Five Gallon Pail Separator for a Shop Vac

[tvman44]

Those are some beautiful buckets, where in the world do you find them.

[giovanotti]

I am lucky to live few miles from producer of buckets. I also have sheet metal fabricators with CNC punch and laser facilities in walking range available.

[Bulldog8]

Fixt Giovanotti said, "I live within walking distance of Thien Baffle nirvana"

Seriously though, nice work. The end result looks like what I imagine a commercially made product would look like if Phil were to take the product into production.

[giovanotti]

Commercial product would still require some industrial design. This could be done on inlet, which would incorporate element to connect tube, round to rectangular transition and nicer shape. This could be done with plastics (maybe 3D print on the beginning). I strictly remained on full metal design because of primary usage with (hot) ash. To shape metal nicely is a bit of challenge...

[giovanotti]

Yesterday, I was checking separation results of "hot shot duo". Not good. Air velocity (which is main factor for good centrifugal separation) was not there. There was also another mistake: I used two separators - first with 200mm diameter and next with 300mm diameter. I think, order should be reverse, since pressure drop.

I am aspirating very fine ash from pellet boiler.

[giovanotti]

Team work. Comments welcome.

Let me revive this topic.
As said long time ago, I am using Thien baffle between 5 gallon bucket and shopvac's bucket. Small Thien on left not used.
My problem is ultrafine dust as it cloggs vac's textile filters. Have to clean them on weekly basis - annoying.

Idea in works: install another baffle within shopvac's bucket. This time Thien buffles would have approx 70mm (2,7 in) in diameter, there would be 5 of them. For the beginning made of CNC cut styrofoam.

Idea: