Question: Vertical Ducting and it's Affect on Performance?

[POPJINX]

Hello to all!  I'm an old dog trying to learn some new tricks.  My idea is to have the trash can seperator downstairs and the Harbor Freight 2HP DC upstairs with 8' (plus or minus) 4" pvc.

Is this a bad idea as far as performance goes?

I have a small barn style shop (16' x 16').  I want to put my 2 HP HFDC in the loft (upstairs) and plum 4" pvc from the 30 gal trash can seperator under the workbench, up the wall, and connect to the HFDC.  I have the 4" electrical pvc conduit with the long 90 deg elbows.  It would be the length of 2 elbows and a 50" straight piece (vertical section).  The 4" hose connection from the seperator to the wall mounted pvc will be around 24".  The connection in the loft from the pvc to the impeller assy with be around 24".

[phil (admin)]

Not a bad idea, but the shorter and more direct you can keep your piping, the better.

I assume you're going to have some piping in front of the separator (to your tools).  Well, adding 8' of piping after the separator is akin to adding it to each on your runs.  So if you have a run to your table saw from the separator that is approx. 12' long with one transition (a transition being an elbow, for example), it will now be 20' long with 2-3 transitions.  See what I mean?

So I guess to answer your question I would say that as long as your piping in FRONT of the separator is minimal, I'd say adding 8' after the separator is no problem.  If, OTOH, you intend to have fairly complex piping in front of your separator, I'd give adding 8' after the separator some more thought.

[POPJINX]

Phil,

Thanks for the suggestions.  We put it together and tested it (man, your design works great... just like everyone says).  After I use it awhile, and the honeymoon wears off, the HFDC will be relocated down from the loft to hide it under the workbench.  It works, and will do for a while, but... I think we can get better suction with a much shorter plumbing run.

I sucked up 1/3 of a HD orange bucket of wood cuttings with my son upstairs checking out if anything was making it to the clear bag to no avail (a good thing).  We had to suck up a piece of ping pong sized piece foam insulation to see anything made it to the clear bag.  All the wood cuttings were in the 30 gallon can (a very good thing).

Now that I have some semblance of dust colleciton'm up and running, I'll take my time and read through these posts slowly/carefully as time permits.

Thanks for providing a wonderful website with so much useful information.  We'll all breath a little easier.  I hope you get rich.  My donation is on the way.