Questions before starting: Thin or Beveled Baffle/Side vs. Top inlet?

[ElRay]

I'm planning-out a Thein Separator/Cartridge upgrade to my HC 2HP DC and I've got three big questions:

• There's references to thinner baffles being better, but thinner baffles seem to need support.  What if the baffle was 3/4" material, but the underside was beveled, so that the leading edge was relatively sharp?  I did see on post where the builder carved away part of the underside of the end of the slot.  Any other attempts?
• Is there an advantage of a top inlet with an initial 90/45 degree elbow?  Does it help the separation?  I'd prefer a side-inlet, but not if the presence ot the elbow in the stream helps separation.
• Other than the obvious height, are there dimensions that scale with inlet/Outlet size, circumference:  slot width, arc coverage, arc start in reference to inlet termination, depth of outlet tube, etc.?

Ray

[phil (admin)]

(1) If you chamfer the edge, then a thicker baffle is fine.  The thinner the edge, the better that stringy chips will be passed.

(2) Not sure what you mean on this one, can you elaborate?

(3) No, nothing else scales except for the height, and diameter.  The 120/240-degrees, and the 1-1/8" drop slot, stay the same.

[ElRay]

(2) Not sure what you mean on this one, can you elaborate?

Sure.  Looking through the site, I see the original "top input" design (e.g. http://www.jpthien.com/jpthien/cy.htm ), where the connection from the tool enters the separator from the top, slightly inside of the edge, and goes through a 45 or 90 degree elbow, and "side input" designs (e.g. http://www.jpthien.com/smf/index.php?topic=503.0 ) that look like the top part of a traditional cyclone.  Normally I wouldn't worry too much, but I've seen instances of "well though-out" improvements that actually reduce effectiveness and builds where a side-input would have been better, but the original design was still used.  So, that makes me wonder if separation is better with the original design, or if it really doesn't matter.

Ray

[phil (admin)]

Side inlets are great.  A little tougher to implement, but they will improve separation and CFM.