Top Hat Design Guidelines

[alan m]

I need to build a Thien top hat separator so there is no reason why I should not include a large removable flange in the top plate so I can swap in different outlet pipe configurations. Building it so that I can have the baffle height adjustable is somewhat more difficult but I might be able to do it. I will scratch my head for a bit.

that would be great. you can try all the different ideas  and see if there is a diference

Building different widths of top hat is further than I want to go so I will leave that to other people.

no body would expect anyone to build loads of sizes . generally the larger the diameter the better

I agree that feeding from different machines in a standard way that mimics typical workshop operations would be a very interesting test. However to keep it a bit simpler I will make up a large quantity of different wastes and mix them thoroughly to create a standard mix that I can keep by me for testing. I will then feed them to the system in a standard way. I will weigh how much material is fed in and how much is contained in the Thien collection can and the difference will be a reasonably accurate measure of efficiency.

that sounds good enough. it would be very hard to accuratly measure everything from real world useage. im sure you will need a few barrles of the stuff thow. im not sure how you will feed it in consistanly.
Much as the past draws me to want to measure pressures and air flows I am not going to do that as I want to stick primarily to hand woodworking.

i wish i had a past like that.
i would i could work all that out and find the most effiecient ratio of all the dimentions

Happy wood smoothing.