Finally Reorganizing My Shop

[Robby W]

Things are finally falling into place to I can redo my shop. I have healed my body enough to handle the work and gotten enthusiasm back up, so time to charge into the work.

There are a bunch of things that need to be done to get this in progress. Here is a list:

1. Build a new cabinet/work surface to replace my old one. It was built on a rotating top and just never worked out, Plus, I need some of the space back

2. Add storage for storing odd and ends. I have a power tool cabinet that I built several years ago that was supposed to have drawers for this, but they never got built.

3. Build a new cart for my planer. The old one, while it worked well, was too short and lacked storage for my planer stuff

4. Make a stand for a Super Dust Deputy I bought years ago and reconfigure my dust collection system around it.

All of this will reduce some of the clutter in my shop to allow me to do the next steps:

5. Physically rearrange the shop, putting things in their new place.

6. Route new ductwork to the tools in their new location. The new layout makes this pretty easy. All of the ducts will be on the floor. I use ABS drain pipe for my ducts and it has worked very well. I added a Wynn filter to my dust collector, but it plugs really quickly. Once I get the cyclone in the system to remove most of the waste before the filter stage, this should be as much of a problem. It has kind of bothered me that I have five times the filter area,  but half the suction because it clogs so easily. Hopefully, this fixes the issue. I still have the old 1 micron bad just in case.

7. Build a new workbench. Since I am getting up in age (in two years I will be 70 and retiring from my "real" job), this will probably be the last workbench I will make, at least for me. It is going to be a mix of styles, with a trestle base and a Roubo style top. I am planning on using the bracing provided by the rails in my current workbench as it has worked very well. I am thinking about shortening it a bit so it will better fit in my shop. I rarely have anything longer than 6 feet, so that is my criterial. I purchased a Lie-Nielsen tail vise after trying one at their tool event that was held near me. I really liked it and it doesn't look too hard to install. No need for Condor tails or such

For the face vise, I am still undecided. I really like my Record 9 inch cast iron vise I have had for years. But I want something better for dovetailing and working the ends of boards, so I am also considering a leg vise. Either way, I am going to make a Moxen vise for much of my joinery. Time will tell. The bench is going to be completely of hard maple. I have already started collecting boards for it. I am going to keep my old bench so I have a flat surface to collect crap on that isn't my really workbench.

8. Finally, I am going to build a new tool cabinet. I am thinking kind of a cross between the Mike Pekovich and Matt Cremona, with a dash of my own tossed in. I am going to do some marquetry on the front to memorialize some of the big events in my life. Should be fun and something to stretch my skills a bit.

I have already finished steps 1, 2 and 3 and am working on 4 the next few weekends. I will post the results after dinner My wife says it is getting cold.

I look forward to your comments and ideas on this ride.

[treeslayer]

I always like to see other shops as I get some great ideas for my own shop, I like to think I’m fairly organized until I see someone who has done it better

[Coop]

I like a man with enthusiasm. Wish you the best of luck on all eight points. I too am looking forward to seeing the progress. Is their a time line or is that too many questions? 

[Robby W]

OK. Dinner is done. Country fried steak with homemade white gravy. Yumm!

Step 1 was to build a new cabinet to hold my sharpening equipment, bandsaw stuff and drill press supplies like bits, etc. I needed it to be smaller than the old cabinet so it would fit in the space between my workbench and bandsaw, with the dust collection gear behind it. I had 34 inches of width to work with, and about 18" of depth. I needed to incorporate an 8" grinder, a 6" buffer and my Worksharp 3000, which one of my son's gave me for Christmas and I have found great for working out bad nicks and prepping new chisels. I even use it for the final honing on my beater chisels. I also wanted to incorporate a Wolverine sharpening jig that I have had around for a bunch of years, but never got around to mounting it. The lathe tool sharpening holder presented a problem because it is over two feet long.

The grinder and buffer would barely fit in the 34", so I had to figure something out there. There was no way I could get the buffer, grinder and Worksharp in a straight line. After thinking about it for awhile I came up with an answer. (Ever wake up in the middle of the night with an "Ah, ha!" moment?) I decided to go vertical with some of the mounting.

First, I built a lower cabinet with drawers sized to fit the stuff that was to go in it, especially one drawer that would hold my Forstner bit set that I got from Woodcraft - good set by the way. It is just a standard cabinet made with gray melamine sides, top and fronts. I used plywood for the bottom as it was going to hold quite a bit of weight. Dado joints on the vertical sides transfer the weight from the cabinet to the bottom and thus the casters. Here is a picture of the bottom:

It is just a basic cabinet with ball bearing drawer slides. I used strips of oak I had laying around to trim the edges. The drawer pulls are from a batch my wife bought me for Christmas - They are one one fancy thing in my shop - matching drawer pulls. All of the drawer are just butt joints with glue and brads. The fronts are screwed on. Nothing fancy, very utilitarian.

Then I added a top on it to hold the equipment. I mounted the grinder and Worksharp on the top of the bottom section and the buffer on the upright I added. Hidden behind the Worksharp is a Wen drill sharpener I inherited from my father. Here is the finished product:

I did have one problem. I originally used some light duty casters from Grizzley. They were rated at 75 lbs each. If you look carefully, the front left caster had failed.

I replaced them with this caster from Home Depot. I have gotten to really like these. They hold a lot of weight without flattening or failing.

So that is the story of the first step. I am happy with the cabinet and its functions.

[Robby W]

Treeslayer and Coop - Thanks. I hope to post the first three steps this weekend. Don't want to do it too quickly as I tend to be kind of wordy - don't want to bore everybody. I have already finished the sharpening cabinet, as you see above, the drawers for my power tool cabinet and the planer cart. I am working on the DC improvements this weekend, but probably won't finish them until next weekend. Then things will slow down as I start the rest of the work, but I hope to post a progress report every week.

This is kind of a dream come true for me as I have been wanting to do this for about five years.

[Coop]

That’s sweet bud! I learned long ago as I’m sure others did as well, don’t skimp on casters as you may want to have to move it someday.

[Askland09]

Looks awesome Robby! Can't wait to see the planer cart! 

[Robby W]

Step 3 of my reorganization required me to make a new cart for my planer that has storage in it to hold the setting gauge and spare blades for the planner. My planner is a Delta 22-650 13" 2 HP cast iron planer that they sold as a "benchtop" planer, but it is a seriously heavy beast that does a very good job of planing. I bought the planer back around 1982. The choices back then were this planer, the original Makita bench top unit or big floor mount planers that cost a bundle, even for a 12" planer. So I went with this one and haven't regretted it. Someday, I am going to fit it with a helical head.

My original stand for it was built out of 2x4 stock and actually was pretty good, except for two issues. One, it was too short. I had to bend down to run something through it, which got hard on my back after awhile, especially if it was heavy 8/4 stock. Two, it didn't have any storage and the way I made it, which, while really sturdy, wasn't conducive to adding drawers  big enough to handle knives and such.

Because this planer is so heavy, I decided to make it out of hard maple, with mortise and tenon joinery. The casters I picked up for it are 6" urethane units rated at 375 lbs each, which gives a total of 1500 lbs - serious overkill, but they would allow the stand to roll over obstacles in my shop without tipping the stand over or the wheels going flat from standing in one place over time. The only bad part is that they don't lock, so I will have to use wheel chocks, especially if I move it into my driveway. It is on a slant and more than once I have had to chase a tool when it started rolling on its own.

I started with a base made from 4" wide 8/4 stock with half lap joints at the corners. With the casters clamping though the joints and plenty of glue, the joints aren't going to fail. I routed the mortises for the uprights and got a reminder which way the bit drags the router on the first one. I usually use a hollow chisel mortiser, but didn't have a big enough chisel and bit. I also drilled the holes for the casters, as one of the bolts would be under one of the uprights and needed to be installed before glue-up. I also fabricated the upper ring in a similar fashion.

Next I cut the tenons on the uprights on my tablesaw and fit them to the mortises. The uprights are a bit of overkill, but I wanted to make sure they didn't rack. With the large tenons and the extra width and thickness of the uprights, they should be plenty strong.

Fin

Finally, I glued the base together and  bolted the casters in place .

The last step in fabricating the stand was to install the drawers and bottom. I chose to install two drawers (not that much to store for a planer!). I enclosed the sides and back with gray 3/4" melamine MDF to match my other cabinets and the planer. I fab'ed two drawers from 1/2" baltic birch sides and 1/4" baltic birch bottoms. Butt joints and brads were my exotic joinery for the drawers. The drawer fronts are screwed on and I added the two pulls that match the rest of my cabinets. Three coats of Sealcoat shellac sprayed from a can I wanted to get rid of finished the maple parts. That completed the stand. In this picture, you can see my planer on the old stand in the background.

The last and hardest step was to get the planer bolted on top. I got my son and grandson to help me lift it on. That planer has to weight something like 250 lbs! It is a back buster. We set it on the stand. I removed the drawers and reached under to mark the bolt hole locations, then rotated the planer 45 degrees so I could drill the holes. There was no way I was going to remove and replace that beast. After twisting the planer back in place, I installed the bolts and that finished that up. The bed of the planer ended up at about 30" from the floor, which is just about where I wanted it. It is oriented the way it is so that I will be able to get into the drawers when it is in its final location.

I had to clean the planer up. A couple of years of sitting behind a lumber pile, plus some visits from the resident mouse family left it covered in dust and the cast iron table with a thin film of rust. I wiped everything down with mineral spirits. I decided to try some CRC 3-36 that Fine Woodworking recommended as a rust preventative from one of their tests. Turns out that Home Depot carries it. It is also a penetrating lube, so I sprayed the table down with it and remove the rust film and spots with some Scotchbrite pads and resprayed with the CRC lube. Worked well for that part and I haven't seen any signs of rust on it since.

If you look on the left side of the planer, you will see a chip collection gadget I fab'ed up. This planer didn't come with a dust scoop and by the time I had a dust collector, they no longer sold them, so I made this out of 1/2" baltic birch scraps. \When I first built it, the hose came straight out of it and, while it worked pretty well, I was always fighting with the hose. So I changed out the hose fitting with a flanged elbow and that solved the problem. It's not very pretty, but it works pretty well, only missing a tiny bit from each board.

One thing that I really don't like about my current shop is that I have to unbury the jointer and planer to use them, so I tend to not use them very much. I have this good gear, but because it is such a pain to get it out, I tend to not bother. With the new shop layout, both will have a permanent place and will be connected to the dust system. Since I have an automatic starter for my DC that turns it on anytime I start a dust producing power tool, all I'll have to do is open the blast gate to use a tool. I intend to locate the gates so they are easy to get to. If anyone wants to see how the automatic start gadget is connected and how it works, check out the August, 2000 issue of Fine Woodworking, page 66. It paid for my dust collection system.

Next up are some storage improvements. Thanks for following this.

[wtnhighlander]

That's a nice machine, and a very nice stand! You mentioned wheel chocks, which reminded me of a clever solution I saw Mattias Wandell using. Rather than install casters on every stand, he used a 'piano dolly' platform on wheels. He constucted his tables / stands such the the bottom stretcher was about 1" higher than the dolly. A pair of L-shaped levers were used to raise the item on the dolly for moving. Here is one example:

 

[Mark J]

@Mick S would love this project.  It's all Pantorouter.  

The dolly idea is elegantly simple, self storing, and does not leave any wheels between the table or machinery and the floor.  

[Robby W]

I was slacking this weekend and didn't post my progress. It was hot and slightly humid Saturday and Sunday, and took its toll on me. I made some progress on getting the DC cyclone mounted to the chip box and getting the blower in place. Then I ran out of steam. I will document that progress later.

Step 2 in my plan was trying to get some of the wood and junk off the floor and my bench. I have a tool cabinet I made five years ago to hold my power tools, pneumatic tools and such. Part of the plan was to include 4 drawers to hold hardware, small pieces and all the do-dads that a typical shop accumulates. You know, the stuff that you "might use some day" and can't stand to toss.

I started by replacing one of my lumber racks. I originally made it out of wood: 2x4's bolted to the wall with horizontal pieces coming out from there. It worked really well and I could probably hang a truck from it without problems, but the thickness of the 2x4's caused it to stick out too far from the wall and take up too much room between shelves. I decided to replace it one day when I had a bunch of Lowe's gift cards and didn't need any tools that they sell at the time. Yes, sir. I will get to a doctor and have my head checked immediately.

Anyway, I bought seven of the rack uprights that have the two rows of slots to fit the shelve standards into and a couple dozen 16" shelf standards. I bolted the uprights to the studs in the wall, added the standards and started loading wood. It handled all of the stock I had laying around at the time with a little room left over. Here is a picture:

The rack is above my hardware wall, which is also do for a rebuild. Anyway, I am happy with the rack.

The next step was to put some drawers in the four holes I created for them in the power tool cart. They are just simple butt joint drawers with 1/4" Baltic Birch bottoms and an overlay face that matches the rest of my cabinets:

I really need to figure out where to put the big power tools like my grinder, sawzall and Skilsaw. I put an egg crate liner in each and will add a sliding till on the top of each of the four drawers when the scraps are available:

As I clean the bench off, they will get populated.

A side job that I finally got around to last month was to add blocking panels to my tablesaw to keep the dust from spraying out the back. I have a Rockwell (just before they were rebranded as Delta) contractor's saw that I added a folding outfeed table to and a big mouth scoop to collect the sawdust underneath. I bought it new without a motor (had a buddy that worked at Rockwell and got it for me in the employee store), added a good 1HP TEFC motor and got to cutting. Later, I added a Biesemeyer fence, an Accumiter miter gauge and a Biesemeyer splitter holder with a Shark splitter blade.

I have been thinking about some stuff to add to my list:

9. I need to improve the blast gate setup on my tablesaw so I can close it without getting on my hands and sore knees.

10. I want a drum sander, but I don't have the cash to buy one of the commercial units. I really want a belt sander, but they cost even more. I have built power tools before and I was reminded I have three 3HP motors laying around my shop, so I think I am going to build a sander. While a belt sander is possible, I don't think I want to go through the process for it - too much complication. I would rather build something simpler and built projects instead. I came across a large drum drum sander in Fine Woodworking: https://www.finewoodworking.com/2010/04/26/building-a-thickness-sander

Should be fun to build, but I am going to have to be careful to get it balanced right. I don't know. Jury is still out on this one.

That's it for this entry. Thanks for watching.

[Robby W]

Another piece of reorganization I did was to figure out a better clamp rack. My shop is short on wall space.One wall stops 10 feet short of the next (it divides 2 garage bays from the third). Another wall is taken up by the garage door, which I need to open when I am doing rip cuts on my saw. Since I live in the San Diego area, I can count of about 300 days of sunshine, which makes putting my saw against the garage door practical. I use quite a bit of sheet goods, so this works for me.

My former clamp rack consisted of one rack that was 8 feet long and another that was 4 feet long. I had my collection of pipe, F-style clamps and Quick Clamps on them. One thing I hated was that when you took down a clamp, you frequently started a landslide of adjacent clamps. That got old quick.

I built a new rack that consisted of a plywood backing board, with holders that come out from the wall to hold many clamps on each screwed to the board. I had to move a couple of conduits to fit everything in, but that wasn't too difficult.

The holders were just a simple piece of 6/4 scrap and two arms from 1/2" Baltic Birch plywood that are set into dadoes on the sides of the block. The 6/4 piece is screwed to the backboard and clamps placed between the two arms. I can get eight 3/4" pipe clamps or up to 15 F-style clamps on each one. I made a light duty version and a heavy duty version. I am able to store the 80 clamps I have now with room for another dozen, plus I can expand it sideways into the room next to my tool cabinet. It only takes up 3 feet of wall space, a saving of 9 feet.

I also have a bunch of spring clamps which I keep clipped to the side of my power tool cabinet. There are a bunch of small spring clamps stuck all over the place, but they don't get in the way. I think it gives my shop character...

This weekend, I hope to finish up the dust collection system and get it functioning again. I am going to have some fun cleaning up the filter. It is packed solid. When I talked to Mr. Wynn, it was the filter he recommended. I don't think he understood how I was going to use it before I installed the cyclone. I notice there is a warning not to use it with a single stage duct collection on his website now.

I am not looking forward to this task.

 

[Coop]

Robby, assuming you can remove it, I put mine in a large plastic bag and tap the outside of it to remove as much as possible. Then, I reach inside the filter and close the bag as much as possible around my arm and flick the pleats as I rotate the filter. Hard to explain but once you try it, hopefully it’s better understood. A cotton glove on your hand helps, your hand, not the cleaning. 

[Robby W]

Thanks, Coop. I'll give it a try and let you know how it goes.

[Mark J]

I have a Laguna P-Flux with a similar pleated canister filter.  Laguna's recommendation for cleaning that filter is to blow out with compressed air and vibrate the outside of the canister using a quarter sheet sander (w/o sand paper).  

I didn't have a quarter sheet sander so I used a ROS, which doesn't vibrate as much.  But the process did work, and well enough that I picked up a sander at a garage sale for future use.  

You might try the "vibrator" with Coop's plastic bag.  I seem to recall someone using a leaf blower on the inside, too.  

[Chestnut]

For cleaning the filter think high volume low pressure like a a leaf blower. I'd take it outside before a rainstorm is going to roll through (looking where you live you probably don't get many of those) and then blow through the filter with the leaf blower. I really need to do this with my filter stack. I try and do this annually.

If you use compressed air to get some of the packed material out of the pleats blow from the outside in.

[Mark J]

@Chestnut , so you use the leaf blower to move air through the filter from out to in?  When I tried the leaf blower I used it on the inside of the filter with the air flow parellel to and along the pleats.  This was reasonably effective, it just took repeated applications.  

The beauty of the vibrator idea was that I was able do a passable job of cleaning the filter without actually removing it and taking it ouside.  Getting the filter reinstalled on the P-Flux is a super PITA.  

Robby, since a rainstorm won't be imminent, just tell your neighbors it's a Saharan dust cloud.

[Chestnut]

54 minutes ago, Mark J said:

When I tried the leaf blower I used it on the inside of the filter with the air flow parellel to and along the pleats.  This was reasonably effective, it just took repeated applications.

I applied the leaf blower the same way you did. in the top out the bottom parallel to the pleats.

From the outside to the inside compressed air is really the best way to go.

Keep in mind, with some of the filters, they have some seasoning where they filter material needs to get filled with sawdust before they operate at peak removal. So you aren't trying to get the filter clean. Your main goal is to remove the "excess" sawdust built up in between the pleats. IMO A more frequen, gentle cleaning is more effective than letting it go too long and having to do a more extensive job that could damage the filter.

[Robby W]

I'll have to give it a try. I got hit by the lazy bug today. 

[Coop]

In addition to tweaking the pleats on a quarterly basis, depending on use, I give the filter a medium tap on the outside while in place, top to bottom. I know it’s time for a major cleaning when the clear plastic bag looks like it will explode. 

[Robby W]

Got a few things done this weekend. I got the cyclone/blower tower completed and added the duct down to the ducts on the floor. Here is where I started from. I installed this setup, with a 1 micron 6 ft tall bag from Rockler, about 15 years ago and it has served me well:

The filter shown was as originally recommended to me by Wynn Environmental. I don't recommend this setup and neither to they now. It plugs really fast. That filter needs a cyclone to work correctly, thus this rebuild.

I tried something different for the DC setup. I wanted as low a loss as possible for the turn from the cyclone input to the ducts on the floor. I could have used a hard 90 degree elbow that is standard, but last time I was at the electrical distributors, I noticed the large radius PVC conduit elbows. They are available in 3, 4, 5 and 6 inch sizes, maybe more. I picked up a 5" elbow in Schedule 40 thickness. I had to route out a little bit on each end to fit the inlet to the metal version of the Oneida Super Dust Deputy that I bought a number of years back. I made a little gadget similar to the bearing that guides a flush trim bit for edgebanding, but taller to allow for the height of the material I needed removed. I only needed to remove a little bit, about 1/16". Here is a picture of the router fitted with the gadget:

I learned the hard way to make sure everything is tight before you make the cut. Here is the result:

You can see where it came loose in the upper left. (Why do woodworkers feel compelled to point out their mistakes?)

Once that was done, I fitted the pipe elbow to the cyclone/blower stack. I had to add a support to keep it stable and not rip off the inlet to the cyclone. The elbow was kind of heavy. Here is what it looked like:

Very fancy construction with 2x4 and scraps of melamine for the dust box. It figures that the power cord is now 1 foot too short....And I forgot to change it before putting the blower in place.

I used the old 5 inch to 4 inch Y fitting in the end of the elbow to connect to my ducts:

Years ago, when I first installed my ducts, I needed to make a transition from the schedule 40 ABS pipe to 4" hose. I found out that by cutting a ring off the pipe, then removing a small section and gluing it into the opening in the pipe, it mates perfectly with the hose:

This picture shows the adapter that I cut off from the old system plugged into a coupler, but you can do it straight into the end of the pipe. The ABS has worked really well. The carbon used to make it black helps dissipate static (doesn't cure it, but helps) and it is fairly cheap here on the west coast.

I ran my ducts around the floor near the walls. It works out in my layout and saved me having to run things up to the 10 ft ceiling in my shop/garage. This elbow and Y setup removed about 10 feet of 4" hose that used to connect my blower to the ducts. We will see how it runs.

Finally, the great fun of cleaning the filter. First, I tried the air hose. Sort of worked, but not so much. Then I tried vacuuming it out. I didn't have the correct brush attachment - it is somewhere in my shop - but I was able to get some of it out. Still not too good. Chestnut hit the nail on the head with the leaf blower. I got out my 700 MPH blower (Hey, it has to be true - it said it on the box!) and went at it. I have to admit that the blower put out a lot of air. It was hard to hold both the blower and the filter. That got rid of most of the dust after about 40 minutes. After cleaning up, I went back inside and rested my weary back. I wish I could say I had a root beer, but we were out.

Next weekend, I get to make a filter/plenum box setup and a box to catch the chips. Add a door to the to the chip box and make an extension cord and it is test time! Don't know if I will get it done though. Lots of Boy Scout stuff on Saturday and my birthday party on Sunday! Damn. Getting old isn't as fun as they say. The only thing golden is the lining in our doctor's pockets.

[Robby W]

Haven't made much headway with it being hot and humid the last couple of weeks. I did solve one minor problem: the cord on my DC blower was too short to get to the outlet from the new position - by about a foot. I suppose I should have replaced it, but I forgot about it until it was up and fastened I place. It's too heavy for me to lift down, so I made an extension cord for it:

At least the breaker didn't blow when I tested it 

[Robby W]

With the heat and humidity finally over the worst of it for the year (yes, even here near San Diego, it can get hot and we get the monsoon humidity from Baja Mexico), I made some progress on my shop redo. At the end of the last post, I left off with the blower connected to the cyclone, so the next step was to create something that would allow me to connect the 13" x 39" Wynn filter to the blower. The filter had a rectangular base with gasket on it, so I had to make something that would accommodate a sealing surface for the gasket and hold the filter in place, while making it easy to remove the filter to clean it. It also needed something to allow the air to turn the corner into the filter. The fines collection bag would be held in place on the end of the filter using a worm clamp strap for now. I also had to hold the filter far enough from the wall to miss the big elbow for the ductwork. Here is a picture of the plenum box on my tablesaw. It will be mounted with the filter hanging down.

The hole in the side is where the hose from the blower will attach. Inside the plenum are a couple of dividers and an angled piece to direct the air downward. I added a cover that can be removed if necessary for maintenance.

To attach the filter, I created a pocket that it slides into. A clamping piece in the from allows a full squeeze on the filter base and gasket. If the knobs are loosened and the front piece removed, the top falls down enough to easily slip the filter out for maintenance. It only takes a minute or so to remove or replace it.

Last step was to connect everything, build a dust bin and put a door on the collection  box. I use the ear shaped latches for windows to hold the door in place. It took some fussing to get things right with the gaskets in place.

(Yes, I know. Paint the house next......).

For the first fire-up, I left the fines bag off so the filter wouldn't clog. I took the blade off my tablesaw, turned the DC breaker on and fired things up. At first, it wasn't moving much air. I opened another gate and got great suction, so it wasn't the DC. A quick check into my tablesaw showed a bunch of dust in the funnel that collects everything from cutting while I was reworking the DC. I vacuumed most of it out and tried again. Viola! Lots of air flow. After installing the fines bag, test rip kept my face sawdust free. The filter is working well as the fines bag barely inflated. It is really good to have my DC working again. Now I have to figure out what to do with my old filter bags..... One of them is a replacement 1 micron bag that actually worked pretty well for over 10 years.

Does anyone have any ideas or preferences for a dust bin level indicator? I am thinking about using the Oneida infrared unit. It's price has sure gone up since I first looked at it.

Next up is to start rearranging things. Thanks for watching.

[drzaius]

59 minutes ago, Robby W said:

Does anyone have any ideas or preferences for a dust bin level indicator?

Go to Sawmill Creek forum & do a search for a DIY bin sensor. There's a guy who built one & several other members have contributed to the thread with their ideas. His name is Ben Rivel and the thread title is "Building Your Own And Improving Upon The Oneida Dust Sentry Bin Level Sensor" The cost of parts will be considerable less than Oneida's sensor. I'm not sure if it's okay to post a link to another forum, so I won't, but it'll be easy to find.

I have the one from Oneida, and I gotta say that it's not great. It's properly calibrated, but just doesn't always sense a full bin. The result of which is a filter jam packed with about 400 lbs of dust & chips.

You'll probably find that you don't need a big bag on the bottom of the filter. I just have a small bin about 4" deep on mine & it's never had more than a couple of centimeters of dust in it. Another thing to keep in mind is that a cyclone separates better with high airflow volume, so it's a good idea to open an additional blast gate a little, or a lot, to give you max air volume while still maintaining sufficient suction at the machine you're using.

[Robby W]

Thanks for the info. I'll check it out. And the reason the bag is so big is that I haven't gotten around to shortening it. It is the lower bag of my old setup.