J. Phil Thien's Projects

Or we could just forget about the entire question! I just a bit of a play around in the shed and figured out that due to space constraints in certain areas of my intended piping layout, I will have to use 90's as to not cut holes in anything! One of these days I might get around to testing the theory of how the 2 elbows perform, maybe.

PS excuse my dodgy paint drawings, I've recently formatted and am yet to install my graphics software!

Ok, I know the general concencus is to use 2 45deg bends together to make a 90 so that the transition is more smooth and open, but I would like to quiz you guys on the following...

I'm not to sure what kind of storm water pipes you guys have over there, but here in Australia, the 100mm (4") pipe bends have a smooth transition along the inner and outer radius for the 90deg but the 45deg only has a smooth radius on the outside, the inside is not a radius, but rather the 2 45deg planes meeting at a point.

So, with this in mind, would it still be better for airflow to use the 2 45deg units to make a 90deg turn, or just use the single 90deg piece yeilding a tighter radius but a smoother path?

Sweet, I'll do that when I've finished 1 of the approx 9 I have on the go at present!

I don't think that idea would be very practical for woodwork, dust sticks to oil, clogging filters. The average driver doesn't drive through dusty conditions remotely near what goes on in a workshop. Plus a DC moves a lot more air than your motor would be pulling in.

The cyclone effect is more created from the air inlet/outlets being in the position that they are. This causes the air combined with chips/dust to swirl around the outside of the chamber. When inertia wears off and gravity kicks in, the wood 'load' is then dropped through the aptly named drop slot leaving the somewhat cleaner air to freely exit the chamber through the top.

Its not that the baffle setup will improve collection any more, it will simply take out a majority of the waste prior to the air even reaching the DC if installed inline. Or if the baffle is installed in the DC itself it will assist the prevention of the dust/chip combo being aggitated in the bag, thus keeping more of the mess out of the filter.




ps, I have been suffering from an accute case of lack-ofus caffenieus (or as I like to call it my housemate drinking all my coffee and not telling me!) today, so if anything there ^^^ doesn't make sense, or I have got it all wrong, my bad!

Ah, ok then. I only asked as seeing as I can't get my hands on a container of appropriate size I was intending on making my own. I have a few peices of polycarbonate sheeting kicking around the shed, so thought about cutting a few mdf circles to size and bending the sheet around them.

Cheers Phil.

I put a baffle inside the DC this morning, so I will see how that works to start with.

Just out of curiousity, how would a plastic container perform if one was to add a small bolt through the container and then connect it to earth?

Hey guys, I'm the new kid around here so first off a big hello to you all and cheers for sharing all your designs!


I'm chasing some information that may help me design my intended seperator a bit better. At present I have a 1HP DC (pssibly looking to upgrage to a 2.5HP unit with a bigger impeller in the future). I know that this isn't the most powerful of units on the market, but it is what my current budget and space constraints allow for. Having a bit of a play around in the shed last night, I made a rough attempt at a cyclone by cutting some holes in a 20L fetta cheese bucket and duct taping some 100mm piping in place. Although it leaked like a sieve, it still pulled a huge ammount into the bucket as opposed to the DC itself.

What I need to know is if there is a magic number so to speak in terms of the diameter of the seperator vs inlet/outlet piping size? ie will it be any more or less effiecnt pending its size? I have a lot of offcuts in my shop at present that are 450mm (or 15") square, so a seperator of that diameter is looking mighty tempting!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, cheers.