Dust collector/exhaust fan for shop?

[AKmik]

I am in the process of putting together a little shop in a SMALL space , I am coming up with some idea's for dust collection/removal , pretty much blown out the window bu a window fan and my rigged up dust collector.

I have 21/2" vac hose hooked up to my grinder,buffing station and a seperate closable smaller hose for just vacuuming the bench . Was wondering what sized blower would work and still be quiet.

How many cfm / hp, any info would help.

Thanks

[Gary Mulkey]

Something that you might want to try which is more quiet than a commercial dust removal system is to use the squirrel cage fan from an old forced air furnace (the larger the squirrel cage, the lower the required rpm and the less noise). These fans are belt driven so that you can vary the size of the pulleys to get the cfm of air that you need. Just fabricate some sheetmetal to the intake side of the squirrel cage fan in order to attach the vacuum hose and exhaust the other side. I use a 30 gal. galvanized garbage can as water trap & dust collector in the middle of my vacuum hose. You can get lids for them to accept 4" vacuum lines in & out and reduce it down to fit your 2 1/2" line.

Gary

[BobLee]

I have been thinking about trying to improve my breathing air also. Following is a link to a do it yourself Book for $6.00
http://store.yahoo.com/right-tool/w1duscolbash.html

[Darin julian]

I just bought a 3/4 hp 680 cfpm dust collector. My question is will this be ok for metal, could the hot sparks could catch the dust bag on fire. Or should i find a way the use seperator can ? Darin L. Julian:confused:

[whv]

a number of past threads (see search button) have horror stories about shop fires in dust collections systems that do not incorporate a water trap. the worst part of this problem is that the bag may smolder for hours before it catches fire. you can guess the rest!

[Geno]

Dust collectors are just that, DUST COLLECTORS. They are definately a fire hazard without a water trap.
Dust collectors are primarily made for wood working and non spark environments. The industrial ones almost always use water for safety and ease of changing the filters.(change the water)

Dust can be explosive if made fine enough(corn starch effect).
Most often, a spark would just smolder until after midnight, when you are fast asleep, then call the firebugs out.

If it does not have a water trap, I would rather use a reguler fan to pull the dust from my shop.(fortunately I don't have a neighbor problem)

Building a water trap is easy, but you must have a lot of power to run it.PVC piped into a diaper pail works fine, but it takes a lot of draw.BTW, your bag won't see much dust after installing one of these babies

[Darin julian]

Geno, thanks for the important safty info. I walked out to the shop and remove the bag from the collector and through it out in the back yard. I had just used it while i was grinding some 1/4 in knife blades. Ok now that i feel safe again would be able to tell me where i can find info on how to build a water trap for this collector. thanks for your help

[Geno]

Sorry, my computer skills aren't advanced enough to do graphics.
Remember the pipe(hooka) that the Cheshire was smoking in Alice in wonder land,that was a water trap(the pipe).
A water trap is just a devise that sucks the stuff through the water so the water acts like a filter.Sorry, but the bong was the best example I could come up with.
Now I join Clinton saying, "I didn't inhale".

[whv]

you crack me up, gene. thanx