"Highland Pairos" wrote in
:

As I am waiting for the delivery of my dust collector, I have been
planning out the piping runs and the upgrades that I will be making.
I already have a Wynn filter here waiting for it. I have been
thinking about the need for a separator this whole time. My
understanding is that there are two primary reasons for a separator.
One is to reduce the frequency of bag changes, the second is to
protect the impeller and the filter from sizeable chips coming through
and damaging one or both. In the couple of weeks since I got my new
machines (TS, jointer and planer) I have noticed that none of them
produce chips that seem to be potential sources of damage to my DC.
The TS produces mostly dust, as expected, and the jointer and planer
produce mostly fluffy shavings.

My question is what kind of machines or what kind of operations
produce the kind of chips that will damage a DC?


Floor sweeps.

Band saws.

Drill press chip collection, perhaps.

The table saw sometimes sucks in thin offcuts, which I would prefer to
stop, prior to their wedging themselves in the overhead ducting.

Before I redid my system, with a trash can cyclone. I found also that
picking up hand plane curlies with a wand on a hose tended to cause said
curlies to wrap themselves around the impeller (fan).

All good reasons to spend either a couple of hours, and/or $50, and
buy/build a seperator.

Patriarch