Dust Collection - Spanning from an adjacent building.

[Monty Ivy]

Looking for advice on spanning dust collection between buildings. If I were to move my 3/4hp 2 stage dust collector to another building, how long of a run could I make without affecting performance using 4" PVC?

Has anyone had experience with this?

A minimum of 12' might be possible, but more realistically probably looking at 30'

 

[Isaac Fisher]

Since no one else has chimed in, I’ll say that 30 feet sounds like a long way for 4 inch PVC, especially for a small collector. You could probably pull it off with a fairly straight run of 12 feet, assuming a minimum of twists and turns and flex hose added in. What machine are you hooking up to?

 

[Monty Ivy]

I have a very small shop. The DC has a long flex hose and gets moved to the machine that I'm using. More than anything else, sanding on the lathe and floor sweeping

 

[Brian Gustin]

Long flex hose would really reduce DC effectiveness... add a 30 foot run, I'd have to wonder if your dust collection would be much better than a shop vac.

I have 4 inch piping over a 20 foot run and 3 inlets to the system (650 CFM Wen) with waste gates. The closest one to the DC is the one for my planer, and about 6 feet of flex hose.... even when it was newly set up, it still struggled to keep up with the planer's output. However, if it is mostly just sanding dust and sweeping (and not a lot of heavy chips) you might be OK with what you're planning, just don't expect it to be as effective as it currently is. (My shop is about 18 x 24, for comparison.)

Since I have noticed that my furthest outlet at the lathe is also the least effective, I am thinking to pull out an inherited 6 gallon shop vac and plug that in at the lathe for sanding operations, and remove (or re-route) that 12 feet or so of 4 inch piping to other purposes... so the DC would mainly just handle the table saw, router table, and planer, and I'll run the big shop vac by the lathe for sanding, and the small (2 gallon) shop vac over on the 9 inch bandsaw & drill press benches.. and I suspect when I get around to doing that I'll probably see an improvement overall.

 

[robo hippy]

I have a 3 hp Oneida system, probably 25 years old. It sits in the middle of my shop. Longest run is about 40 feet. I would not think that your 3/4 hp system would pull well from 30 or more feet away without a big loss in air flow. In my first shop, I had a little 1 hp DC on roller wheels that I would take from machine to machine. A royal pain in the butt. When I moved to a 24 by 36 shop, I got the centralized system. FAR BETTER! It depends on how import efficiency is. Ideally, you use as little of the corrugated flex hose as possible. The big system has a FM frequency on/off switch that you don't have to aim at the DC.

robo hippy

 

[Mike Novak]

I have been toying with the idea of putting a super dust deputy in the shop to capture most of the dust and chips, and running a long 6” line of hvac duct to DC in another room. Don’t need a lot of velocity for the super fine dust that gets thru the SDD so a large pipe is ok. Much less pressure drop from 6” line. I’m assuming your main goal is to move the noise away from you.

 

[Monty Ivy]

The actual problem is emptying the chips. Currently the system is installed in the "loft" 8' over the floor. It requires a ladder to get to the container, down the ladder with 30 gallons of chips. Then back up the ladder with the container. I'm not really supposed to be on a ladder according to the doc. It's not all that heavy just trying to eliminate some risk. Moving the system onto the ground is the right thing to do. There isn't room on the 12x16 shop floor for it. The idea to move the DC into the adjacent building was based on this need.

After some consideration, the plan is to re-focus the use of the shop building. Instead of a general use "SHOP" I will cut back on some tooling for flat work and dedicate the building to turning. This will free up some under utilized floor space.

Also, my DC is a home grown two stage with some parts more than a decade old. Time for a newer system with better filtration anyway.

 

[Randy Anderson]

My 30 gallon chip can is fairly heavy when full, especially if it's more dust than chips. Can't imaging hauling that thing down a ladder. As others have said, distance matters and for a run that long I would bet a more powerful system would be needed. My longest run is my weakest airflow and it's about that long considering how it has to travel around my shop wall to get there. Not sure of your shop layout or options but one thing I did that has been a huge help is to go to a single stage system with the chip can separator inside and then simply exhaust from there to the outside. Simple hole in the wall and stuff that gets through the chip can ends up outside. Less noise I think and no filter to further reduce airflow and no dust leaking into the shop, which is inevitable with many filters.

 

[Russ Braun]

30 gals of dust is quite a load; no way on a ladder (just emptied mine, it was tough to get it over the trash bin)! Sweeping up chips with a broom is way easier than emptying the dust collection bin more often. I have an Oneida System; they say 100 ft of 4” duct, no reduction for elbows, no sweeps for blast gates. The system works well; my only regret is if I want to have two 4” gates open at once, the system is only good for one 4” at a time. I think if you are running plastic, you should run ground wires.

 

[Isaac Fisher]

You might consider putting the collector outside next to the shop if your site/climate allow it. A shed roof and very minimal protection from rain and snow will be enough to protect the motor. As a bonus, you may be able to remove the separator and bag and just blow the dust into a pile or a bin in the yard. A hinged cover on the outlet will discourage birds and varmints from building nests in the impeller

 

[Earl McLain]

You might consider putting the collector outside next to the shop if your site/climate allow it. A shed roof and very minimal protection from rain and snow will be enough to protect the motor. As a bonus, you may be able to remove the separator and bag and just blow the dust into a pile or a bin in the yard. A hinged cover on the outlet will discourage birds and varmints from building nests in the impeller

That’s exactly what I’ve been kicking around for the past few years. I appreciate the confirmation of my thinking. If I do an awning, it’s not square footage to be taxed. I wouldn’t have thought about the hinged cover, so that’s a bonus.

 

[Dwayne Watt]

The actual problem is emptying the chips. Currently the system is installed in the "loft" 8' over the floor. It requires a ladder to get to the container, down the ladder with 30 gallons of chips. Then back up the ladder with the container. I'm not really supposed to be on a ladder according to the doc. It's not all that heavy just trying to eliminate some risk. Moving the system onto the ground is the right thing to do. There isn't room on the 12x16 shop floor for it. The idea to move the DC into the adjacent building was based on this need.

After some consideration, the plan is to re-focus the use of the shop building. Instead of a general use "SHOP" I will cut back on some tooling for flat work and dedicate the building to turning. This will free up some under utilized floor space.

Also, my DC is a home grown two stage with some parts more than a decade old. Time for a newer system with better filtration anyway.

Could you simply move the chip bin down to the first floor and leave the rest of the system as is? If your system has a cyclone this would be easy. Otherwise perhaps you could fabricate a cone/funnel device to replace your current bin/bag. Place a 6 inch flex hose or pipe/hose combination to dump into the newly located (and accessible) chip bin. Granted, this takes up a little space the size of a garbage can but has the potential to be the most elegant solution overall.

 

[Mark Jundanian]

You already have a plan to reallocate your shop space, but if your DC has to remain in the loft, maybe you could put in a hoist to bring the bin up & down?

 

[Ron Solfest]

If you locate the DC in another room, or outside, remember that it sucks a large volume of air and you’ll need to have a way for replacement air to get back into the shop. If you’re in a cold climate, you’ll be loosing heated air…

A friend of mine found this out the hard way 30yrs ago when he moved his DC out of a well sealed room and then couldn’t open the door (against the pressure gradient) when it was on

 

[Jay Tuttle]

If you have questions about dust collection, contact: https://www.ductingsystems.com/woodworking-dust-collection-ducting.html
Their premiere partner, Air Cleaning Specialists, out of St. Louis, MO., will help you with calculations and sizing your duct runs. I did my own static pressure drops per all my machines and had them verify duct sizing. But they will do everything for you as well. Unfortunately, a 3/4hp motor won’t cut it. You’ll need more like a 2hp motor having a 14” impeller and 1,350cfm capacity. I had my DC on a 2-story shop with all my equipment on the first floor. That was my first shop 7 years ago. Now I’m on in a new 1-story structure with the same equipment and it still perform great.