J. Phil Thien's Projects

Thank you Phil, I'm going to read that thread and see what I can gleam from it. It could be that we're approaching a point where I have to accept the limitations of fine woodworking dust and it's ability to suspend in air.

Contemporary craft, that sounds like something I wouldn't have much trouble building. I'll start reading over there and see what I come up with.

CCraft, thank you for sharing those photos and info. I'll take a gander over at bill pentz's website and see what is involved with building one of those cyclones. I guess the tapered cyclone is maybe inherently a better design for capturing fine dust.

Thanks guys for that info, I figure that just saved me about 5 hours of cutting apart my 6" design and rebuilding it  ;)  I never gave thought to the idea that the cyclone needs a certain airspeed to keep the dust particles against the outer walls and out of the airstream heading back to the DC. I'll try what you guys suggested with making a taller unit the same diameter of the barrel and using a little longer outlet tube.

Thank you again,
Stephan

Hi all, I wanted to first thank Phil Thien and his team for all of the work they have put in to sharing their wealth of knowledge. A year or two ago I built a 2.5" inlet and outlet Thien cyclone on a garbage can that works really well for everything but fine dust. Table saw dust is captured, but sanding dust is generally not. I'm a 5 days a week woodworker and am installing a 3HP dust collector in my shop. I want to build a new Thien cyclone with a 6" inlet and 6" outlet, both through the top (I guess?) and set it on a 45 gallon drum. Now, what I'm wondering, is if I build the cyclone larger than the barrel, say 40" in diameter and have a cone or funnel connect the cyclone to the barrel, will that extra large cyclone diameter help slow down the fine dust so that it will drop out of the airstream easier? Is it going to have other adverse side affects to the system performance that I am not thinking of at the moment?

Thanks you guys for all of your wealth of knowledge.
Stephan