Air Cleaner

[onedash]

How many folks have an air cleaner in their shop? Is there a recommended size unit to use to be effective? My shop is 20X20 with 9 foot ceilings. I'm leaning towards the JET 1044CFM for about $370. It bugs me that they don't list the noise level in the specs.
And then placement- Is there a sweet spot when mounting on the ceiling? Closest to where the most dust is made, or right in the middle or?
I have a dust collector I roll around to each tool but when it gets bumped so much dust goes into the air. Probably every time it gets turned on too.

[atgcpaul]

I have had the Jet for 10+ years. Mine is mounted over my TS (center of shop) with the outlet air facing towards the outfeed side.

I am not diligent about turning it on when I'm working. I'm conflicted about it, though, because I know it will clean the air but only after it has cycled air all around me. I should really wear a respirator the whole time, but then why do you need an air cleaner?

Here's an article from Fine WWing. I think it's a little short and sweet, though.

http://www.finewoodworking.com/FWNFREEPDF/011213054.pdf

[cwsmith]

I've given a lot of thought to it, but have yet to decide... I want to wait to the new shop is finished and I try out the HF dust collector to see what kind of problems I'll still have with the air quality.

Late last week I got an E-mail from Grizzly showing this one on sale for only $109. (http://www.grizzly.com/products/Hang...1116_G0738_Top). This is the second time I've gotten this in the past six months. It is a very short dated sale, but perhaps worth making up my mind and being ready for the next time it pops up.

I'm not sure of the efficiency of either the Jet or the Grizzly, but I think either might be worth the investigation if your shop air is a problem.


CWS

[capncarl]

I have a couple of Honeywell house type air cleaners. They are designed to set in the house and run all the time and filter out cigarette smoke, dog hair, dust etc. with a retail price of around $250. I find them all the time at thrift stores and yard sales for $15. They have a large canister type filter that collects and holds a lot of dust. Lots of filter for the money.
capncarl

[mpc]

I've had the Rikon 61-200 unit (Woodcraft sells it) for a few years now. Even using a regular dust collector with power tools (a 1.0HP Delta unit) my overhead Rikon collects quite a bit of dust. Just seeing how quickly the outer filter goes from clean-white to sawdust-brown (one shop day) is enough to convince me it's needed in my shop. My end-of-day shop vacuuming routine includes vacuuming the inlet filter. The internal filter hasn't needed to be cleaned all that often on my unit.

Some background: I use the "drag the hose to whatever tool is about to be used" technique with my primary dust collector; I don't have any permanent dust collector pipes. The majority of my tools are on roll-around cabinets so fixed dust collector piping is pretty much impossible. I've also modded the stock BT3 blade guard to have a 1 inch dust port that ties into a "Y" fitting added after the 2.whatever inch to 4 inch adapter added to my BT3's dust port. So I should be getting most of the "at the source" dust for the BT3 at least. I don't have a downdraft table though for sanding; either hand sanding or using a random orbit sander though I do use a dust bag on the RAS. I recently purchased Rockler's adaptable hose kit for small tools but have yet to try it. I'm sure much of the dust floating in my shop comes from sanding.

Some things to consider when installing an overhead dust filtration box: (stuff I've read elsewhere and/or my own thoughts)
1: if possible, position it closer to a wall so it gets the air moving in a circular pattern around the shop.

2: don't put it right against the wall, and not so close to cabinets or other storage that it ends up in the way. And don't put it where you might whack your head into it when using a step stool to reach higher storage, or where it'll get clobbered by lumber you're moving around the shop.

3: the exhaust fan should point AWAY from your primary work locations. I goofed this initially - I had the intake facing my Delta dust collector (which lives on the opposite side of my shop from the main bench) figuring it'd be smart to suck up whatever fine dust blows through the Delta's bag (1 micron on my unit). That put the overhead filter's exhaust fan pointing towards my workbench. So while I stood there working I got a breeze blowing on my neck... and any loose (sanding) dust on the workbench was stirred up by the airflow. Made the air around the bench horribly dusty! Even with the overhead filter about 12 feet from the workbench the exhaust blast was easily felt on my neck and at the bench. I've since rotated the overhead unit 180 degrees. Now any dust that floats up from my bench is drawn past my head/face to the overhead unit. So maybe it'd be smarter to have the overhead unit 90 degrees (i.e. off to the side) of the main workbench if possible. Can't do that in my shop.

4: ideally there is nothing underneath the inlet end of the overhead filter so it's easy to position a ladder or step stool to clean/change the filters.

5: most of the overhead filters have some sort of remote control. The "pickup" for the remote tends to be on the control panel side of overhead filters... which is also the exhaust end. Mine uses an infrared light type of remote (not an RF remote)... so when I'm standing at my workbench the sensor is on the opposite side of the machine! Bright (reflective) wall paint helps... mine is almost reflective enough. If I aim the remote at a particular spot on the far wall it works.

6: the units are fairly bulky in size and heavy - not a one-person installation job unless you have some sort of hoist, tall jack, etc.

7: My Rikon doesn't vibrate much at all... but just laying a board on top of it does result in the board transmitting some noise - a test I tried. Thus mounting it rigidly to ceiling joists probably would turn the ceiling into a drumhead. That test confirmed that I wanted to mount it via short chains.

As for noise... mine is not as noisy as a typical shop vacuum but it would get tiresome when run on high speed for hours. The noise is much lower in frequency content than a typical shop vac. I'd say it is less noisy than my primary dust collector as well. Most of the time I have my overhead on its low setting just to keep the noise down... I like to listen to the radio while I'm in the shop whenever possible. I wear hearing protection for any power tool use (other than the overhead filter) so I probably get to hear the radio about half the time... Pointing the overhead unit's exhaust away from the main bench and center power tool use/work area cuts the noise level too.

mpc

edit: Rikon specs from the user's manual:
1/4HP motor
5 micron outer filter, 1 micron inner filter
3 speeds
airflow: 48//750/950 CFM
noise: 61/69/74 dB
66 pounds

filtration rate: 20x20 foot room, 8 foot ceilings: 14 times per hour (!) according to the user guide.

By my calculations: 20 times 20 times 8 feet =3200 cubic feet... at 750 CFM it takes 4.27 minutes to (theoretically) filter all of the air in the room... or 14 times in an hour. At 950 CFM it takes only 3.37 minutes to filter the whole room volume = almost 18 times per hour!

[atgcpaul]

FYI. Just got the most recent Woodcraft flyer. The Jet air cleaner will be 10% off from May 13-16.

I see Rockler also has a promo where you pay full price and get a $50 gift card. There's probably a free Rockler shipping code around, too. That, with no tax in MD could be your best deal if you're going to buy again from Rockler.

From past experience when I bought my Jet jointer/planer, Jet runs the same 10% off promo across several different vendors so if you wait a little, you could get the 10% off with free shipping and no tax.

And I don't mean this as a gloat, but I don't know why the price of this thing is so high. $370 new. I found my Amazon order from 2004 where I paid $175 (originally $200 less a $25 promo and no tax or shipping). The specs look the same.

[dbhost]

I've had the Grizzly G0572 now for about, wow, I guess 6 years now. Not sure really. It covers my 18x20 shop just fine. I put it diagonally in a corner as close to the table / miter saws as possible. The idea is to get the air moving in a circular motion. I got the idea from Bill Pentz. Noise wise, I have never measured it, but most don't list noise levels in the specs anyway. It't not silent, but it's also not loud. It IS a squirrel cage fan in a metal box blowing through a filter. No noisier than my home A/C fan in the attic...

Grizzly has redone their site so air cleaners are harder to find, but just use the search box and type air cleaner, the list will come up.

Not sure about the CFM to cubic volume of your shop equation, other than when I was shopping for one the MFGs actually listed rated for XYZ size room like they do air conditioners. I don't see that any more.

IF you do decide to go with the Grizzly, and FWIW, it is on sale right now for $249.00, I would go to Penn State Industries and order replacement filters for their now discontinued model AC1000. That is a permanent washable outer filter (the unit uses two filters) and will keep you from having to buy paper filters every couple of months...

[Bill in Buena Park]

On the Grizzly site, the Air Cleaners show up under "Categories > Machinery > Dust Collectors". Note that they don't show up if you go to "Woodworking Machines > Dust Collectors".

[tfischer]

I have a WEN that appears to be a direct knockoff of the JET pictured above. It works really well.

Before I had that, I made a poor-man's version using a box fan and a high quality 3-M filter. It trapped a surprising amount of dust for the approx $30 it cost me to build it.

[poolhound]

I have the jet. Picked mine up used on CL for approx $150.

Do remember that Dust Collection and Dust Filtration are 2 different things. No matter how good your DC is there will still be dust in the air of your shop. If your DC is in the shop it will also contribute to the 'fines' that get through the filter bag. This is another good argument for external exhaust of DC as even if dust makes it through the filter it is out of the shop. However no DC is going to get everything from every tool and then even with good DC, bandsaws and sanding alone pushes loads of dust into the air. I bet many of you are the same and for a quick cut at any tool if the DC remote switch is not right at hand then I just go ahead can cut anyway.

SO basically unless you are have loads of through ventilation and/or work in an open garage get a filtration unit. And we all know we should be wearing a dust mask also! And I am sure we all do at ALL times :-(

[onedash]

I don't even have a dust mask. I was grinding out the rust from the inside of grill and I tied a towel around my face. That didn't do a thing based on what I was hacking up later that day. I should get one I guess. I was thinking of enclosing my dust collector and having an air filter over the opening to the garage. It would still be in the shop, but all the air leaving the enclosure would go through the filter. I would have to run ducts though to do all that. I don't think the DC is big enough for that . It's just a 1hp.

[LCHIEN]

you want CFMs enough to change ( or really, filter) the entire volume of the shop several times an hour.
You have 3600 cu feet. A 1200 CFM unit will consume the entire room volume in 3 minutes... that doesn't mean it will get every speck, but that much air goes through it with some probablility that any cu ft will get cleaned. Clever placement to circulate more air from all directions increases the probablility that each cu ft will get cleaned in an hour.

3 minutes means 20 room volumes per hour which is pretty good.

You can reduce the noise with units that have speed control... obviously slower speed, less clean air.

[onedash]

Ordered the Jet last night from Amazon for my fathers day gift. With free prime shipping it was cheaper then rockler.

[poolhound]

Ordered the Jet last night from Amazon for my fathers day gift. With free prime shipping it was cheaper then rockler.

Nice, your lungs will thank you. Now you have the big expense add one of these to your amazon purchase. I have the first one and its only $14. dont wear it all the time but do when making lots of dust when milling stock or sanding projects.

https://www.amazon.com/3M-Facepiece-Respirator-6291-Particulate/dp/B000FTEDMM/ref=sr_1_14?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1465404213&sr=1-14&keywords=dust+mask

https://www.amazon.com/GVS-Elipse-SPR451-Respirator-Medium/dp/B013SIIBME/ref=sr_1_3?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1465404317&sr=1-3&keywords=dust+respirator

[JimD]

I used the motor and fan blades from a box fan and a washable electrostatic filter in my last shop and it caught a lot of dust. I got tired of washing it. The shop got very dusty when I had bags on the DC. Even better bags (shaker felt) seemed to loose a lot of fine dust. A cartridge fiter worked better. In my current shop which is still under contruction, I use a shop vac with dust deputy and with a HEPA filter. I open the doors and let the breeze blow through. I haven't built a lot in it but I haven't messed it up with the fine dust I had in the last shop - at least so far. I think first priority is to put very fine filters on the DC (or vent it outside). After that is done, an air cleaner makes sense.

There are reports on the effectiveness of different DC setups on the Sawdust Creek site. Google Dylos tests to find them. They report these sort of units will clean the air pretty quickly. The other thing that struck me about the data is our shops are typically not dustier than it gets outside at times. I think we should work on collecting dust at the source and a air filter is probably a good idea but with these things, it seems we can keep the air to about as clean as inside air except for brief periods. Keeping it clean all the time requires a bigger DC than I am likely to have. Or may be possible with really good collection design.