Cyclone letting fine dust through

[ColeyS1]

Guys I'm after some advice please. I've been playing around trying to get my cyclone to work and am still a bit unsure what might be going wrong. I've got the hoover connected up to a bucket but it still seems to be letting quite a lot of fine dust through. Any ideas what could be causing it ?
My old workmate came out and showed me his festool vac that automatically shakes the filter at a desired interval. I'm hoping I can get my current setup to work though.

Cheers

Coley

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Edit- pics added

 

[The Bear]

It's difficult to tell from the photo how much dust has got through. All cyclones will let a small amount through. If it's letting a lot through I a short space of time then that's not right though. I believe an air leak is one source of these type of problems. Are you confident all your seals and joints are air tight

Mark

 

[ColeyS1]

To test that I poured out a pile of fine dust on the bench then hoovered the lot up straight away. So an orbital or belt sander definitely what chuck that amount of dust so fast. when you mention joints being tight, do you just mean the hose pipes ?

Coley

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[ColeyS1]

Mark here's hopefully a better pic showing the state of the filter

It's got about an average 1-2mm over all of it.

I'd say it's letting about a 3rd through
Thanks Mark

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[Monkey Mark]

Ok, this may seem silly, but I have seen the cyclones connected up the wrong way. They still work, but let the fine stuff through.

 

[ColeyS1]

At this stage I'm willing to try anything !!! I've got the hoover connected to the top ?

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[mseries]

the way that cyclones separate the debris from the air is by accelerating the debris so that it gains enough momentum to make it break from the airflow and fall out into the still air in the drop box. So assuming your cyclone has no leaks and the hoses are air tight I am thinking maybe your airflow isn't strong enough. Do you have access to another vacuum that you can try, maybe you need a more powerful machine.

 

[The Bear]

Needs to be air tight between hose and inlet, cyclone and lid, lid and bucket, outlet and hose. Otherwise the airflow inside gets disrupted

Mark

 

[ColeyS1]

Thanks for the help guys. The hoover did seem to crumple the bucket slightly so I just assumed it was air tight enough (just pushed hose onto hoover without tightening the jubilee clip) I'll double check a everything again tomorrow and see what happens.
It's a makita extractor- from memory I think it's 1200watts.

Coley



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[mikefab]

I found that mine improved when I introduced an additional (adjustable) air intake upstream of the cyclone and before the long tube going to the tools. This increased the flow rate and seemed to stop a load of the fine stuff making it to the vacuum.

 

[cedarwood]

I have the same cyclone and fitted it to a plastic tub and had the same problem plus the tub deformed very badly so I got me a 110 ltr steel drum with removable
lid and fitted the cyclone now very little dust gets to the vac filter and the drum does not deform nor do I need to empty it very often. My big cyclone for the chip
extractor is fitted to a 210 ltr ( 45 gal ) steel drum and also performs very well if I do a lot of planing it needs emptying twice a day lol

 

[dzj]

Is the filter sound?

 

[ColeyS1]

I found that mine improved when I introduced an additional (adjustable) air intake upstream of the cyclone and before the long tube going to the tools. This increased the flow rate and seemed to stop a load of the fine stuff making it to the vacuum.

This sounds interesting but I'm not entirely sure what you mean. Don't suppose you've got any pics please ?

Coley

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[ColeyS1]

Is the filter sound?

Filters are pretty new and clean. Extractors not that old, and hasn't had much use. It's 1000watts - 1100watts max....

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[ColeyS1]

I have the same cyclone and fitted it to a plastic tub and had the same problem plus the tub deformed very badly so I got me a 110 ltr steel drum with removable
lid and fitted the cyclone now very little dust gets to the vac filter and the drum does not deform nor do I need to empty it very often. My big cyclone for the chip
extractor is fitted to a 210 ltr ( 45 gal ) steel drum and also performs very well if I do a lot of planing it needs emptying twice a day lol

The odd thing is I connected it to a 250 diameter cylinder and there wasn't much suction then connected it to a bigger 330mm bucket and it was mega. I wonder whether increasing the size of collector improves the results ? The main aim was to be able to fit it all under my bench.

I'm gonna struggle fitting anything much bigger without excavating the floor
I feel it may have beaten me


Coley

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[Claymore]

Have you tried it using a normal workshop vacuum with no filters fitted? I use my Einhell 1500w shop vac with no filters fitted with standard vac hose into top of cyclone and a 20ft hose from the cyclone to my router table etc and there is virtually no dust in the actual vac...... its does try to crush my plastic drum if i block the end of the 20ft hose but I have put a plywood ring inside the plastic dust tub thats halfway down and still has a large hole in the middle (like a giant plywood washer) this stops the plastic tub from crushing and has no effect on the suction.
Cheers
Brian

 

[ColeyS1]

I haven't tried a normal vac, perhaps the vac I've got at the moment just isn't powerful enough. Last thing I've got to try is this

Which has 2 1000watt motors. If it worked the only issue then would be not having the autostart- it'd get on my wick having to manually turn it on each time I use the belt and orbital.
I've read enough stories on here about the health issues with dust, it's just trying to find a way to get over it. I guess longterm 2 festool vacs would be a good investment especially if they'll last 5 + years

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[ColeyS1]

I guess sucking up a big pile of dust to check if it's working is different to how a belt or orbital sander would work- much less dust over a much longer period. Perhaps in testing it getting overwhelmed with the huge quantity?
Thanks for your input guys- a problem shared etc
I watched a few YouTube videos of cyclone reviews and it appears some cyclones are better performing than others.

Coley

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[artie]

Looking at your pic, it appears you have a 100mm pipe from vac to cyclone and a 50 mm from cyclone to tool.

That is the only difference I can see from my set up, which has been running for months with only a handful of dust gone through to the vac.

 

[ColeyS1]

Yeah you're right that the pipes are a different size, the vac to cyclone top is 75mm though. I went to Axminster today and am now a proud owner of a new extraction toy.....

I had to leave the festool and do some research on a bosh auto clean one that was considerably cheaper. Popped in a garden centre on the way back and found this metal bucket that should solve the collapsing issue. This is the last thing I'm gonna buy now, if this fails, new extractor.
I guess the perfect setup would be a autoclean filter hoover with a working cyclone that collects a lot of the dust before filling the bag. I really can't see the purpose of a cyclone if it still let's the fine dust through to clog the filter. The suction would be reduced- the only benefit being the hoover bag itself would be less full, but the filter would still need regular cleaning :|

Coley

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