Dust Collector #1: The need for change

Gary,

I will be interested in seeing this. I have been looking to upgrade mine as well.

-- With God's help all things are possible- even woodworking. Woodworking is not just a hobby, it is an (expletive deleted) expensive hobby.

I too will be interested in your evalutation. The bags on my Delta have not popped off yet; I am using the internal cloth covered bands. Are yours internal? Are you able to run it in that little room with the door closed?

-- Stevethepeeve -- I'm no rocket surgeon

Steve – If you look in the lower right hand corner of that picture you will see a filter to catch all the dust
that escapes the bag. So the small room is a perfect size. Whatever air that get’s sucked in has an easy way
out.

Yes, the bags did have the internal cloth covered bands. I cut the stiching and pulled them out to replace
them with the steel bands.

You don’t want to wait for the bags to pop off. Quite a mess!

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

Gary, I have the whole Jet system that can be purchased with that canister. I can speak to performance of both. As my shop is so compact, I just move the hose from machine to machine. Thus, I don’t have any degradation of suction and I’m only using a 10 foot hose. I don’t know if that applies to your shop or not. This being said, I like my canister system. It’s very easy to clean by just running the paddles around a few times after each heavy dust generating session in the shop. There is no issue with dust going everywhere if you accidentally run yourself or some object into a bag. The canister is also lightweight. Best of all, it’s a total breeze to remove and reattach to the DC unit when I have to change the receptacle bag.

Just remember to rotate the paddles often because the folds of the filter element really do their job well.

If I had to find a gripe it would be that Jet’s canisters filter only down to 2 microns. Most other systems are 1 micron and some are .5 mics. This may seem like splitting hairs buts it’s the really tiny particles that do the most damage to your lungs. Yours being in a closet should reduce some of that concern though.

-- Jeff, St. Paul, MN

Okay, this is beyond a dumb question, but I’ve never seen this before – you replace the cloth bag with the cannister?? Brilliant. I also recently saw advertised (no idea where) a sleeve that would connect a 30 gal. metal trash can to the collector in place of the bag. Anyone heard how those work?

-- "No Board Left Behind"

I went out this morning and bought a .1 micron felt top bag. I installed it and began to work. My DC is hooked up only to my sander and all i sand is maple…makes a very fine dust, a lot like flour. After about five minutes the new bag looked like it was going to explode. It was pretty hard to the touch. I didn’t know if this was normal but my spidey-senses told me to shut her down. So here i am enquiring whether this is normal or not. BTW, i have a 2HP DC a lot like the one pictured above. Any thoughts/comments would be appreciated.

Lakey – I think you are talking about a separartor. Here is an updated picture of my current system.
The trachcan collects all the larger pieces and some od the larger chips. All the fine stuff ends up in the lower
bag. The top bag acts as a filter. That is the part I am replacing.

You may also be thinking of a cyclone DC which has a can to collect the dust.

Maple – Sounds like your bag is getting plugged up. That is one of the problems I am having in addition to the
bag popping off. You would have probably had the same thing happen if you didn’t shut it off.
With the canister you can, as Jeff suggests, rotate the paddles via the handles on top to knock off the dust
in the canister filter into the bottom bag.

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

I’m waiting for the final solution, Gary. I have a Grizzly Vac and was wanting to find out if their canister fits the model that I have.

-- Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com

Hey Gary – nope, I’m not thinking of a separator – got one of those. This was designed to actually replace the bottom bag. My question is, does the cannister you’ve pictured do that? Replace the bottom bag? Thanks for the extra picture.

Lakey

-- "No Board Left Behind"

Thanks for the info Gary, i’ll be looking for your review of the canister upgrade. I’m not clear on what you mean by “rotate the paddles” though…

Lakey – No, just the top. I have no idea what you are talking about then. I guess if you had some sort of gasket you could use a trashcan instead of a bag.

Maple – Look at the picture of the canister above. See the handle on the top? Well, you rotate that and it will
move things (paddles) against the inside ribs of the canister to knock off the dust that is stuck to it.

It’s easier than beating on the sides to knock it off.

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

Hope everything works out Gary. I haven’t thought about the mess a burst bag might do, thanks for the warning.

-- Grumpy - "Always look on the bright side of life"- Monty Python