Dust collection in basement shop

[thrax]

I have been getting my basement shop(roughly 25' X 20') setup in my house and it is in desperate need of some real dust collection. Currently, I am getting by with a shop vac and a Jet air cleaner but I am adding a Dewalt lunch box planer and hopefully a 6-8" jointer soon. I am hoping to only buy a dust collector once, so I am trying to find something that will keep up as I expand my tools(table saw, router table, miter saw, planer, jointer & bandsaw). I would prefer to at least setup 1 or 2 main trunks that all or most of my machines are permanently hooked up to rather than dragging something around

I am mainly limited by my ceiling height(90 inches). Currently, I have been looking at the Laguna P Flux line which would fit with my low ceilings, not sure if the 2HP or 3HP would be sufficient for my needs.

Curious to hear if anyone has any thoughts on the P Flux or if there are any better options out there that I should consider.

Thanks!

 

 

[Mark J]

I have a P-Flux 3 hp in my basement shop, which I chose because of height restriction and because I want everything in my shop to be mobile.  I went with 3 hp as the consensus herev at the time was that one needed 3 hp to have adequate CFM.  I chose the P-Flux over the C-Flux for the promise of lwer noise.  

It may be quieter than the C models, but it's still plenty loud; you can hear it everywhere in the house.  

I use flex hose and the DC pulls air, but no idea if it does this well or poorly.  I have nothing to which to compare it.  In order to keep the height down the flux line uses shorter cones.  I believe this reduces the separation efficiency, but I think I'm getting reasonable separation.  Jet and Baleigh among others make DC's with even shorter cones, which I am inclined to avoid.  

  Maybe Oneida or ClearVue have something new to offer, but all in all given the height limits it was a good choice for me at the time.

[RichardA]

How many machines are going to be in use at one time?  My guess it's a small shop like mine. I get good use with 2 HP.  It's up to you.  I have 5 machines on mine. But I only use one at a time.

[thrax]

29 minutes ago, RichardA said:

How many machines are going to be in use at one time?  My guess it's a small shop like mine. I get good use with 2 HP.  It's up to you.  I have 5 machines on mine. But I only use one at a time.

I doubt I would ever use more than one machine at a time. Just don't want to drag a machine around the shop.

[RichardA]

Run piping.  How hard is that?

[thrax]

Yeah, I understand that, just curious if the P Flux 2 or 3 would be sufficient or if there is something else I should be looking at.

[RichardA]

I can't speak to that machine.  I use an HF 2 HP and it picks up everything I need picked up.  My shop is 32' x 14'  about the same footage as yours.  In a small shop, moving machinery is complicated and a pain in the ass.   Pipe it  and stop losing sleep.

[Ron Swanson Jr.]

4 hours ago, thrax said:

but I am adding a Dewalt lunch box planer 

 

 

Just a suggestion for a stop have solution until you get your DC up and running. If you get the DeWalt DW735, it has a very strong fan to blow the dust and shavings out of the machine. You can run some 4" hose into a garbage can do help control the dust until you're up and running.

[Ron Swanson Jr.]

1 hour ago, RichardA said:

How many machines are going to be in use at one time?  

@RichardAi see this question a lot in dust collection forum conversations.

I'm not trying to be a wise ass, but isn't the answer always going to be 1? (Obviously not counting the dust collector?) 

How would someone be using more than one dust producing machine at once? Or is it based on the idea of more than 1 person working in the shop?

[Coop]

I’ve seen and wondered that as well. I think it means that you can go back and forth between two machines without having to close the gate to the one you just used. That or more than one person as you suggested. 

[krtwood]

It is possible to run a ClearVue with less than 8' ceilings, but there are compromises.  At 90" you might be able to still stack the two filters on top of each other.  I think my ceilings are at 92.5" and I have a couple inches.  It would be tight.  The other option is to put them side by side, but then you have to support them from underneath somehow and it takes up a lot of extra space.   Also you end up with a pretty small collection bin.  What I ended up doing was adding a Thein baffle on a trash can on the line to the planer so that the bulk of the waste ends up in the garbage can and I don't really have to worry about the bin on the cyclone very often. 

I went this route because I know I won't be in a basement shop forever and I didn't want to compromise on the dust collector itself.  However, from what I've seen of these shorter cyclone systems what you give up in filter efficiency you gain back in ease of cleaning it out.  If you overflow the bin on the ClearVue, your life is over.  Just give up woodworking.  Nail the door shut and forget about it.  If it happens with one of these smaller units, cleaning the filters is just a routine thing you do anyway.

[Fly2low]

I have overfilled my Clearvue.  Life did not end, but did get a little busy as I exercised my full vocabulary

[RichardA]

10 hours ago, applejackson said:

@RichardAi see this question a lot in dust collection forum conversations.

I'm not trying to be a wise ass, but isn't the answer always going to be 1? (Obviously not counting the dust collector?) 

How would someone be using more than one dust producing machine at once? Or is it based on the idea of more than 1 person working in the shop?

In a small home bound hobby shop, it's a very rare thing that two machines will be operating at the same time. Even if you leave one machine running while using another, the one running will not produce dust.  Add one person, and you still have at 2HP enough volume of air moving to work properly.   I'm not trying to create an arguement, but in a small one person hobby shop, a 2HP DC is enough.  If you plan to add people and machines, obviously you need to upgrade.

[thrax]

9 hours ago, krtwood said:

It is possible to run a ClearVue with less than 8' ceilings, but there are compromises.  At 90" you might be able to still stack the two filters on top of each other.  I think my ceilings are at 92.5" and I have a couple inches.  It would be tight.  The other option is to put them side by side, but then you have to support them from underneath somehow and it takes up a lot of extra space.   Also you end up with a pretty small collection bin.  What I ended up doing was adding a Thein baffle on a trash can on the line to the planer so that the bulk of the waste ends up in the garbage can and I don't really have to worry about the bin on the cyclone very often. 

I went this route because I know I won't be in a basement shop forever and I didn't want to compromise on the dust collector itself.  However, from what I've seen of these shorter cyclone systems what you give up in filter efficiency you gain back in ease of cleaning it out.  If you overflow the bin on the ClearVue, your life is over.  Just give up woodworking.  Nail the door shut and forget about it.  If it happens with one of these smaller units, cleaning the filters is just a routine thing you do anyway.

Yeah, I looked at some of the short setups that were proposed for ClearVue and they seemed to be awkward and space consuming. I will in all likelihood be in this basement shop for a long time to come.

[wtnhighlander]

3 hours ago, RichardA said:

   I'm not trying to create an arguement, but in a small one person hobby shop, a 2HP DC is enough.  

Rick, do you filter your exhaust back into the room, or blow it outside? I'm exploring options for moving into a smaller, but well-insulated space. Blowing the chips to an outdoor bin seems like a reasonable option for my working style.

[RichardA]

2 hours ago, wtnhighlander said:

Rick, do you filter your exhaust back into the room, or blow it outside? I'm exploring options for moving into a smaller, but well-insulated space. Blowing the chips to an outdoor bin seems like a reasonable option for my working style.

Mine goes outside. That's the advantage of living in the boonies.  Mine doesn't go into a bin, it just naturally mulches the woodland area around the shop.  Sending it into a bin on the outside is a good idea, as long as you can move the bin when it fills up.

[Fly2low]

thrax

you might find this site usefull

http://billpentz.com/woodworking/cyclone/index.cfm#index.cfm

I was going down a path for dust collection that included a 2 hp system.  Changed course after reading this site.  It is somewhat painful reading but filled with good data by an engineer who had a passion for woodworking but developed allergies to wood dust

[Mark J]

5 hours ago, Fly2low said:

It is somewhat painful reading but filled with good data by an engineer ...

You can ignore 3/4's of what he writes.  Since he repeats every point he makes at least five times you'll still have seen it twice. 

[Bombarde16]

21 hours ago, wtnhighlander said:

Rick, do you filter your exhaust back into the room, or blow it outside? I'm exploring options for moving into a smaller, but well-insulated space. Blowing the chips to an outdoor bin seems like a reasonable option for my working style.

I'm not in the boonies and I also exhaust my basement shop outdoors. I cobbled together a stack with a Harbor Freight 2HP plus an Oneida cyclone body, everything else came from the scrap pile. The ceiling height is a mere 7' 6".  The exhaust goes out through a window well. After a year and a half of hobbyist use, there's a noticeable layer of fine dust on the side of the house nearest the exhaust and this yields to a quick swish with the garden hose. Everything else gets shoveled out of the square bin below. I was out the door for 600-700 USD and a few afternoons of fabrication.

[thrax]

1 hour ago, Bombarde16 said:

I'm not in the boonies and I also exhaust my basement shop outdoors. I cobbled together a stack with a Harbor Freight 2HP plus an Oneida cyclone body, everything else came from the scrap pile. The ceiling height is a mere 7' 6".  The exhaust goes out through a window well. After a year and a half of hobbyist use, there's a noticeable layer of fine dust on the side of the house nearest the exhaust and this yields to a quick swish with the garden hose. Everything else gets shoveled out of the square bin below. I was out the door for 600-700 USD and a few afternoons of fabrication.

How does venting outside effect heat in the house?

[RichardA]

The DC unit pulls the air in the room. Therefore, it will be pulling the air from the house. However, your DC doesn't run all the time, so you AC/Heating unit should be able to replace what your unit will remove.  The only setback of this is that your AC/Heating bill will increase.

[Ronn W]

From the research that I did before I bought my 1 3/4" Laguna DC.  I would limit the longest equivalent run to about 20 feet.  That is 20" of smooth, straight pipe.  You have to adjust that maximum distance for elbows and any flex duct.  The layout of my shop was dicated by the locatation of my DC.  I kept my horiazontal duct runs about 30" off the floor just to shorten the total length of duct (not having to go up to the ceiling and then back dwon to each machine)

Another thought I  have noticed that my 1  3/4HP DC can carry the dust easily from any of my machine when all the other machine's blast gates are closed but the weak point in the system is getting the dust into the ductwork from the blade.  The in velocity of the air at the intake near the blade and the openess of the "shroud" around the bladeshould be considered.  The farther from the DC and the larger the particles the harder it is to get the particles into the duct work from the source.  Example:  Given the choice, I would have my band saw closer to the DC than my my belt sander while he DeWalt planer with its own blower can be the farthest away from the dust collector and then some.

[Bombarde16]

6 hours ago, thrax said:

How does venting outside effect heat in the house?

As RichardA pointed out, you're pulling conditioned air from inside the house and blasting it out into mother nature. I don't run the DC 8 hours a day, so it hasn't been an issue for me. Reviewing my heating and cooling bills for the past year, I couldn't tell any difference from the year prior when I was working in the garage. Your mileage may vary, but it was the right call for me: Venting outside has the advantage of putting less resistance on the system. i.e. My smaller, cheaper Harbor Freight impeller is punching above its weight since it doesn't have to push air through a small filter on the back end.

[thrax]

On 7/6/2019 at 5:30 PM, Mark J said:

I have a P-Flux 3 hp in my basement shop, which I chose because of height restriction and because I want everything in my shop to be mobile.  I went with 3 hp as the consensus herev at the time was that one needed 3 hp to have adequate CFM.  I chose the P-Flux over the C-Flux for the promise of lwer noise.  

It may be quieter than the C models, but it's still plenty loud; you can hear it everywhere in the house.  

I use flex hose and the DC pulls air, but no idea if it does this well or poorly.  I have nothing to which to compare it.  In order to keep the height down the flux line uses shorter cones.  I believe this reduces the separation efficiency, but I think I'm getting reasonable separation.  Jet and Baleigh among others make DC's with even shorter cones, which I am inclined to avoid.  

  Maybe Oneida or ClearVue have something new to offer, but all in all given the height limits it was a good choice for me at the time.

Any reference if the p flux is louder than normal for dust collection? I realise they aren't quiet in general, but would prefer to take a quieter option if one exists since it is in the house.

[Mark J]

I have nothing to compare it to.  Laguna gives some decibel numbers for the P and C models and the P is quieter.  But It's still too loud to use without hearing protection, and you will probably hear it upstairs.  Certainly it's muffled upstairs, like somone vacuuming in another room.  

What I can say is I did what I could, I bought the P.