J. Phil Thien's Projects

Just an update. I sealed the seams of the duct work and all elbows. I gave the system a test run yesterday by face jointing then planing poplar for some shop drawers. I filled 2 barrels with chips and nothing made it through to the DC.  :)  I also ran all the parts through the drum sander. When I took the lid off of the barrel, there was a nice pile of sanding dust on top of the chips. I'm very happy with results.

I finally got my separator together. Since I can't see inside the drum I'm only going by sound. It sounds as if the chips are swirling around above the baffle until I turn off the DC, then they seem to drop into the bottom section. I haven't looked in the DC bags yet to see if anything is being sucked into them.
My set up consists of a PSI DC-4  with 8" pipe going into the top of the separator drum (35 gal). A 6" side inlet on the drum. 6"main with 5" drops to my machines.
Should the chips be dropping below the baffle while the DC is running or is it something I should not worry about? Thanks

Thanks Phil. I do have some 8" pipe so I think I'll go for it. One more question. When pulling that much air, should the inlet and baffle be farther into the separator drum or would 7" from the top be sufficient? I'm using a side inlet like Ray Schafer's

I'm in the process of making a separator using your baffle. My dust collector is a Penn State Industries DC-4,  3 hp, 1900cfm free air (so they claim :)) There is an 8" inlet on the dc.  I'm planning to run 6" pipe  from the separator to my machines. I am going to use a side inlet into the barrel .
Should I use 8" pipe between the dc and the separator or reduce it to 6"?  Also, how much distance should there be between the pipe coming into the top of the separator and the baffle?
Thanks for any help.

Rob

Does it matter which way the air flows? Is clockwise better than counter-clockwise for separation?