Anyone tried this dust collector suppressor?

Patrice Lemée

Patrice Lemée

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Aug 13, 2002
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http://www.pennstateind.com/store/sup1000.html

Not sure it would work.

If anyone has any other idea or something they use already to reduce the noise that would be great. I live in a residential neighborhood and although that my neighbor hasn't complain yet I would like to reduce the noise a little if possible. I have a blower similar to the one in the link above and I am venting directly outside.

Thanks.
 
Not the exact same, but I have one on my shop-vac that does make it considerably less noisy. Probably 10-15db quieter. I would definitely consider it.
 
We have silencers on all our dust collectors. They don't get rid of all the noise, but do make enough of a difference to be worth putting on, maybe 20-30% of the noise is reduced. I bought the first few, but have made one or two since. There's not much to them, appropriate sized connectors on each end, with a larger metal tube in the middle lined with foam or polyester fiberfill , and a hardware cloth inner tube the same size as the inlet and outlet that keeps the foam/fiberfill in place. If you are handy with sheet metal, they are not very hard to make. Or you can buy a couple pieces of snap-lock duct pipe and use plywood doughnuts at the ends to join the larger and smaller pipe.
 
Thanks for the input guys.

One small question. How about the sparks? I don't have a spark arrestor on there and I would worry about the foam/fiberfill.
 
Pat, you might use fiberglass. I've built a few atv mufflers using ordinary fiberglass insulation with the paper backing removed. Never had one catch on fire although the stuff will eventually melt out and have to be replaced. Several companies make fiberglass packing especially for atv and motorcycle mufflers. It's pretty expensive and has to be replaced too.
 
Arrowhead, is the packing/fiberglass completely isolated from the air flow or is there some perforated steel there? The danger for me is from the sparks but of course it doesn't get as hot as an atv muffler.

Thanks for your help.
 
an old friend of mine completely silenced his dust collector blower by cutting a 55 gallon drum in half and welding in alternating baffles, then welding the drum together again.
 
We're collecting wood dust in my shop, so sparks are discouraged in any part of the system. The silencer burning would be the least of the problems. Given that your link was for a wood dust collector silencer, you'd probably have to replace whatever they used as the dampening material if you bought one.

You could use kaowool, welding blanket material, or fiberglass instead of fiberfill. Or if you contained it with window screen, you could use vermiculite or rock wool. Anything fuzzy that air can flow through will more or less do the job. Air does not flow directly through the material, but sound waves propagate into it and get caught. The dampening material is held against the perimeter of the big pipe with the screen/hardware cloth liner. The liner is as big in diameter as the inlet/outlet and the bigger tube is generally sized so you have between 1" and 3" of dampening material between the liner and the bigger tube
 
Patrice Lemée;8053880 said:
Arrowhead, is the packing/fiberglass completely isolated from the air flow or is there some perforated steel there? The danger for me is from the sparks but of course it doesn't get as hot as an atv muffler.

Thanks for your help.
Click to expand...

The mufflers had an inner tube that I made from light guage, small mesh expanded metal. It was basically like a glasspack automotive muffler except with an outer shell that could be removed to replace the fiberglass when it eventually burned out.
 
Thanks guys. I found some soundproofing/fireproofing fill at the local Home Depot. I'll give that a try

The other question is how much does the length of the muffler affect performance. I can make it a good 3 feet long if I want with the space I have from the exhaust to the ground. But is there a appreciable gain in performance between that and lets say 12-18 inches?

Thanks again for your help on this. Hopefully I can come up with something that will be helpful to someone else on here.
 
Patrice... I urge you to look into spark arresters. Especially if you ocasionally use your grinder for wood or leather. I have a friend who recently lost his whole shop from a fire that originated in his collection system.... and the hose was 8ft to the bag! He was just glad that he had a detatched garage or he might have lost it all.

Serious stuff, bro


Rick
 
For fire prevention, the safest way is to never machine/sand/grind combustible materials and sparking materials on the same machinery. We have completely separate sanders for wood and metal in the shop, kept a goodly distance away from each other. The metal sanders/grinders don't have dust collection, mainly because we sometimes work aluminium and it's easier to just sweep up before and after the job to keep the steel and aluminium dust separate

We looked into commercial spark suppression systems for our wood dust collectors, and found they work best with central systems that have at least 30' of duct after the last Y before the collector. This is so the detection circuitry has enough time to see the spark, and send the command to the water nozzles that "kill" the spark. Our wood dust collection is not centralized and there is less than 6' of duct from the last Y to the cyclone on all of our collectors so...

For those jobs where you have to grind wood and metal at the same time, like a knife handle, we use the metal machines without dust collection, and clean up afterward. There is less fire risk, but of course, more risk of dust in the lungs.

As to the optimum length of a silencer, all the ones I purchased are about 16-18" long for a 8" inlet. They work a little better than the one I made about 10" long (the length of the big tube I had). I suspect a little longer than 16" might be better at reducing sound, but the longer you make it, the more "friction" you will add to your system, which will reduce airflow a bit.
 
Thanks for the warnings guys. I do like mahoney said and have two separate systems for wood and steel. I also vent directly outside so no "collection" per say. I still clean things regularly, can't be to careful.

Started building the muffler today. Gotta have a connector made professionally for it (between the square exhaust and 5" round tubing of the muffler). I'll post pics and info when it is done.

Thanks again guys.
 
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