Help with my dysfunctional Cyclone please?

[Jensmith]

Hope some of you might be able to help with this. I have a Camvac 386 90L triple motor camvac with the old style cyclone which was a separate bin.
All seemed to work fine initially and when I look inside the cyclone bin it's accumulating the chips and dust and inside the extractor bin there's very little. The problem is this: after hardly any time at all - ie a couple of hours of cutting plastic on the bandsaw I have a clogged filter bag in my extractor and when I look at the pipe going from the cyclone to the extractor I can see fine dust being sucked up the outlet pipe.

I thought it was just that the cyclone bin was too full initially so cleaned it all out but low and behold, after another 2 hours it's clogged again and the same thing is happening.

I can't afford to have this happening all the time. It's a pain to empty, I have to shake out and wash the bags and the inner paper filters also get dusty so theoretically they need replacing each time. It's only 2 hours!

I took some photos tonight after the same thing has happened again and there's not that much in the cyclone bin really. It's a big bin.

Hopefully some of you may have ideas as to how I can sort it out:

Is it:

a) I'm cutting plastic so the dust is fine anyway given I make miniature stuff and it's a 8/10 blade on the bandsaw so the dust is too fine to drop

b) It's a poorly designed cyclone and it was never going to work anyway

c) It's not a great design but I can do 'X' to sort it out

Hope someone can help.

Thanks all,

Jennifer

 

[Oryxdesign]

It's not clear from your photos which pipe you have going to the extractor. Have you definitely got them the right way round?

 

[Jensmith]

The pipe in the top of the lid goes to the extractor and the inlet pipe goes in the side port.

Did it work ok for you?

 

[jimi43]

I'm wondering if it's anything to do with static being stronger than the gravity effect of the cyclone?

Cut plastic will pick up a hell of a charge. When I cut some Corian on the bandsaw it stuck all up inside in places where wood dust has never reached....

Jim

 

[Jensmith]

If that is the case then what do I do?

 

[Oryxdesign]

Yeah it did, not as well as an Oneida obviously but I would say it caught 90%, I didn't have problems with the cloth filter blocking and I used to wash it every other time I emptied it. I wonder if using it with only 2 motors running effects the cyclone or perhaps it's something to do with static build up in the plastic waste.

 

[Oryxdesign]

Sorry I was typing slowly and didn't see Jim's reply.

How are you Jim?

 

[jimi43]

If that is the case then what do I do?

You need to discharge the static somehow.....not a great expert on static I'm afraid.

Bearing in mind...this may not be the reason though!

Jim

 

[jimi43]

Sorry I was typing slowly and didn't see Jim's reply.

How are you Jim?

Hi Simon my friend....I'm doing just fine...back to work full time and looking forward to the day that I can retire and do some proper tool making!

Great minds eh?

What about an ioniser Jen? Would that be the opposite charge guys?

Jim

 

[Jensmith]

It certainly seems plausible with the static. It was better when cutting wood.

 

[jimi43]

It certainly seems plausible with the static. It was better when cutting wood.

That's the way to diagnose if it is static...try it with some rubbish wood...create lots of dust and see what happens with the efficiency of the cyclone then.

Once you confirm it only does it with plastic I would say that it is fairly conclusive that static is involved somewhere.

Jim

 

[Jensmith]

Ok, I'll give that a try. Thanks Jim and Simon

 

[Oryxdesign]

Glad to hear you are well Jim.

I think that's good advice Jen. I've never had much luck extracting from my bandsaw, all the dust seems to end up in the bottom of the machine. I would suspect it makes much finer dust than the application I used it for although I do use a fair quantity of mdf. If it is static I wonder if earthing the cans would help.

 

[Jensmith]

I came up with a fairly good solution with help from ollys blog for an under the table extraction to catch it at source. Again, static is a bit of an issue but it does catch a lot of it. I also now use a bit of 4" to the bottom bandsaw port to increase airflow and suck out the dust in the bottom corner. I taped off most of the port so mist of the air goes to the smaller under the table port (small drainpipe elbow)

 

[Oryxdesign]

Those plastic parts will increase static build up

 

[sometimewoodworker]

FWIW Every time you wash the filter bags you are reducing their filtering effectiveness. They are designed to work with the bag and "filter cake" this builds up from the fine dust staying in the bag. A shake a few minuets before emptying is usually enough.

If the extractor is outside the shop this may not matter, but inside you are letting more of the nasty stuff through for a while after each washing.

 

[Jensmith]

Camvac instructions tell you to wash the bag so that's why I was doing it.
Bear in mind that the Camvac has 3 stage filtration so the air has to go through the first bag, then a paper bag and then another cloth bag before it's expelled by the motor.

 

[kostello]

if it is due to static there should be bits of plastic clinging to the inside of the pipe and all over...............

you could try this: http://uk.rs-online.com/mobile/p/static ... t/0557997/

it certainly helps when cutting pvc

sasha

 

[Jensmith]

There's certainly plenty of bits of plastic clinging.

 

[jimi43]

Of course! Anti-static spray as Sasha says! Forgot all about that...and it works too!

Jim