[Woodcarver] dust collectors

[dick carter]

>From: "Merrilee Johnson" <merrihat at hotmail.com>

>Let me know if you find out anything eles I should know and didn't ask ok??
>Later!
>Merrilee
>
Merrilee,

There are 3 main things to look for on a dust collector. The 'sone' rating; 
the CFM; and the
motor speed. The motor speed tells you how fast the motor is driving the 
fan; the CFM
(Cubic Feet per Minute) tells you how much of the dust is going through the 
fan; and the 'sone'
tells you the noise level of the unit. Usually you're going to be subjected 
to a trade-off. I've
seen some dust collectors that really 'suck-it-out' but the noise level 
borders on the threshold
of pain.
IMHO the units with 'muffin fans' run the quietest, but they don't seem to 
remove much dust.
They also depend upon filters to remove the dust, if the filters clog-up the 
performance goes down.
(Plus the commercial dust collectors, that I've seen, use off-sized filters, 
so you can't run down to Home Depot to pick-up a new one, you have to order 
it from the dust collector manufacturer)

The fans with blades remove much more dust, but are the nosiest. A trade-off 
would be the
centriphical (squirrel-cage), directed into a collector bag. Again, IMHO, 
this is a better type
dust collector, if you have the room. I use a 'home-brew' centriphical fan 
dust collector & I
think that it is better than any commercial one. (My rotary tool makes more 
noise than my dust
collector.
BTW, if you're a left-hand carver, you're much better off than a righty with 
a dust collector
system using rotary power tools. Being a lefty, the dust is blown away from 
you (into the dust
collector), while a righty has the dust blowing away from the collector.
As I said, I'm happy with my system, but if they came up with a quiet 
system, that used
regularly available filters, I'd probably think about switching over.


Dick Carter
>From the Manadnock area of NH
rhc511 at hotmail.com
Please check-out my stuff at:
http://www.picturetrail.com/cartersstuff