Bill Pentz - a comprehensive source for dust collection information and system design

[Bob Blarney]

I had assumed that others were aware of Mr. Pentz' site, but perhaps that was a dubious assumption.  On this site you will probably find more than you wish to know about the subject, including wood toxicities and design tools if you wish to design and build your own system.   This site provided me with ideas for my wall-mounted separator with the bucket-head vac.

 

http://billpentz.com/woodworking/cyclone/index.cfm#index.cfm

Edited December 10, 2017 by Bob Blarney

[Williamo]

I am in the process of designing the layout of my new small workshop including dust collection. This is where I am at the moment.

The Bill Pentz site is very comprehensive, and while not particularly well written, should be required reading for all of us who work with wood. Airborne dust  (which is invisible,) especially from exotic woods , is potentially very harmful and there is no effective way to capture it. Wear a good quality mask.

However, in terms of hardware, he is really focussed on larger enterprises than mine. This is what I have discovered so far:-

The most useful things to remember are that your duct material, size, internal surfaces and configuration determine how fast you can move air through the duct, regardless of how much suction you apply. All restrictions and bends reduce air speed. Keep it simple, and err on the conservative side. Find out what air speed you require for each tool to shift chips and dust, from the spec. or the manufacturer. Take the highest value.The online values should be used as a comparison but not trusted. The airspeed to shift dust is always higher than for chips. I'm assuming all tools are isolated by blast gates. So, design your layout, chose your duct size, then see if it can support sufficient airspeed. If not, size up. Then decide if you need a cyclone to drop out chips ( more airspeed reduction).

You may find for a simple system, an industrial vacuum cleaner will do the job.

 Comprehensive system design seems to be a bit of a black art, or perhaps I don't understand it well enough yet.

Check the specs. carefully, before you buy a vac or a dust extractor, or better still, borrow a vac and try it out.

Good luck.