J. Phil Thien's Projects

Using 4" hose, with a 90 right on the outlet of the planer so the hose is out of the way of the outfeed table.

Diameter is the same as a rubbermaid brute 20gal trash can that I am using as a waste bin.

I have had a push through thien top hat in operation on a 735 planer for almost 10 years.  Works great, doesn't clog, if you over fill the bin it will shoot out chips all over the shop. (guess how I found that out) Mine is now vented outdoors in an attempt to keep more dust out of the air.

Don't over think it.  Build it and enjoy worry free chip collection.

Along with the suggestion above to move the inlet to the correct position at the start of the solid part of the baffle plate, Your baffle plate is really thick as well. I would at least bevel the edges of the drop slot, if not replace it with 1/4" material.  Air is hitting those flat edges and causing turbulence that can contribute to pulling dust up out of the lower chamber.

It is designed like that so the air will create the spin in the chamber instead of under the baffle I do believe.  You want the air under the baffle to be relatively calm so it doesn't stir up the dust already there.

Wow, this is awesome.  I like the idea of motors to open the blast gates, I have seen one recently that used pneumatics, but then you always have to have air.

With long stringy shavings it does happen sometimes in my separators. I have clear tops on them so I can have a peek and see if things are getting too gummed up, I can drop the collection drum and clean out the shavings.

Very nicely done.  Have you noticed a difference in airflow with/without the filter?  I have a similar setup but no filter (I always wear a P100 respirator working in the shop) I thought about a shopvac filter, but a car air filter might be cheaper.

Water in a toilet turns in the direction the flush jets point.

Coriolis affect would have negligible impact on such a small volume of air moving in a dust collector.

hey, look at that, someone else with a push separator on a DW735! Works great doesn't it?

I have mine with 4"in and out. Yes, there is some pressure in the barrel.  Mine is a tophat and first time I tried it, it popped the tophat off the plastic garbage can.  I have locking tabs that fit under the rim of the can now to keep it on.

I don't think you need to worry about the blower, there is far more load on the motor from cutting the wood than there is from spinning the blower fan.

I really don't think masking tape and plastic wrap are sufficient to get good enough sealing.  You will have lots of losses without proper sealing.

It also looks like the inlet is too far down in the tophat try rising it a bit and see what effect that has.

Yes, you could do this.  baffle on the bottom of the ring, seal the top except for the exhaust stack/tube and it will work.  you could ditch the bag for a rigid garbage can if you integrate the baffle into a bottom plate on the ring that has a circular dado to fit the top edge of the garbage can.  It is just nicer to have the blower after the separator so you don't get the chunks banging around the impeller if you happen to suck one up, but the separator will work in both "push" and "pull" scenarios.

There are machines that do it, you probably just don't want to pay for a specialized machine. https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/wooden-handle-dome-end-rounding-machine_60363444788.html?spm=a2700.7724857.normalList.78.71f4689dhtszN7

If I wanted to do it myself, I would make a jig for the router table that precisely located the handle so you could use a roundover bit.

The diameter of a 5 gallon bucket isn't much more than 10 inches (The OD is around 11.8 so subtract 2x the width of the lip at the top) so I would say that it has likely been done quite a bit. Do a search on the forum for "bucket" and you will find quite a few threads about them.

I have the same issue, my top hat is less than ideally designed, so the fine dust takes a few trips around the separator, unlike larger chips. As long as the filter is not filling up, it tells you the dust is eventually ending up below the baffle, where you want it, and not in the filter.

Quote from: chrism3 on December 28, 2017, 03:44:11 PM
The outlet pipe extends into the chamber according to Phil's rule of 1/2 the 4" pipe diameter.
Seems to work fine on test, but the real test will be my thicknesser.

Planer shavings usually don't even make a full revolution around the tophat in my system.  Fine dust is the hard stuff to separate, it can make a couple trips around the chamber.