Delta Dust Collector AP400 - worth a shot?

Wait until you can afford a bigger DC. A woodworker with much more experience than I told me that if I got a 1 hp DC, I’d be looking for a bigger machine in less than a year. 1 hp = 650 cfm, 1 1/2 hp = 1100 cfm. Took his advice and got a 1 1/2 hp DC and put a sub micron cartridge filter on it. No regrets.
Check out billpentz.com and wynnenv.com for more info on DCs.

I’ve got the AP400. It’s ok if just connected to one machine at a time. I replaced it with a 3hp grizzly after about 8 months of dragging the hose from machine to machine. Also, the 30 micron bag lets a lot of fine sawdust back into the air.

-- Carl Rast, Pelion, SC

I haven’t purchased yet but I was looking at the Grizzly G8027 1hp DC. It has 500cfm and a 30mc bag. I was then told that a good rule of thumb is 100cfm for every inch of dust port the machine has and another 100cfm for every ten feet of hose. So a TS w/ a 4” dust port will need 400cfm as long as the hose is under ten feet. I’m now holding out for the G1029Z. 2hp, 1550cfm, 220v set up, 2.5mc bag, 2 four inch ports, and the 30gal cyclone two stage DC thrown in for free. It’s 260$, but I have not found anything w/ these fetchers. Especially the 2.5mc bag. Also some tools specify a minimum cfm to properly clear dust. Hope this helps.

I picked up one of these as my first “real” DC and like it. For my needs it’s fine, but I only run one tool at a time and don’t mind moving the one pickup from machine to machine. You may get annoyed with that real quickly.
It is what it is, a low-end DC. I couldn’t spend the bucks for an 1100CFM dual-port beast.
I’d say, get the most dust collector that you realistically can, even if it means saving up more $$ for the purchase.
Get something that you’ll be proud of a year from now, and you’ll probably have made the right choice.

I use that DC and it is hooked up to 4” S+D pipe throuout the shop. I use it on the jointer, bandsaw, shaper, dual drumsander and for sanding on the lathe. it work ok on all but the drum sander. It gets most of the dust from the drum sander but could be better. I have blastgates at each machine. I open and close them manually. I use a JDS filter for the airborn fine dust. I am planning to upgrade to a larger DC as funds allow but for now it does a fair job. Much better than a shop vac! but not great. If the ap400 is all thats in the budget then thats what I would do. you will never get all the dust anyway…. If I was afraid of a little dust I would take up knitting! :-]> One thing I had to do on mine was remove the cross that is at the intake. It clogged up when I ran the jointer because of the chips. I also made a trash can separator so I dont have to empty the bags all the time.

skeez

-- hey honey! watch this!

i just got one off craigslist for 100 bucks and it seem to do the job so far.

-- Roper - master of sawdust-

we recently bought one to service shop expansion and when used one machine at a time works great! Well worth the money as long as your needs are minimal and you don’t mind switching the intake hose around. We use it as a temp set up on two sanders, a mortising machine, and a bandsaw. Saved about 1000$ in plumbing to the bigger system and probably wont ever hook it up-

-- rob

Thanks for all the responses – It does seem like a really good deal, and a good start (by upgrading from my shop vac) – I guess I was mostly concerned about the fact the the AP400 is setup to 30micron, as opposed to my shopVac which is HEPA and 1micron – I don’t think I want to downgrade in filtering the dust going in the air (as much as I can).

upgrading the AP400 with a 2 micron canister, or a 1micron bag is another $150 (roughly) which will put the total cost closer to a 1.5HP collector with a better filter – so I think I’ll wait it off, and just go with a bigger one to start with and setup plumbing to avoid having to move the machine from tool to tool-unless it’s possible to do that with the AP400.

-- My Drinking Club has a Woodworking Problem...