MY DIY Dust Separator

[yhprum]

Here is a dust separator I put together because I was doing some drywall repairs in the house and I wanted to capture the dust. It probably gets about 99 percent of the drywall dust out. It will get 100 percent sawdust from the tablesaw. I think it would work pretty well in a blast cabinet too.
The most difficult part of this project was cutting off the bottom if the bottles without cracking or breaking the bottle. You tube to the rescue!
Materials used:
• Two five gallon buckets. Cut the top off the bottom half and the bottom off the top bucket so they fit together. With the taper of the buckets it makes a good airtight seal.
• Some 12mm MDF for the different chamber separators
• four PVC elbows and some PVC tubing.

I studied the Pentz plans and google images of cyclone dust separators for my ideas.
I sized the elbows and the tubing to be cumulatively similar to the hose diameter on the vacuum. The thought being to keep the air velocity high enough for the cyclonic action to be effective.
I used regular wine bottles because the shape was closest to a cone. I cut the end off the bottoms and recessed them into the bottom MDF separator disc.


In the photo, you can (barely) see the elbow with some of the side cut off to get the incoming airflow to run against the inside surface of the bottle.

The PVC tube in the middle goes through the bottom and middle MDF separator disc.

The MDF separator discs took some fitting to get a tight fit on the edges inside the bucket. Sealed with clear silicone caulking compound. Let it completely dry before trying (don’t ask).

As this was a prototype I put it together fairly quickly. I might try another with two sets of two bottles in series to see if it is more effective, or possibly a Thien type separator in series with a cyclone separator.
And next time I might try to manage the airflow though the chambers a little more efficiently, with radiused openings ect.

[DIYer]

Thanks yhprum! We've added your
Dust Separator to our Cleaning category, as well as to your builder page: yhprum's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Dust Separator by yhprum

tags: 5-gallon bucket, dust collection

[Pronghorn Precision]

That is awesome! Thanks

[yhprum]

My dust separator recently stopped working, so I had a look. The bottles had all separated and fallen into the bottom of the bucket. It originally had been held in only by silicone sealant.I fixed it by running a piece of threaded rod through it but thought is was an opportunity to show the insides of the separator.

[tonyfoale]

yhprum,

I have built a couple of cyclone separators and they capture near 100% of sawdust and metal milling, drilling and turning swarf but they let some of the very fine dust through. Maybe I'll try your multi cyclone system then it will be better when used on the blasting cabinet.
I was thinking of a system where the airflow gets bubbled through water to remove the fine dust.

[Toolmaker51]

yhprum,

I have built a couple of cyclone separators and they capture near 100% of sawdust and metal milling, drilling and turning swarf but they let some of the very fine dust through. Maybe I'll try your multi cyclone system then it will be better when used on the blasting cabinet.
I was thinking of a system where the airflow gets bubbled through water to remove the fine dust.

That's how the "Rainbow" vacuums work.The air column (propelled by motor driven fan) goes straight down towards a bin holding about 1" of water. There is a blunt, rounded goilet in the bin, centered in the airstream. The inertia causes even fine dust to drop out of the airstream,trapped by the water, as it reverses upward to exit.
Per household use, the water must be dumped soon; organisms foul the water quickly

[tonyfoale]

That's how the "Rainbow" vacuums work.The air column (propelled by motor driven fan) goes straight down towards a bin holding about 1" of water. There is a blunt, rounded goilet in the bin, centered in the airstream. The inertia causes even fine dust to drop out of the airstream,trapped by the water, as it reverses upward to exit.

Some time in the years since my previous post I did make a water trap. Even though I had baffles in the water, designed to break up the large bubbles into small bubbles, the water would bubble up out of the container. I solved this by making the trap quite tall with only a low level of water in the bottom. I tried putting some detergent in the water, once, to reduce surface tension but that had the place submerged in foam, very quickly.

I designed the outlet from my blaster to capture the large stuff and only allow out the fine dust, this worked really well and the water trap captures the fine dust.

Click for full size.
The tower on the blaster works so well to keep the relatively large blast media inside the blaster that there is nothing for a cyclone to capture so I only use the water trap for the dust.

Any large particles that escape the tower, and there are very few, get caught in the white end cap. After a blasting session I remove the end cap and return the media to the cabinet. There is never more than a small cup full.




Baffles in the water trap, the trap had to be tall to keep the water in, otherwise it would just bubble up and pass through to the vac.

[tonyfoale]

Further to my reply above, I have been asked to explain the function of the tall tower on top of the blast cabinet so I have prepared a new post with details of all my modifications to the blaster. Horror Fright style blaster fixes.