What if?

[capncarl]

What if I mounted my Jet AFS1000 air cleaner on top of a rollered tool cabinet instead of hanging it from the ceiling like instructed? I currently have it strapped to the top of a metal assembly table because it’s height (36”) is perfect for pulling it up to my ShopSmith powered tree and Mushroom sanding machine. The Clearview 1800 is piped directly to this sander so it has a LOT of airflow but some dust still slips by. The Jet air cleaner catches more dust than I like to think was getting by the dust collector so it stays there until something better comes along!

Has anyone mounted an air cleaner like this before?

[dbhost]

The advantage is that you caputre the dust at / close to where it is being created. The disadvantage is the floor space it would consume especially in a small shop.

[mpc]

Having a ceiling mounted unit that you can easily move to be "at the source" is not something I've seen before. Fundamentally though it is the same idea as Powermatic's recently introduced "portable" air filtration gizmo: a big fan and filter that can be placed on a workbench or table close to the dust source. The Powermatic gizmo is rather expensive and it's pretty heavy for "portable" too. But it works well. There is another filter gizmo that came on the market a few years ago that is a floor standing cylinder - the Stratus Pro or something like that. Again, the idea is that it can be positioned close to the dust source. And, being close in height to your nose, it supposedly can capture the fine dust that you'd otherwise breath... capturing it faster/better than a ceiling mounted unit. Folks have used regular box fans with high quality furnace filters to make "at the source" dust collectors too. So if your shop space allows it, a ceiling unit mounted to a cart makes a ton of sense in my opinion. It would also make it much easier to clean/change the filters!

I have a hard-piped dust collection setup (with a HEPA filter) in my shop plus an overhead ceiling filter unit. I'm surprised at how quickly the overhead's input filter cakes with fine dust. Rather discouraging actually as I expected the hard-pipe 2-stage (cyclone) dust collector to be more effective. The cyclone does collect a lot of stuff... but in my shop at least there is still a lot of fine dust floating around for the overhead to capture.

When I'm going to do hand-sanding at my bench, I place a small cordless fan (RIDGID's fan) nearby just to blow the dust away from me. I use that fan when I'm using a ROS too even though I have hoses to connect the ROS to the hard-piped dust collector - I don't use the little catch bags that come with sanders. Not long ago I picked up Rockler's older model "Rock Steady Folding Steel Stand" from my local store's discount/outlet section and stuck an old router table to it. I use that outside my shop for sanding now.

mpc

[LCHIEN]

The reason why we have both dust collectors and air filters is that the bigger chips are easily sucked into the airstream of the DC. but the fines are literally sprayed everywhere by the high speed cutting and cannot be captured in the airstream. By having the Air filter given enough time, the dust will eventually be statistically sucked into the filter (with some small portion sneaking thru).

Having the Air filter close helps a little but the wide distribution of fines in all directions and the statistical process of circulating the rooms air multiple times thru the filter is what cleans the air.

My guess, anyway.

[Jim Frye]

Mine sits on the floor in a corner and is ducted to blow around the floor and back to the filter. It is also ducted to blow diagonally across the ceiling corner to corner. The unit on low speed turns the air in the shop every 3 minutes.

[capncarl]

I believe that a lot of my dust problems changed earlier this year when I replaced the powerhead on my old model Shopsmith with a new version with variable frequency drive. I only use the Shop smith for sanding with 6” foam backed spindles. The old unit sounded like a dump truck full of empty oil drums on a washboard dirt road. I had replaced all the belts and bearings and lubed it frequently but the movable parts were badly worn. I did not run it faster than aprox 2000 rpm, I think. Now the new VF drive will run will run from 0ish to fast enough to sling the sand off the sandpaper. Now I sand a lot at 3600 rpm and it spews sanding dust past the dust collection system. At first I suspected the dust collector but a thorough cleaning of the 2 large Hepa filters didn’t change anything. I purchased the Jet air cleaner to help keep the shop clean.

[LCHIEN]

Just remember the air cleaner is a time-area thing, you have to run it for hours after you do your operations whereas you can turn off the DC soon after (like 30 seconds).

[Jim Frye]

Yes, after working in the shop, I will let the air filter run. Sometimes, I forget and it will run overnight. Periodically (every year?), I turn the air compressor on, set the filter on high, and use an air blast nozzle to blow everything off inside the shop. Then let the filter run.

[dbhost]

Jim Frye I haven't done that in too long. I ran too many projects simply forgetting to turn the DC on at all that if I go to blow everything down, it will look like a dust storm in the Arizona desert.... Bleh...

[capncarl]

Thiis Jet AFS 1000 has a timer on it too. Really screwy remote control, you have to be able to see the controls which are on the back of the device where if you ceiling mounted it near a wall you would likely have to crawl over a workbench or tool cabinet to turn it on. What were they thinking?

none of my portable equipment on carts would work to mount the air cleaner on, so that’s out. I left the tablesaw top in place on the Shop Smith sanding station, it is aprox 6” above the powerhead which is a tad lower than its current location on my assembly table. Thoughts are to attach some drawer slides on that tablesaw top so the air filter can be safely slid back and forth and balance on the sander when not in use. It will be basically in the same place as now but positioned 90 degrees off. I may also look at installing a lazy Susan type turntable do hickey under everything so it can be pivioted to different devices.

[LCHIEN]

My Air filter is an old Delta w/o a timer.
But now its on Google home with a smart switch...
Hey Google, turn on the air filter for 4 hours...

Told to it from anywhere in the world!