dust collector/ new shop

[rocketmann]

Well my wife finally kicked me out of the basement so I have been slowly putting my new shop together for the last 7 months, it is taking forever because my job has me out of town during the week. I am only able to work on it for a few hours a week at best. It is a dedicated 12 X 28 building with 100 amp service. I am putting 4 gang 20amp plugs every 6' and 220 30amp every 10'. I am debating on buying a dust collector or using a squirrle cage type blower to just blow the dust thru the wall into the tree line. I worry that a true dust collector would catch fire with the grinding sparks. Either way I will be runing hard pipe with gate valves to each dust producing machine. If I go with a dust collector I would like it to filter down to 1 micron. If I blow it thru the wall it dosen't matter.. What would you guy's suggest??

 

[John L]

Doesn't Connecticut get a bit cold with the wind whistlin thru with the squirrel cage blower sucking everything outside? Maybe heat is real cheap there. Maybe you onkly forge in the winter?

 

[Mahoney]

You could go with a steel cyclone type dust collector and just vent the exhaust outdoors. The grit and dust will collect in a drum and the fine stuff will leave the building, no filters to burn. The downsides: venting air that is heated/cooled if you've paid to heat or cool it, still considerable fire risk if you mix wood and steel grinding on the same dust collection system, or if you leave combustible metal/wood dust in the drum. I would consider separate systems for wood and metal and would have a plan for cleaning out the system after grinding aluminium or magnesium. Venting outdoors solves the filtration problem, just be sure the prevailing wind won't blow the dust right back in the shop door.

 

[blindhogg]

I recently went to a smiths shop here in NC and he had a ingenius system that removed all sparks before it got to the vacuum. He had gotten one of those lids to a trashcan that was designed to have a in and a out line. I think they are primarily used for woodwoorking to remove the large chips before they get to the vacuum. But anyway what he did was put a baffle in the trashcan made of thin gauge sheet metal between the in and out pipes. The baffle extended all the way down into the trash can and ended three inches before the bottom of the trashcan. The bottom two inches of the trashcan was filled with water. The sparks went in down into the water and the air moved up the baffle from the other side to the vacuum. He said it removed all the sparks before they got to his vacuum system. Might be worth a shot. He posted it here and his name was nccooter.
Chris