midget cyclone or Thien lid, give us a call, operators waiting

[Bruce Seidner]

Shop vacs put up big numbers in terms of static pressure and low numbers of CFM.

Underpowered commercial dust collectors put up larger CFM and modest static pressure.

In my particular situation I am trying to get the best performance out of an old ShopSmith DC3300 Dust Collector that I have taken out of moth balls with my shop being reconfigured but still needing to have some head fake towards dust collection to rebuild the shop after my conversion experience to sliding table saws.

This is an underpowered but very elegant dinosaur that "boasts" 1/2 HP and 330 CFM. While I rebuild everything in the shop to accommodate my new religion I will have to rely on it or some combination of shop vacs. I am trying to decide whether to drop a modest $40 on a Dust Deputy that is nothing more than a large sports bottle with 2" fittings or put a Thien style collector in the bottom of the ShopSmth unit ahead of the intake. I would go for the Dust Deputy if it handled the fine dust better than the native DC3300 but have my doubts given its dwarfism and what looks like a reliance on static pressure to get it to perform. There is a Hopkins study published on the Clearvue min unit that suggests efficacy but again I think it relies on high static pressure to work well.

I would build a Thien separator that would sit in the bottom of the DC3300 if static pressure was key to these midget cyclones being successful at what they do. I have a full size Wizard of Oz sheet metal cyclone and a 5hp New York 18" blower that is not currently in commission due to the regime change.

The internals of the DC3300 make this single stage dust collector non amenable to putting a Thien style separator in the middle of the machine because that is where the blower itself lives. So there will have to be something that sits "ahead" or under the single stage unit. This will likely mean a can sitting under the bag or rather shortened plastic bag at the bottom of the DC3300.

So will the ShopSmith with its unknown static pressure but published CFM of 330 and all of 1/2HP do better with a Thien separator or a midget cyclone. My fate is in your collective hands.

[damagi]

I am very interested in this as well. I have a dc3300 and would love to see it hit its maximum potential. I recently got a HF 2HP unit, but would love to be able to return it in favor of sticking with the dc3300.

Note - if you remove the front portion of the hose connections, there is a single inlet that is something like 3 1/2 inches or so. I measured a while back but didn't write it down. With the 42" bag and the front port opened up it seems like there is a decent ammount of suction going on. The bag certainly takes quite a hit in terms of the fine dust, so there is room for improvement there. I imagine you could adapt a cartridge filter to it with some sheet metal.

I might try pulling mine apart and see about taking some photos.

[phil (admin)]

Any pictures of the insides of a 3300 that I could see?

[damagi]

Attached are some photos of my DC3300.

Inlet seems to be 4 11/32" diameter. The mating part is 3 15/16" where it splits from one outlet to the three.

[phil (admin)]

I don't think it would be possible to modify that unit to incorporate a baffle.

And the specs don't seem to indicate it would make a good unit to handle a pre-separator.