Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Separator for a shop vacuum

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 Just learned about this design today. I need to use my shop vacuum for the circular saw I use on my PBB, but I hate having to clean the filter all the time to keep it efficient. There are a number of separators on the market that run form cheap to expensive, but all seem to be only marginally effective. This design is fairly simple and I would think very simple to build. The claimed efficiency is excellent, I have seen nothing that leads me to think otherwise. Check out this link to see the design (http://www.cgallery.com/jpthien/cy.htm) and this one for the inventors forum (http://www.cgallery.com/smf/index.php).

Here are pics of my drawings of one I plan to build.



I finally got around to building a separator, but decided not to use the barrel I designed for originally.   It was too large and tall for the area I wanted it to sit in.  Instead, I bought a 20 gallon metal trashcan.  

With my circle jig, I routed a .25" deep dado in .75" plywood with an inside diameter equal to the inside diameter of the top of the trashcan.  I then used the router and jig to cut the plywood to an outside diameter slightly larger than the outside diameter of the trashcan.  

This resulted in a top with a recessed lip that allowed the top to seat inside the trashcan for a fairly  tight seal.  I routed the outlet (center) and inlet holes with the same router jig set to 2.5". The inlet hole was set .75" inside the dado.  

Since I needed the elbow to not project any more than necessary into the can, I enlarged the diameter of the inlet hole and slightly relieved one side of the lip so that the elbow could be seated as deeply as possible into the hole.  I then determined the amount of clearance required (3.75") for the elbow I bought from Lee Valley, and progressively routed the .25" hardboard in 1/8" steps until the partition rested on the inside of the trashcan 3.75" below the top of the can.  The partition was cut from a piece that was slightly narrower than required, and offset from the center so there was a gap between the partition and the can wall that I could use to hold the partition.

I then routed the 240 degree slot in the edge of the partition at 2.25" smaller diameter than the outside diameter of the partition.  The standoffs were made of .5" copper pipe scraps 3.5" long.  with washers on each side of the lid and the partition, the partition was bolted to the lid with 3/8" bolts 5" long.

The inlet and outlet ports were purchased from Rockler, and attached with 10-24 machine screwa and lock nuts.  Beneath the outlet port, a 1.5" piece of extension wand projects .75" below the top.

The following slideshow should help clarify the above text.  You can click it to see larger pictures.



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