Doubling up makes all the difference

[Cochese]

In trying to get better chip collection for the shop I had been bracing myself for a DC purchase. The planer was shooting wood like a snowblower. It was a constant mess.

I didn't think spending any money on vacs or vac hoses would be a wise investment, but on advise I purchased two 2.5" vac hoses for an experiment. After cleaning out a clog in the planer's chute, it worked perfectly.

Now i don't need a DC. However I had planned for the DC and I built a separator cart that the planer sat on. Unfortunately it became apparent it was just too big. While I like the idea of a cart-based separator, I need to do it smaller and I'll be looking for some ideas.

[sweensdv]

What did you do with those two 2½" vac hoses that eliminated your need for a dust collector?

[LCHIEN]

not clear what you did. Fill us in with a little detail.

What was the starting point... nothing, planer just shooting off into the air like a snowblower (per your quote)???

What was the ending point - two 2.5" hoses in series, two 2.5" hoses in parallel, shop vac, seperator in line or not at all, or what???

What was the beginning state, hoped for result, and the achieved result??

What worked well and why do you think so?

[JimD]

I run my planer outside on the second driveway. Then, hopefully, I scoop up most of the chips and throw them on the compost pile. My old AP-10 doesn't have the vacumn connection. I could rig something up but moving it to the driveway works for now.

I am interested in more specifics on what you did, however.

Jim

[Cochese]

Sorry about that, posted while I was on the go.

I have an AP1300 with a dust chute, a Shop Vac 6gal/3HP, two 1.25" hoses and a 5 gal bucket with a cyclone-type lid. When hooked up, the chute would clog and chips would shoot out the front like a Vegas slot machine. When a hose wasn't connected, it would shoot out the front and the chute.

I swapped out the two 1.25" hoses for 2.5" hoses and its just enough to get 90-95% of the chips going to the bucket. I thought I would have a noticeable drop off in suction, but it is comparable to before picking stuff up off the floor.

The planer was the big reason I was going to get the DC because of the huge mess it made. If these results continue, I won't bother with it at all. The jointer just drops down its waste, so not a big deal. The smaller hoses have been doing fine with the other tools.

I do have to keep the cuts at 1/32 or less, but its not a bad idea anyway.

[LCHIEN]

yeah, 1.25" hose has only 1/4 the cross-section area of 2.5"
so, 4 times the loss of suction. Not just doubling up, Quadrupling.

really bad when two lengths are being used. planers and jointers are bad because they make real fluffy cuttings.

If you plane a wide board and 1/16th deep you may still run into trouble.

[Cochese]

Yup, but my Wixey will help remind me to take shallower passes. I did test with a 9.5" wide piece of poplar and emptied the bucket to see just how effective it was. May post video or pics next weekend.

I'm going to design something where the vac will ride on or with the separator, so a very short length of hose between the vac and separator is needed. But even at 16', plus about a foot or so inside the separator, it worked. I'm thrilled it worked at all.

[Pappy]

This might give you some idea for a mobile vac/seperator.

[Cochese]

Thanks Pappy. I'll be spending a little while gathering ideas. I'd like to find some way for it to be either compact enough to slide under something, skinny enough where it could be vertical, or where a tool could sit on top of an enclosed structure.

[Shep]

I have the same shop vac. I also noticed a huge improving moving to 2.5" Just don't take a large cut with the planer