Side Inlet Install

[Adam]

Here are the basic steps I followed.

1)   Trace the patter onto the can
2)   Use a dermal and make short work of cutting the opening for the inlet.
3)   Tape the pattern onto the Inlet tube.  I used snap together metal AC duct for this. 
4)   Use tin snips and cut out the pattern before snapping the metal into a tube
5)   Move the patter about 2? down from where you just cut
6)   Cut tabs back to the new location. 
7)   Attach Tube to can alternating tabs to the inside and outside of can.
8)   Pop rivet in place.   
9)   Caulk with Air seal. 

I used this website to make the templates for intersecting the inlet tube with t trash can: http://www.harderwoods.com/pipedocs.html. 

This took just a little time to do, most of it was making decisions on how I wanted to do it so I thought this write up might help some one else.  Otherwise, it went rather quickly.  Drilling out all the pop rivets took the longest mostly because I stopped to calk under each tab as I went along. 

I haven?t taken pictures of the baffle yet, but it is down and has a HF mini DC unit installed on the top.

The separator works rather well, I cleaned up my shop floor and all the dust ended up in the can with none in the bag.  My only complaint seems to be with the HF mini unit.  It doesn?t seem to have the suction power I expected it would.  I?m using a 10? flex hose and the Rockler master system.  When vacuuming the floor you really had to be completely over the dust before it would pick it up.  It also didn?t really have the power to suck up anything heavy like a screw which my shop vac would have grabbed.   Is there something wrong with the unit or am I expecting more than I should? 

[dbhost]

You are expecting WAY more out of a 1 HP Dust collector than you should...

Having said that, that is an excellent resource, and will come in handy when I convert my 55 gal separator to side inlet.

[Adam]

You are expecting WAY more out of a 1 HP Dust collector than you should...

Oh ok... I really didn't know what to expect they don't really let you demo this stuff which is unfortunate. I'm going to try it out for a while and how it works.  I'm sure it will be way better than what I had before which was nothing where at the end of each project there was several inches of dust over the whole floor.

Another thing I did notice was the HF min spins in the reverse direction than most other DC units.  Where the air traveling in to out would seem to be taking a right turn.  Where the air in to out of the trash can and other DC units would be turning the air in a left hand turn fashion.  IDK if that matters much

[dbhost]

that doesn't seem right...

[coaster]

my DC wont pick up screws either. probably better that way as if you didnt have a separator in between the screws would hit the impeller, damage it or worse create a spark and ignite your sawdust after you left your shop.

i use my shop vac to clean to floors, but i did have to 'try' the DC. shop vac wins that round.

[dbhost]

I am intentionally bumping this back up. It seems that Top Hat conversions are all the rage these days, but honestly, they suck up too much vertical space. I am wanting to build a side inlet separator from a 30 gallon can and this write up should make it MUCH easier...