Lee Valley Cyclone lids

Re: Lee Valley Cyclone lids

Joel Hunnicutt

>I had one with a 1.5 dc penn state collector and didn't much care for it. My collector is pretty anemic to start with and it really cut the power way down. I am running 4 inch duct and with it on, it wouldn't pull up planer shavings about 10 ft away. I hesitate to blame the lid as much as the dc, which I have never been thrilled with.

Easily overwhelmed

Dominic Greco in Richboro PA

>Barry,

Using a DC to pick up chips and shavings from your planer is one thing. It's quite another to expect the run-of-the-mill DC to handle the sheer volume of debris that spews forth from a lathe. I know, I've tried using my shop made Cyclone lid (which is actually a bit more efficient than the one sold by Lee Valley). It's also an easy way to clog your duct collection piping. DAMHIKT

The best you can do is divert and/or contain them with some handily placed shower curtains. I've found that the best way to handle them is with a grain or snow shovel and trashcan. You get as much as you can and vacuum up the rest.

See ya,

Dominic

Re: Lee Valley Cyclone lids

Rodney Jenkins

>The lid works great for taking the load off your dust collector bag. I have one on top of a 55 gal. drum upstream of the DC. About the only thing I've been able to use it for effectively on the lathe is sanding. Works well for that with a shopmade sanding hood.

As far as collecting shavings, I've never heard of anyone doing that effectively with a DC. Best idea (haven't tried - yet) is to make an enclosure using plastic/shower curtain for the lathe. It regularly hits 100� here in TX, so the shower curtain is out for me. May use the same design, substituting wire screen weighted on the bottom for the enclosure.

Think I saw a post by Mike Schwing regarding the enclosure, which you can find with a search.

rotsa ruck & bee safe

Re: Lee Valley Cyclone lids

Bill Hale / The Wood Spinner

>If you are lucky enough to live out of town with no real close neighbors you can make it work. As said my closest neighbor is 400 ft. plus away from my shop exhaust. I used sewer pipe for my main lines with draft gates as needed. I feed directly into the vacuum head and port directly outside. I use it for dust controll when sanding and at cleanup time I simply use the 4in. flex pipe to clean the floor. I generally sweep the edges in and pile it all under the lathe. Try not to get chunks and keep the run as short as you can. My run is a max of about 35 ft., vac. to end of pick up line.

This takes the big curls and all.

good turning and be safe

Bill

Re: Lee Valley Cyclone lids

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>I agree with the others, that the sort of dust collector most recreational woodturners can afford is inadequate for dealing with all the range of shavings the typical turner produces. The biggest problem is usually the length of the shavings and the fact that a lathe doesn't create a channels chute for there collection the way that some other woodworking equipment can provide.

That said, a dust collector can be most helpful in several situations.

One, in sanding dust control where it can wisk many of the particles away right at the source. For this application, one a cyclone collector won't offer much if any advantage.

Second, when hollowing dryer woods, or with small tipped scraper tools. These "shavings" are smaller in size and length, and often are captured well with a dust collector and are well separated by a cyclone collector. Setting your dust collector hose near the mouth, then blasting out the interior with compressed air, can result in quite efficient collection of these particles.

Three, small scale/miniature turning which often uses dry woods and by its nature makes smaller shavings.

Fourth, clean up of the smaller residue that is left after the scoop shovel approach. I use my dust collector much as a shop vac, but in this case brush the refuse up to the dust collector inlet. This is definitey a situation where a cyclone separator stage is highly desirable.

I haven't used the Lee Valley cyclone lid, having obtained mine prior to the LVs introduction. I do know that LV gave considerable thought to achieving the most efficient airflow/separation design possible. I see that Woodcraft also now sells what appears to be a second generation of the lid I use. With either product, if you go this route, make sure you get the one to handle 4 inch fittings.

I fill up a 55 gallon container about once a week, and I only turn a few times a week (but do hollow a lot). The issue in my mind is not so much whether using a dust collector is the best approach for everyone, but whether those using a dust collector for anything other than dust control will do well to have some sort of cyclone separator before their impeller and as a way to easily capture waste. I've found it quite desirable in my case.

Re: Lee Valley Cyclone lids *LINK*

Fred Holder

>I don't know about the Lee Valley cyclone, but I have a Grissly 3 hp Dust Collector with three four inch inlets. Two of them are run the length of the shop with outlets at lathes, bandsaws, planer, thickness snader, and router. The third inlet is run to a Cyclone that fits on a 30 gallon garbage can. The inlet to the garbage can is from a floor sweep. We scoop up the large masses of shavings and put them in sacks to use to start the fire in the fireplace. The rest we sweep into the floor sweep. The shavings stop in the garbage can.

We seldom have more than one gate open at a time. We use two inch hose to the lathe to pick up the fine dust and then use the hose as a shop vacuum to vacuum off the machinery and things that didn't get picked up with the broom.

I don't think any dust collector can do more than catch the dust and some small shavings. We also have a air filter in the cealing, when we're doing a lot of sanding this gets turned on to help clean the air of the dust that the dust extractor misses.


Fred Holders Domain Site

Re: Lee Valley Cyclone lids

Terry Quiram

>Marginal at best. I have one in front of a Jet 1900 cfm with 5 micron bags sitting on a 55 gal barrel. I had to install a drop to point the chips to the bottom otherwise it went straight through. I attribute the 5 micron bags with increasing suction. With the drop I can only fill the barrel 1/3 full before it starts to go to the bags. I am running 4" lines. Might work better if I wasn't moving so much air through it.

Re: Lee Valley Cyclone lids

Bill Howatt

>I have one and it works very good for jointer and planer shavings. I don't even bother trying to catch lathe shavings since they have too much energy and even worse, they fly in all directions. This means you are going to sweep and shovel anyway.

I use my DC with a cardboard box at the end of the hose as a crude funnel when sanding. This is very worthwhile since this fine stuff is hard on your respiratory system.

Best way to collect shavings is just sweep and shovel. It helps if you can isolate your lathe from the rest of your shop perhaps by a shower curtain or separate room so you don't have to pick the %$^%& things out of your tools.

Bill

Re: Lee Valley Cyclone lids

Jack Freeman

>I purchased the large cyclone about 3 weeks ago and connected to a 22 gallon ShopVac. It has a few problems, you have to have a metal can and not a cheap one, a 55 gal. drum would be great, also you cannot use a plastic collection bag. Getting the chips out of a large can and into a refuse bag would be close to impossible. With a heavy container it will pick up almost anything. it is OK.

Re: Lee Valley Cyclone lids

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>I'm not so sure how the Low Volume High Suction of a Shop Vac may change things compared to the High Volume Low Suction of a Dust Collector, but I've not had these problems.

I use an industrial RubberMaid "rubber" trash can. I can't remember the exact gallon capacity but it is a lot more than the standard trash can, but I think perhaps a little less than a 55 gallon drum. It is available with four (or more) bottom mounted wheels that make it easy to move about, but stable. The non LV version of the cyclone lid is a press fit inside the mouth of the trash can. I bolted a rim of 5/8 inch garden house just inside the mouth to make a shelf and seal for the lid. This container doesn't collapse and provides a deep container that makes a cyclone more effective (keeping the waste farther from the outlet makes the Cyclone more efficient and prevents it drawing back up the waste).

I don't usually bother, but I have successfully used a garbage back (actually a leaf bag) inside my container. The key, as someone else mentioned, is to just weight it down with a piece of scrap or some big shavings. As for emptying, just empty it before it gets too full to remove the bag. If need be, just set the container on its side and drag the bag out. Again, you will find the cyclone to be more efficient by emptying when the container is only partially full, then waiting till it is approaching the top.

Certainly these "poor mans" versions of a real cyclone are less than perfect, but they also cost a lot less than a first rate commercial cyclone unit.

Now Peter's solution, that is the hottest set up I've ever seen.

Re: Lee Valley Cyclone lids

Mike Schwing from Md.

>I've had some extensive conversations with the folks at American Fabric Filter about the typical off the shelf / hobbyist dust collector designs and what they're capable of (or not).

One of my earliest tool purchases was a 1 HP double bagger Delta collector. I'd buy a better tool now, but I've made the best of it by having AFF make me some aftermarket bags. Terry told me that he designs aftermarket bags for that type collector so that the bottom bag is nothing other than a collector, it doesn't add to the overall filter surface, and as soon as it starts to fill, any effect would be negated anyway.

He, therefore builds systems with huge bags up top, they provide more filter surface, greater airflow and smaller particle filtration, and that as the top bag "fills up" with dust, it doesn't really add anything other than marginally better particle filtration, so he recommends beating it with a broom handle every now and then to remove the "caking".

At the time I had my bags made, I wasn't using my DC for anything other than table saw and planer shavings and it tooke a couple of weeks to fill up that 30 gallon bag. With turning, however, I rarely used the DC as one good sweeping would fill the bag a few times over. So it sat unused until I had the idea about the plastic garbage bags instead.

If it turns out that this is a good long term thing for me, I would consider having Terry make me an 80 or so gallon canvas bag with a handle on it for the same purpose. For anyone considering upgrading their dust collector, I would definitely recommend a call to them, the bags not only filter better, they about doubled the intake performance on my machine.

http://www.americanfabricfilter.com/

Re: Lee Valley Cyclone lids

Guy

>I've been using a trash bag for the bottom bag for a while on my one horse Penn State collector. I use it mainly for cleanup, leave it parked in a corner and use 20 feet of hose. I just recently purchased a canister from Penn State to replace the top bag and the performance has definitely increased. Nothing scientific, it picks up stuff quicker and easier now. For fine dust I have a Jet air cleaner handing from the ceiling. Between the two there isn't much dust at all. I still wear a Dustfoe mask when I'm turning. Really you can't keep all the dust away but you can keep it mostly at bay and the dust collector with a trash bag makes a great cleanup tool for some of us lazier types.

Cyclone lids - performance! (long)

Rob Lee

>Hi Barry (et al) -

Our lid (on the same container) will work better than other lids on the market - the angled inlet combined with a 90 degree outlet in the center gives great performance. From a Physics standpoint - it makes the most sense.

HOWEVER - how well any lid will work for you will depend on you DC, and your collection chamber. If the chamber is too small (or too short) the chips/dust won't settle out. If your system is overpowered - the chips/dust won't settle out. Keep in mind that as the chamber fills - it gets effectively smaller - reducing it's efficiency.

2000 CFM would probably be too much for a 55 gal drum, and a cyclone lid.

I've added a "conceptual" illustration below, that I've posted before in other forums to aid in understanding how seperators work. This is not a scholarly treatise - but you may find it helpful.

Cheers -

Rob

The basic principle behind cyclone lids is the reduction in velocity of an air-stream to the point at which the air movement will no longer carry the chips, or dust. The cyclone itself can be thought of as a very large diameter pipe - in the middle of the dust collection run. The velocity of air entering, and leaving, the cyclone is the same (high) while the velocity of the air within the chamber is low - allowing chips and dust to settle out (the fluid friction acting on the chip/dust is not enough to move it).

The efficiency with which a cyclone will work is dependent on the differential of the air velocities - in essence, directly related to volume (actually cross sectional area) of the separation chamber. This is why performance will diminish as the chamber fills�.

A practical example�. (hopefully sound in that it doesn't violate too many physical laws..)

Let's say a system has an air velocity of 650 cfm, and uses 6" diameter pipe.

650 cfm = 650x12x12x12 = 1123200 cu in/min = 18720 cu in/sec

Air velocity will be 18720/(3**2x3.14) = 662 in/sec in the pipe� (about 37.6 MPH)

Suppose the separation chamber is a garbage can - 20" in diameter, 40" tall -

Mass Flow Rate equation says that (Since mass is conserved) :

m = rVA

Where "r" is fluid density, "V" is velocity, and "A" is cross sectional area�

If we assume that the air density is constant, and mass is conserved - then the change in air velocity will be directly proportional to the change in cross-sectional area

r(1)V(1)A(1) = r(2)V(2) A(2) and r(1) = r(2)

Then V(2) = V(1) x A(1) / A(2)

So the air velocity in the middle of the chamber will be:

V(2) = 662 x ((3**2x3.14)/(40*20)) = 23.4 in/sec (about 1.3 MPH)

And - if the can was half-full, the velocity would be double (the cross-sectional area is halved)..

Realistically, there are many more factors at work here - friction, chamber shape, inlet/outlet orientation, and there will be fluid pressure differences in the air�.

The orientation and positioning of the inlet and outlet are also critical to performance - if "pointed" at each other, conservation of momentum can carry the dust/chips through the "low velocity" section of the chamber into a higher velocity area, where they will continue to be suspended, and pass through the outlet..

The Veritas dust lid has inlet/outlet portions of the dust lid oriented in opposite directions (to reduce the effect of momentum carrying the chips) and - most important - has the outlet located in the plane where the lowest air velocity is - at the center of the drum) � - think of a hurricane -velocity is lowest at the "eye"�

So what does all this mean???

The relationship between CFM and the pipe/chamber size ratio will determine how well a given system will work for you� A separation chamber can be rendered virtually useless if it's overpowered by the dust collector (not enough change in air-stream velocity). That�s why most people who use less powerful DC's (or Shop Vacuum's) report the best performance with trash can type separators�

Hope this helps!!