Axminster Craft AC153E chip extractor and workshop dust plumbing

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Farmer Giles

The biggest tool in the box
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Location
West Yorkshire
This arrived last week, it was on back order so had a wait 2 or 3 weeks. Its now back on backorder and has gone up from £300 to £350.

My dust extraction system in the workshop had grown organically, I've been using the Axminster/Numatic NVD750 with 2 x 1200W motors. this was fine to begin with, but as the workshop grew, I was emptying it more often.

When Axminster launched their 100mm cyclone, I bought one and attached it to a large 205 litre steel drum. Although I nearly bought a high flow rather than high pressure vacuum at the time, I decided to stick with the existing. Although not ideal, the drum was catching a lot of chips/dust and Perter Parfitt was using the same setup, albeit without all the ducting. Here's the business end as it was. The 6" duct goes up to the workshop above. As the downstairs barn is semi open to the elements then this means I don't need micron filters and the noise is minimal. My nearest neighbour is about 500 yds away but I like to listen to the radio as I work.

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Here's where the 6" duct enters the workshop and splits into 2 x 100mm branches.

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When I started using the Leigh dovetail Jig, the ducting was beginning to fill up with chips, and with a new PT on its way, my existing DeWalt PT has no extraction, I thought it was time to change.

Yes I know it should be a 45 degree branch and not a 90 degree tee, but if you buy a duct kit from Axminster, that is what you get, I am slowly replacing them.

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So the new extractor is rated at 2kW versus 2.4Kw for the old, however the flow is greater. The NVD750 is rated at 5000 litres per min, or 5 x 60 = 300m3 per hour. The AC153E is 2,000m3 per hour so a significant increase in flow, I hoped this would solve the problem.

Here's the unboxing, the box did suffer in transit and I feared the worst but although the polystyrene was smashed up, the extractor was fine.

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Building it was easy enough, no real issues. The pictorial instructions were good enough, The first thing I did after assembly was to swap out the old vacuum using a long flexi hose to see how it coped.

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It worked fine, and after tapping the upstairs duct work a little, all the chips disappeared.

The next problem was control. The new extractor has an NVR fitted, the old didn't and I controlled it from this.

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If I used the same RF socket controller to power the extractor then every time I switched it off the NVR would trip and I would have to go downstairs to turn it back on.

I wanted the protection of the NVR and the motor thermal and/or overload wiring was linked to it, so I didn't just want to bypass it. Looking at the wiring diagram, I came up with a plan, in the short term it will be via a manual switch, but upstairs. I just broke into the neutral between NVR and motor. I've edited the diagram in red below.

153E wiring.jpg


I drilled a hole in the NVR switch/motor wiring housing, fitted a cable grommet and extended the cable upstairs

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Upstairs I have a simple switch for now, I have an industrial spark coming around to put in a 16A socket for the new PT next week, I'll get his opinion on this before doing much more. The switch isn't as convenient as the remote control when your workshop is 20m long, but better than going downstairs. You can buy small 433Mhz key fobs and relays for about £12, this would then control a larger relay that would replace or be in line with the switch below.

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It tests out fine. Remove power and the NVR kicks in. Reset it and use the switch above and I can control the extractor from upstairs.

This is how I have left it for today, however I have ordered some new waste gates and 45 branches so will fit it properly then. I will switch the extractor and cyclone around to make it easier to empty the drum and new piece of pipe. I know that flexible pipe isn't as efficient as smooth duct but there's a balance between convenience and efficiency.

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Regards
Andy
 
Last edited:
Andy, Very nice write-up with lots of good pictures thank you, I always like seeing other peoples workshops, (I think we ought to do photo tours) I always interrupts the positive side of the supply not the negative, I don’t know if I’m right or wrong just commenting. I didn’t realise how lucky I was when I bought my dust extraction system secondhand from a guy who was retiring, it’s a huge three bag three-phase 4248 Cubic metre p/h unit that's handled everything that’s ever been thrown at it, and it was peanuts, – put it this way I had to buy four bits of pipe/junctions to install it and they cost more than the whole system! Ian
 
A question for the illuminated on here.

Now I have 2,000m3 per hour flow, how do people with similar systems use it with smaller tools such as sanders, plunge saws and domino's where the hose diameter goes right down to sub 30mm?

I have been cracking open another wastegate a little to relieve the stress on the extractor. I don't really want to have a separate shop vac for small tools after paying and plumbing all this lot in :)
 
I changed the name of the thread as I want more advice about ducting etc.

I was given a pile of 50mm dust extraction orifices by a friend, here's some of them.

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I've used two of them already, the kit only came with two 50mm hose adapters.

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I made up two 50mm hoses, attached the sockets to two blastgates, not strictly necessary as removing the hose stop the flow but speeds up too changeover. One was connected with some old engine hose I had knocking around

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The other use some large glue lined heat shrink I found on line

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I've reduced the two hoses down to festool cleantec sized hose, I think its 27mm or similar, the festool adapter fits the domino, obviously, but also the Mirka Deros sander and the Mafell plunge saw.

I think I have track down some more 50mm adapters to fit these.

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I have more hose adapters than you can imagine, each time order some I think they will be the answer to my tool extraction woes, I am usually bitterly disappointed.

However this time I have a plan. The remaining sockets will be placed in strategic locations in the workshop, above the benches, behind the pillar drill etc. The plumbing to them will be smooth bore ducting where possible. All the hoses to fit them will be 50mm, then we I will use reducers to connect to the right size hose for the tool. If I move the tool, then the hose can move with it. If I can't get adapters to fit the remaining tools I will print them on a 3D printer.

I would be interested how others do it!

Cheers
Andy
 
Andy thanks for the link to the thread, I'd missed it.

With regard to your question about using it on sanders and small tools, I believe most would advocate a separate HPLV as while it hasn't got the airflow it's got the suck required to deal with those small hoses and adapters. I guess we all have to make sacrifices as it can get a bit silly otherwise!

At the end of the day if you hook up a smaller tool and it extracts OK, just stick with that.
 
I intend to sell the NVD750 as its too big/powerful for a shop vac, put I do have a smaller Numatic, a WV470, its like a double height Henry, similar power. I have that linked to a small cyclone, its use is mainly for cleaning the floor but I could create a separate section of smaller duct where I use smaller tools. You can put a HEPA filter in it. I'll have a think, so far cracking open another blast gate a little seems to be working.
 
I’ve just taken delivery of the very same cyclone separator to set up my ducted setup in my new workshop. Looks to work well n your setup. I’m using a Jet 1100a extractor. Plumbing it all in tomorrow. Home made drop box and 100mm solid duct. I’ll pop it in my workshop build thread when I’ve finished it.
 
Andy, if rigged right you might be able to use the HPLV on the same cyclone, just need to set a gate to block off the other machine.

I know Axminster say that the cyclone is not suitable for HPLV systems and that might well be because they generate the particle velocity to function right in a cyclone that large.
 
Peter Parfitt uses the NVD750 and the Axminster cyclone in his workshop, but only direct to the machine, not via 20m of ducting :) It will work but as I said earlier, it leaves chips in the ducts so working on the edge on a big system.

I'm going to sell the NVD750 as I could do with some cash to fund the new PT. I have a few tools to sell, I shall stick them on the forum in a week or so.

Here's what I use for floor sweeping, I have used it for small tools and works fine. The plastic drum is fine on this vacuum, but if you put the NVD750 on it, it collapses, understandably :) I may not need this small cyclone once I get the new PT has it had extraction so the volume of chips should go down.

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Cheers
Andy
 
Andy, out of interest when you say the numatic leaves dust in the pipes, do you mean the 150mm or the 100mm ones? I'm assuming the 150 due to the extra volume needed to keep airspeed up.
 
The 100mm pipes, look at the third pic in the first post of this thread. The runs are just too long for it, the finer dust moves, but the large chips settle to the bottom. Its fine on short runs but I have a 20m workshop. I could just use it for the small tools that generate fine dust and use a crossover blast gate as you mentioned, but that would mean going downstairs to switch it over every time I alternated between big and small tools. So I'm going to keep cracking an adjacent blast gate open a little when I'm using the Domino, Mafell plunge saw or Mirka sander that all share the same 27mm Festool adapter. It also means I can sell the NVD750 as the cash will come in handy after buying the iTech PT with spiral head. It's being shipped today or tomorrow :)
 
I think your problem of chips being left in pipe / duct is due to the fact that you have an extractor / cyclone that has a 4" port, but that it's connected to 6" ducting.

As soon as the 4" moves into the 6", it's going to lose a massive amount of airflow.. you may be better using 4" ducting, as that at least will maintain the flow a little better. However, there is a limit to what 4" can shift. 6" ducting is better by a long way, but in order to achieve sufficient airflow to keep chips / dust airborne, you would need more power at the extractor.
 
Its only 6" between floors, when it branches out its all 4" duct. Before I moved the vacuum downstairs into the barn under the workshop, it was all 4". Same thing happened. Now I have a high flow chip extractor, I have no further issues.
 
One thing about the Wood Mag article is that they are using machine CFM requirements from standards from 50 years or more ago when they were only concerned about the dust that was visible. Seeing if your or the Euro health and safety standards would be higher would be prudent before using the article. Exceeding them is never a bad idea.
 
My reference to the article was only to suggest that running a 4" hose / duct from an extractor through a cyclone, and "then" moving into 6", would reduce airspeed.

In theory (and in practice) it would be better to maintain the 6" diameter through the cyclone and into the extractor itself, although I understand that it only has a 5" maximum intake.

I was seeing it as the reduced size of intakes of both extractor (5" max) and cyclone (4" max) from the ducting it was running into (6") would likely cause some reduction in efficiency by the time the hose was stepped back down to 4" for the machine ports.

If it's running well, then all is good.
 

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