Dust Collector Blower

[Joe Eagar]

I recently build a 1.5HP dust collector blower, based off of Bill Penz's design. It has a 14.5 inch impeller, and is designed for 6 inch ductwork (well, sortof, I think I may have messed up the caluclations for the outlet, but I think it's close enough).

It's made out of three quarter plywood, half of which is quite old and in terrible shape, the other half new. I did use a one quarter sheet for the back of the blower at one point, but replaced it pretty quick. I first built this with a 1/3HP motor (it was all I had), before progressing to an old 1.5HP motor I got from my grandfather.

The unit is far from perfect, as is the mount it sits on top off. Both will require more work before I can subject this thing to any kind of serious use. I still have to figure out ductwork; I'll at least need to run lines to the lathe and the tablesaw, but the other tools may have to make due with the shopvac or a flexible hose connection to the collector for now, depending on cost.

I'm not sure I'd recommend this project to anyone who doesn't have a spare motor lying around, since if you add in the cost of buying a new motor, you'd probably come out at about the same cost of simply buying a dust collector unit.

Anyway, here are some pictures:

The finished unit:

The original motor:

And the new motor:

A shot of the impeller (which I found at a military surplus scrap yard):

The metal insert, which deceptively looks like Bill's design but actually isn't (I made it so I could tighten the vice collar thingy the impeller uses to attach to the shaft, and the insert is actually smaller than the impeller. So, no easy disassembly of the blower for me).

And another shot of the final unit.