As a lot a people are right now, I am building a dust collection system for my shop. It consists of a 5-hp grizzly dust collector. Today, I set out to build a chip separator for my planer. I had heard that the Thein separator was a good one to try to model, so I went online and found pictures of the design. I had been holding on to a dust collection ring from a 2-hp harbor freight system and decided to try to incorporate it into the design of my own separator. I also had a 35-gallon plastic drum. I took the ring and was playing around with some ideas on how to use it and noticed that it was a perfect fit inside the lid of the drum. My wheels immediately started turning! The thein idea had the baffles inside of the tub but mine had the baffles on top of the tub, allowing for a higher chip capacity. I glued the ring down to the lid using pl-375 and installed the thein baffle on the bottom of the ring. I put a top on the ring with a 6-inch outlet. The velocity is kept high due to the 5-inch inlet to the planer. To my surprise, this system worked above and beyond my expectations. I tried it out by planing a 2x4 piece of wood down to nothing (I think it was about 1/8 inch thick, when I was done!). Has anyone else done one of these systems using a dust collector ring? I'm curious to hear anyone else's feedback.
Doug
Doug