are all in a row.

3) I, for one, am willing to toss a few PayPal bucks a la the How to Make Voluntary Contributions thread if Mr. Thien needs or wants support on the patent application fees.

I check this site in general roughly quarterly and I peek at the Someone is Patenting Our Ideas thread slightly more often.  Thanks for running the site, Phil; keep us all apprised!

--Mik

Retired2 has more experience with various dust-collection devices and more knowledge of the engineering theories.  Nevertheless, I could see the same issues with my relative lack of experience.  When I glanced at the thumbnail, I thought it stood a chance, but when I expanded the image to see the details it was clear there were problems.  Retired2 was pretty clear about those so I won't reiterate here.  Instead, I'll expound on what I thought could be right when I was glancing at the tiny thumbnail:

If your flow was reversed, you could send dirty air into the chamber and around the sides in a centrifugal motion with only one of those elbows.  Then you could put a vertical slot (rather than a hole) in the exhaust pipe facing toward the wall or at least away from the circular flow of air and place a barrier of some kind between the wall of your chamber and the side of the pipe, just before the slot.

The idea would be to send air and particles circulating but then needing to negotiate a hairpin turn to go out through the slot.  Since wood particles have more inertia than air particles, they'd have a harder time negotiating that quick back-track around the pipe and, hopefully, gravity and friction would have the wood bits dropping to the bottom of the chamber and resting with other wood bits.

But even this idea is flawed because the pipe and its barrier would impede the air circulation and impart turbulence to the circulating air.  That turbulence would make it easier for particles in the incoming air to reach the exit slot, and would also stir up any particles on the bottom of the chamber.  That would leave you with a chamber and two pipes that are basically doing nothing.   One could put a screen on the slot to keep particles from leaving but, at that point, you'd have a large filter on a shop vac that already has a small pleated filter -- why bother when there are simpler designs for that?

I'm sure it's been spelled out several times on this site (and on others, too) but the key elements here are
1) Move a lot of air (high-numbered CFM's) to clean as much as possible as fast as possible to protect your lungs
2) Minimize parts and design complexity, thereby minimizing cost
3) Centrifugal activity moves heavier-than-air particles to the outer rim
Multiple trips around that centrifuge make multiple opportunities for particles to fall out.  As DBhost writes here [http://www.jpthien.com/smf/index.php?topic=137.0] in post #7, "the idea is to keep the air spinning long enough for debris, and dust to fall out of the air stream, air smashing against the sidewalls of the container should do that... In turn the solid center section [of the baffle] keeps the stuff that has already gone into the dust bin from getting sucked right back up into the filter."

--Mik

Well, I grew up in a relatively poor family and learned DIY repairs from an early age. I actually failed woodshop in Jr. High because I had no use for a jewelry box and everyone thought I was being a smart@$$ when I was asking questions that were beyond the basic level of the class.  As I've grown, my DIY projects have grown with me and as my mind started getting creative, I've discovered a new appreciation for those woodshop skills I considered "too basic" and started teaching myself to make useful things with power tools and neat hardware that the schools could never have provided.  The need to deal with dust and grit and shavings has increased with the complexity of my projects and when I started looking into it I learned about the health issues and the Thien units.  I've also seen some stuff around the web about making DC's from old clothes dryer fans so I'm eventually going to try and hybrid together both ideas and see how well it works.

Hey, Phil?

Any particular reason the jig you show [http://www.jpthien.com/cj.htm] uses a 1/4" inside notch and a 1/2" outside notch for catching the bearing?

Why not make both notches 1/4" inch?

--Mik

 >:(   >:(   >:(
Well this really pisses me off!
I stumbled across Phil's Thien Baffle design years ago and I've been following the discussions intermittently.
Learning about this Intellectual Property Theft matter spurred me to finally register -- and I'm sorry I'm six months late coming to the party.

I see that the Dustopper is still being sold at HD.  At $40 each the guy's making a pretty good profit off a molded plastic version of your lid-and-baffle concept.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/High-Efficiency-Dust-Separator-12-in-Dia-with-2-5-in-Hose-36-in-Long-HD12/302643445?keyword=dustopper&semanticToken=d03t0003011_20190704183433844802_r8qq+d03t0003011+%3E++cnn%3A%7B0%3A0%7D+cnr%3A%7B7%3A1%7D+cnb%3A%7B0%3A0%7D+cnv%3A%7B0%3A0%7D+vc%3A%7B1%7D+st%3A%7Bdustopper%7D%3Ast+oos%3A%7B0%3A1%7D+dln%3A%7B563012%7D+tgr%3A%7BEnriched+Product+Info%7D+qu%3A%7Bdustopper%7D%3Aqu

So what happened to Huntley's patent application?  Is it still under consideration/review?  Was it rejected?  The description on the HD site says it's pending, but they don't seem to get around to updating their descriptions that frequently.

Phil, did you ever file your own design for copyright/patent consideration?

Decades ago, when I built a label-application system for my boss, he suggested we patent it.  I looked into the matter but found that, since there wasn't more than a 25% substantial difference from the main parts I bought off-the-shelf, I didn't have a device we could patent.  Huntley's drawings look rather different than the pictures on this forum, but it might be possible to argue that the intake/exhaust ports are superficial rather than substantial changes -- in which case he hasn't improved or changed your fundamental idea.

Anyway, it's been six months; can you update us on the status of this situation?    If necessary, I'll be happy to send a letter to the US Patent office on real paper.

--Mik