J. Phil Thien's Projects

Trying to mod as little as possible and use a plastic 55 gallon drum.  My thoughts are glue the bag housing right to the top of the drum lid and cut my baffle into the lid.  I plan on using the cart to set the drum on and wall mount the motor directly above drum.  Here is my setup.

lid cut out baffle pic.  Sorry did not get a good one with full cut out.  You can see where I have shaded the cut outs with marker.  Had to leave a couple of tabs so lid does not get too flimsy.

If I am seeing correctly it looks like your drop slot has several bridges to keep the central part of the baffle supported.  If that is the case, don't plan on collecting anything but sawdust.  Shavings from a thickness planer or jointer will completely plug this separator in minutes.   

that should work. but as retired 2 says it will be very prone to catching shavings. I would make the hole at the end of each slot  larger so that the slot is tear drop shaped. that will help  with the clogging issue.

I would add a piece of pipe in the centre  as the outlet to move the point  where the air moves into the outlet down away from the top of the separator

Thanks for the replies.  @retired2 I was wondering if I should enlarge the holes.  Thought that they seem pretty small.  I don't do a ton of thickness planing, but I do some from time to time.  Good suggestion.  @Alan M - I don't think I am quite sure I know what you mean.  Since mine is not finished thought I would add a pic of what I am basically copying but trying to use the bag housing frame/ring for my baffle.  My plan is to reduce that hole in the middle which is ~9.5 inches down to a 5 inch pipe and re-use the original hose to connect it to the motor.
 

No matter what you do to the size and shape of those holes, they will still place an edge facing the swirling airstream.  The length and moisture content of the shavings will determine how quickly the clog will occur, but it almost certainly will.

There is another concern I have and it is hard to predict the impact on the separation until you try it.  If you can find the videos I posted showing the performance of my separator, you will notice the air swirls with somewhat of a sine wave pattern.  It would seem the separation occurs in the valleys of this wave, and if that valley happens to be where you have placed these bridges, I think separation will suffer and you will get unwanted turbulence.  However, this is just my guess.  But if it were me I would be looking at other ways to support the baffle.  I have a threaded rod post to support mine.  It is set back so it has little or no impact on performance.  And when i was trying to plane very wet Cypress and plugging my separator one time after another, the post was never the culprit.  The plug always started at the end of my drop slot, and you are essentially adding several of these ends points to catch shavings. 

There are a lot of unknowns with what you are trying to do, and I?m just guessing based on what I?ve seen with my system.  So whatever you do, be careful not to modify your baffle plate so that you cannot return to a more conventional drop slot configuration if necessary.

what I was suggesting is that if you have 2 holes  the first say 20mm  and the second 35mm  . your slot will be wider at one end . generally on a normal slot that's good but it would only be the last few inches where it widens out. . I would like to see it tested. I don't know how it would work in reality. there is a lot of variables .
the down side  as retired 2 says is that if you try what im imagining then its harder to go back  to a full narrow slot because its wider  in places. . given that you are using a common lid it wouldn't be the end of the world to get another lid.

Thanks for replies.  My concern was size of the slots and the lid/baffle being too low as it is about 3.25-3.5 inches below where intake hose enters the cyclone cylinder area.  After seeing how well just the silicone held frame to the barrel lid this morning  after drying (VERY impressed with strength) I have decided to cut the whole center out of the lid and use a conventional baffle suspended with threaded rods.  This will leave me ~ .25 inch lip below the baffle where the barrel lid and dust collector frame meet which I don't think will be a concern.  I will add a bit more silicone to kind of bevel that lip so chips fall on down into the barrel.

@Alan- gotcha on the teardrop shapes.  I was referring to the adding a piece of pipe to the center section suggestion.  Is there an optimal distance configuration on how far that should be from the baffle or debris inlet?  Also was is the optimal baffle depth as well?  Most videos, etc. I have seen suggested about 3/4" or so below debris inlet.  Is this correct?

yours is a single height system so  half way  is best