# cheap dust collection system



## MarkShultz (Nov 9, 2011)

I was pondering PVC vs flex tubing for my new dust collection, when i stumbled upon this product from home depot. it is called TripleWall, and i believe designed for drainage applications. It cost about $7 per 10ft section, which is way less expensive then flex or PVC. there are end caps, whye's , T's also. connections are friction fit. what makes it really nice is that a 4' flex hose fits it very well (albeit a little tight) and also blast gates. there is a 6" version also but one may have to find a distributor.


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## JK0702 (Jul 25, 2012)

Mark- 
I have been doing the mental gymnastics of a similar system for my shop. I just haven't been able to work out the EXACT details. How did your project come out? Does it work well, any leaks? What would you do different? It's important for my equipment to be mobile in my (garage) shop, so the flex tubing would give me that. I'm familiar with the triple wall, as I've used it before to house sprinkler lines under my newly poured driveway. A couple questions for you:

1. How did you anchor the triple wall, if at all
2. How did you transition to your dust collector
3. Do you have more pictures

Thanks,
John


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## JK0702 (Jul 25, 2012)

Mark- 
I have been doing the mental gymnastics of a similar system for my shop. I just haven't been able to work out the EXACT details. How did your project come out? Does it work well, any leaks? What would you do different? It's important for my equipment to be mobile in my (garage) shop, so the flex tubing would give me that. I'm familiar with the triple wall, as I've used it before to house sprinkler lines under my newly poured driveway. A couple questions for you:

1. How did you anchor the triple wall, if at all
2. How did you transition to your dust collector
3. Do you have more pictures

Thanks,
John


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## whitebeast88 (May 27, 2012)

mark thanks for the info on the triplewall.i've just purchased a dust collector and now trying to design the layout and decide on the most economical way to.


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## robdem (Apr 7, 2011)

Mark I used the same material in my shop few months ago to set up my dust collector stuff works great . Only used flex hose to hook up to machines. I have the pipe running to my table saw jouner bandsaw sanders and a drop down by my bench for planer and router table also have a hook up for miter saw . I used foil tape on al lthe joints along with clamps and pvc adhesive no leaks in the system


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## jimmyjj (Nov 20, 2011)

1 I didn't anchor the tubes at all. they just run along by basement floor. I suppose whatever technique that works for other tubing would work here.

2 see photo for transition to the collector. The triplewall tube will fit snugly around the exit dust ports on my machines and on the dust collector, so you don't need anything extra.

in this first photo, to the collector, i raise it off the floor with a couple of 45's.









in the second photo, from my jointer, the tube connects directly to the out port and also the intake of the blast gate. totally friction fit. at the left of the photo you can see the 4" flex tubing fitting over the triplewall. this joint was a bit tight, but it is how i would recommend doing it. i alloted enough flex here so i could move my jointer around. the other end of the flex connects into a short piece of triplewall which goes directly into a whye joint and into the main system, which you can see in photo three.









photo three









none of these joints require any additional tape whatsoever. i did tape all the triplewall to triple wall joints as there is some minor gaps here which i don't think material. but it was easy to do.

in the forth foto you see the ultimate cheap maneuver. here i attached some spare vaccume hose to an end segment of triplewall (the female fat end). this then fit into another whye. this is what i use to vacume the shop. i can take that out and put on the cap seen on the floor when not in use (could have used a blast gate if i had an extra). this is also the place where i plan to connect to my smaller tools.


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## Sawkerf (Dec 31, 2009)

Yes, the flex will be cheaper than any of the solid wall ducts, but you lose a lot of collection effeciency. Flow in smooth walled duct is much better than in a rough wall.


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## Tedstor (Mar 12, 2011)

Thanks for pointing this out. The hose on my DC is getting pretty tattered. Triplewall should be a perfect replacement.


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## jmos (Nov 30, 2011)

Interesting product, haven't seen it before. Have you put a vacuum on it; does it hold up well? Does it come in 6"? Is it smooth inside; it looks a bit irregular outside?

I'm in the process of installing DC in my shop as well. It took some looking but I finally found a mom & pop shop that had the thin walled PVC sewer and drain pipe, $18/10ft for 6", still quite a bit more than this stuff.


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## MarkShultz (Nov 9, 2011)

the company makes a 6" version, but HD does not stock it in my area.

it seems durable to me. will be under light wear relative to a drainage application.

the inner and outer wall are slightly undulating - not anything as rough as black irrigation tubing. the bumps are about 1/64" high each (i didn't measure it). its been a while since my last aerodynamics course but i doubt there will be meaningful incremental drag over the distances a hobbyist would be using in their shop. the mfg may quote a Reynolds number if somebody wanted to research that a bit.


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## jmos (Nov 30, 2011)

Interesting. I'll have to keep an eye out for the stuff.

The manufacturer might have a friction factor for the material, or a roughness; you would use one of those coefficients, along with the flow and the properties of the fluid, to calculate the Reynolds number.


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## ForestGrl (Jun 5, 2015)

I'm using this idea for the new shop configuration, picked up the pipe and various fittings today at Home Depot. Can't figure out, though, how Mark and Jimmy got the hose to fit over the triple-wall. I've found another way to transition from hose to pipe, but would sure love to go direct without the extra expense. Any secrets or tips? The hose I'm using is the clear with black spiral. Blast gates are like the ones in the pictures above. TIA!
Also, what did you guys use to cut the triple-wall? I've been using power miter saw to cut Sched 40 PVC, but not sure about this triple-wall stuff.


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## AZWoody (Jan 18, 2015)

on a 40' run with 4" of this same pipe going from around 20' to 40' you will have a loss of 25% cfm.

I know, that's what I used to run my whole shop and did my tests with my harbor freight dust collector with and without an oneida cyclone and no filter to see what the max flow I could get.

For my new setup, I'm going all smooth wall sewer and drain pipe.


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## jimmyjj (Nov 20, 2011)

to cut the triple wall, i just used a hack saw. it is a tight fit to get the hose on. i have bought the clear hose from Rockler and Woodcraft. I found the Rockler a little looser. the triple wall has a white outter, and black inner lining. to make the tube a little more malleable to ease a couple of connections, i took a box cutter to the black lining, then squeezed the white to make it fit. i also have various 4" machine ports. some of these fit great. some are a bit tight with the triple wall, but generally, the final connection for me was the flex hose.


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## jimmyjj (Nov 20, 2011)

AZ, would love to know the after CFM for comparison's sake if the other parts of the setup are the same.


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## AZWoody (Jan 18, 2015)

> AZ, would love to know the after CFM for comparison s sake if the other parts of the setup are the same.
> 
> - jimmyhopps


It's completely different now. I now have a 5hp motor with a 16" impeller running through 6" pipe now.

The problem I had, was that running 2 different types of separators with the same motor/impeller I was getting around 375 cfm at 20' from the system. The dropoff was 25% at the 40' mark which was my furthest point.

I needed to something larger because I do my own sawmilling of logs to lumber so I do a lot of drum sanding, planing and cutting more than most people so I produce a lot of dust. I was starting have some adverse health reactions so I bit the bullet and spent the money to upgrade.


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## AZWoody (Jan 18, 2015)

> to cut the triple wall, i just used a hack saw. it is a tight fit to get the hose on. i have bought the clear hose from Rockler and Woodcraft. I found the Rockler a little looser. the triple wall has a white outter, and black inner lining. to make the tube a little more malleable to ease a couple of connections, i took a box cutter to the black lining, then squeezed the white to make it fit. i also have various 4" machine ports. some of these fit great. some are a bit tight with the triple wall, but generally, the final connection for me was the flex hose.
> 
> - jimmyhopps


What i did, so I didn't have to stretch the hose over, I would put a 4" pvc coupler over the end of the pipe and then slide the flex tubing inside the coupler and then sealed it with silicon or liquid nails. Everything held fine and was very simple.


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## jimmyjj (Nov 20, 2011)

Woody, another option to help things out… I took the bag off my Harbor Freight dust collector, which made it 3 feet shorter. i then put it on a plywood sled with cover over it. placed the collector/sled under my back patio. This:
- freed up a lot of space
- made the noise of the machine go away/outside instead of my shop
- and best of all, remove the bag drastically improves performance by not needing to force the air out of the mesh bag.

i control it with a $10 home depot remote switch.

best shop upgrade i've made.


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## ste6168 (Mar 12, 2015)

I fail to see how this can work, the air has to go somewhere, no? I would think the collection bag, if the air wasn't being pushed through a filter/hole, would explode, or backfeed through the system?

I am not very knowledgable concerning dust collection systems, so forgive my ignorance.



> Woody, another option to help things out… I took the bag off my Harbor Freight dust collector, which made it 3 feet shorter. i then put it on a plywood sled with cover over it. placed the collector/sled under my back patio. This:
> - freed up a lot of space
> - made the noise of the machine go away/outside instead of my shop
> - and best of all, remove the bag drastically improves performance by not needing to force the air out of the mesh bag.
> ...


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## AZWoody (Jan 18, 2015)

> I fail to see how this can work, the air has to go somewhere, no? I would think the collection bag, if the air wasn t being pushed through a filter/hole, would explode, or backfeed through the system?
> 
> I am not very knowledgable concerning dust collection systems, so forgive my ignorance.
> 
> ...


He has the bag off so the air will just blow out the bottom, from what I can understand.

That is how I had my machine when I was running tests on it to get the max airflow on it.


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## jimmyjj (Nov 20, 2011)

correct. the dust goes outside. 
i do have a cheapo garbage can cyclone inside the shop to catch the big stuff (which does impact performance a bit (but well worth it)), but small stuff goes outside.


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## ste6168 (Mar 12, 2015)

Ahh. Makes sense!

Thanks.



> correct. the dust goes outside.
> i do have a cheapo garbage can cyclone inside the shop to catch the big stuff (which does impact performance a bit (but well worth it)), but small stuff goes outside.
> 
> - jimmyhopps


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## ForestGrl (Jun 5, 2015)

> to cut the triple wall, i just used a hack saw. it is a tight fit to get the hose on. i have bought the clear hose from Rockler and Woodcraft. I found the Rockler a little looser. the triple wall has a white outter, and black inner lining. to make the tube a little more malleable to ease a couple of connections, i took a box cutter to the black lining, then squeezed the white to make it fit. i also have various 4" machine ports. some of these fit great. some are a bit tight with the triple wall, but generally, the final connection for me was the flex hose.
> 
> - jimmyhopps


Yep, the box cutter came to mind, but wanted to wait until sure I was going with the triple-wall. Today, I'll start cutting and laying things in place. Discovered that a flexible "no-hub" PVC connector (basically a 4" x 2" rubber tube with radiator clamps and a metal jacket) will work great to fasten triple-wall to 4" port. Have not been able to get the hose to go inside the TW, but a tapered quick-fit coupler snugs in nicely and then the straight end can go in the hose. Fortunately, I have a large piles of miscellaneous fittings. Thanks!


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## ForestGrl (Jun 5, 2015)

> What i did, so I didn t have to stretch the hose over, I would put a 4" pvc coupler over the end of the pipe and then slide the flex tubing inside the coupler and then sealed it with silicon or liquid nails. Everything held fine and was very simple.
> 
> - AZWoody


Tried my best, but the flex tubing would not cooperate. I even tried putting parts in the freezer. Might stick some hose in the hot car and see if that makes it soft enough to go inside the coupler. Thanks for verifying I was on the right track!


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## AZWoody (Jan 18, 2015)

> What i did, so I didn t have to stretch the hose over, I would put a 4" pvc coupler over the end of the pipe and then slide the flex tubing inside the coupler and then sealed it with silicon or liquid nails. Everything held fine and was very simple.
> 
> - AZWoody
> 
> ...


The hose you have is probably a little larger than mine. I got mine at Harbor Freight and the diameter is a little smaller than some of the others. I was actually going to get something with a slightly larger inner diameter for some of the couplers I have.


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## exelectrician (Oct 3, 2011)

I have been using triple wall for years, I thought that was what all the other guys were using all along?
anyway here is what I do when I want to get Dust Rite hose to fit over the triple wall. I take a belt sander and sand through the outer wall for about half the diameter. 
Works for me.http://lumberjocks.com/exelectrician/blog/series/5490


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## ForestGrl (Jun 5, 2015)

> I have been using triple wall for years, I thought that was what all the other guys were using all along?
> anyway here is what I do when I want to get Dust Rite hose to fit over the triple wall. I take a belt sander and sand through the outer wall for about half the diameter.
> Works for me.http://lumberjocks.com/exelectrician/blog/series/5490
> 
> - exelectrician


Thanks for that idea, my belt sander could use a workout.


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## Dabcan (Feb 1, 2011)

I use the same white tubing, got it at Home Depot. Works great and fits the blast gates perfectly (metal ones). I just press fit it all together and it runs along the floor without any anchors. I've only had it clog up about once/year, so it's nice to be able to pull it apart at the joints to see where the back up is.

I still use the regular 4" flex hose to get to each machine but keep the run as short as possible.


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## ClammyBallz (Apr 16, 2015)

Here's how I make a hose adapter for 4" drain pipe. 
Cut a section about 3-4" long, then slit it down the side.










Iinsert it into the pipe, then mark the excess that needs to be cut off.










Trim off the excess.










Use some PVC cleaner & glue to mount the adapter to the inside of the pipe. I like to glob it on at the seam as well. Let it sit for an hour and you're ready to mount it.

This is one I made on regular drain pipe.


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## exelectrician (Oct 3, 2011)

Clammy, why didn't I think of that??? - Thanks I had to favorite that solution.


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## Luthierman (Jun 4, 2015)

For anyone considering pvc, ground that stuff with some wire. Wood dust can be explosive in the right conditions. Pvc makes loads of static.


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## ClammyBallz (Apr 16, 2015)

If you have trouble getting a good bond on the triple wall, there's a green ABS to PVC cement you can buy at lowes or HD.


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## AZWoody (Jan 18, 2015)

> If you have trouble getting a good bond on the triple wall, there s a green ABS to PVC cement you can buy at lowes or HD.
> 
> - ClammyBallz


Yes, you need a transition cement for this to work with standard couplers but I just used silicon to seal it so that it was not permanent and could be modified if need be.
Silicon will make a good enough bond to prevent leaks and will not easily slip free.


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## AZWoody (Jan 18, 2015)

> For anyone considering pvc, ground that stuff with some wire. Wood dust can be explosive in the right conditions. Pvc makes loads of static.
> 
> - Luthierman


That's pretty much a myth, for the home woodworker anyways.
For anything to be dangerous, it would take a system on an industrial level.

There's been a lot of research done on it and the only reason needed to ground a dust system for a private woodoworker is to keep from getting shocked.


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## Luthierman (Jun 4, 2015)

Even still, have you ever been shocked by a shop vac? Hurts doesnt it? Multiply that.

Some of these new tools are computer controlled and it sure would be a shame to burn it up due to static. That is partly why festool wants you to buy their anti static hoses. All I am saying it is a very easy fix, so why not do it? Myth or not.


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## AndyPitts (Jun 14, 2015)

When I built my dust collection system (take a look at my video at 



) I found Bill Pentz' exhaustive web site on dust collection (http://billpentz.com//woodworking/cyclone/index.cfm) to be extremely valuable. I had a Rockwell blower, the kind that used to fit on a 55 gallon drum and used it with 6" spiral metal ducting. I would have used PVC if I could have found it in 6" diameter where I lived, but I'm happy with the metal duct. Being metal, it is fully grounded, but on Bill's website I read about static electricity and a study on the subject (http://billpentz.com//woodworking/cyclone/ducting.cfm#static_electricity) and as a result would have been satisfied using PVC if I had it. The larger issue is to have a large enough diameter to get enough volume flow (CFM) to capture dust at the source while maintaining enough speed (FPM) to keep the dust from settling in the ducting. Again, Bill's website has all the calculations. He also has a spreadsheet to help you build a custom cyclone, which I did. The system I built using Bill's knowledge base works great.


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## Gentile (Jun 3, 2013)

This is the best dust collection system…


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