Something to watch out for. Dust Collection.

[dbhost]

Long winded story made short. I managed to suck up a home depot bag when I powered on my DC last night (I still move machine to machine remember?), prior to hooking the hose up to the planer, well that bag went into the Thien lid, and straight through, stopping on the cross piece in the inlet of my HF DC. The air was still flowing so I didn't think much other than it didn't seem right, and sure enough, one pass through the planer at 1/32" of cedar and the hose and separator were completely stopped up.

I cut the cross piece out and bent the remaining tabs back in so they wouldn't hook on anything, including me.

So if you have a DC with one of these cross pieces and you suddenly seem to lose suction, check that cross piece. They apparently don't like Home Depot bags...

[LCHIEN]

and small cats.

[BigguyZ]

and small cats.

.... I don't want to know....

[natausch]

Be careful about removing the crosses, they're there to prevent a particularly large chunk imacting the fan and causing serious damage to it.

Pulling the hose off is much less time consuming than trying to replace the fan.

[smorris]

Fun ensued when I removed the crosspieces and a couple days later sucked a shop rag into the DC. It was like an unbalanced washer walking across the shop while it beat the rag around the housing. It was nice and clean inside though when I took out the rag.

[LCHIEN]

i'm not sure i'd rather be picking items off the cross than having some of the possible items hitting the fan, colloquially speaking.

plastic bag might not be so bad, a rag as SMOrris described made the unit jump around. A hunk of wood could do damage to the impellor.

[LarryG]

I removed the intake "strainer" from my HF 2HP DC within a few weeks of buying it. I found that the big fluffy chips from the thickness planer and, often, the jointer would quickly clog the opening virtually every time I used the DC with either of those machines.

Every now and then I'll hear a resounding thwack when a small knot or something like that smacks the impeller, but it doesn't seem to do any lasting harm (and I'm not sure the removed grid would have stopped such small objects anyway -- I think its main purpose is to prevent someone from sticking his hand in there while no hose is attached). As long as you don't use your DC as an oversized shop vac to suck up everything that lands on the floor, IMO the risk to the impeller is minimal.

[Stytooner]

I built a separator barrel to prevent such things. Works well in a plumbed system, but might get tedious moving it around much.

[dbhost]

I built a separator barrel to prevent such things. Works well in a plumbed system, but might get tedious moving it around much.

Yeah, a Thien separator works pretty well. Like my 55 gallon build. Unfortunately not everything gets caught by the separator, and once the airflow drops to a certain point, the whole system gets jammed up...

[Stytooner]

I have a screen or hardware cloth over the exhaust of my barrel, so if a plastic bag were to get in there, it would either get buried by chips or lodge on that screen.
When mine is half full, it has to be emptied out, otherwise efficiency falls off.

http://www.leestyron.com/dustcollector4.php

[dbhost]

Eh, I can deal this way, just a learning experience.