Cyclone Vacuum Separator

[Martyn DuncumbParticipant @martynduncumb88863]

Should it be of interest Aldi have a Workzone Ash Vacuum £32.99 on their list for today 13 Sep. Have not seen it though.

Martyn

[I.M. OUTAHEREParticipant @i-m-outahere]

I was thinking of making a smaller one from 100mm pvc pipe so it ends up being i bit like a stick vacuum , when vacuuming the floor the long wand with a hard surface head plugs into it but also have a short hose with a nozzle that can be interchanged with the wand to do in around the machinery . The problem i mostly have is long curly swarf jamming up halfway along the hose which on my wall mounted shop vacuum is about 5 metres long and a pia to unblock . I did a test a few months back using the removable vac bin from an old vacuum cleaner i use to create vacumm in my sandblasting unit and it worked qiut well even though i had to bodge a lot of fittings to get the hoses to plug into the canister .

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Martyn Duncumb on 12/09/2018 07:18:31:

Should it be of interest Aldi have a Workzone Ash Vacuum £32.99 on their list for today 13 Sep. Have not seen it though.

Martyn

Possibly because today is 12 September?

Neil

[Martyn DuncumbParticipant @martynduncumb88863]

Oh, thought the week had been going rather fast.

Martyn

[IanTParticipant @iant]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 02/09/2018 12:12:48:

This, on homeworkshop, may be of interest to anyone in the Winchester area: **LINK**

https://www.homeworkshop.org.uk/index.php?option=com_adsmanager&view=show_ad&adid=33524&catid=2

MichaelG.

They are just under 3ft tall and about 2ft across (68 litre internal capacity) – so shouldn't easily tip. They are made of heavy duty plastic of some kind for industrial use – so very solid/rigid. They have lifting handles on the main tub and the top screws on (and has an air-tight seal built in).

So ideal for use as the collector for my new Cyclone device – at £12 each, a real bargain.

I collected mine this afternoon (he still has one or two left) – but better hurry if you want one

Regards,

IanT

[VicParticipant @vic]

I’ve often wondered if these cyclones are such a good idea why have vacuum manufacturers not made their own built in version? I’m sure they could make something more compact than the DIY setups I’ve seen.

[HOWARDTParticipant @howardt]

Cyclones are used in machine tool coolant filtration units. Dependant on coolant flow they can be very good as secondary separation before paper filter systems. Latest Aldi system appears to be a complete vacuum cleaner not just an ash can, will have a look tomorrow while doing the weekly shop.

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

Dyson have made a living from domestic cyclones. Not sure where their various patents came from since the technology is old. They do work though and the filters don't clog like a conventional vacuum cleaner.

Rod

[ZebethyalParticipant @zebethyal]

I built mine from a Dust Mite (£49.00) cyclone (this one has metal connectors) and a 30L plastic barrel (£14.50) originally used for Jam. It is small enough to be portable using the handles on the barrel and not too heavy even when full.

I use it with my Festool CTL Midi dust extractor with 50mm hoses and notice no loss of suction regardless of what I am cleaning up (including plaster dust) with very little making it through to the vacuum bag.

One thing to be aware of is that the barrel is under partial vacuum and if not strong enough to withstand this can collapse inwards.

[HOWARDTParticipant @howardt]

Done the shopping. Vacuum cleaner currently at Aldi is a simple all inclusive unit, not cyclone, just mesh filter.

[Clive FosterParticipant @clivefoster55965]

Vic

Grossly oversimplifying vacuum cleaners pick up dust and debris by entraining it in a fast moving airstream. When the airstream enters a relatively large container its velocity drops sharply so the air can no longer carry the the dust and debris so it drops out of suspension. The smaller the dust particles the slower the air has to go before it drops out and the longer such dropping out takes. Really small dust will float in still air! So you need to be a bit more cunning to collect that.

Conventional vacuum cleaners use a filter bag to remove the small dust from the exit airstream. The smaller the holes the smaller the dust that can be removed but the faster the bag clogs reducing airflow. All vacuum cleaners have vastly overrun high speed motors cooled by the exit airflow so there is a limit to how effective bag filtration can be before airflow through the filter is reduced so much that the motor is at risk of meltdown. Most bag cleaners have a temperature sensor which shuts things down before the motor melts if you run with a clogged bag.

Oversimplifying cyclone systems use momentum, swirl and velocity gradients to separate out small dust particles. They don't do anything for larger particles which drop out of suspension due to the usual airspeed reduction when the air goes from a small hose into a large bin. Still oversimplifying a major issue with cyclones it that they actually speed up some of the airflow so to work properly you need a much larger collection bin the get the same speed drop to loose all the other rubbish. Which is why proper cyclones always sit on top of a big bin. Within reason the bigger the better. If you put a proper cyclone on a conventional vacuum cleaner the device ends up too large due to the bin volume needed. Zebethyal uses a 30 litre bin after the cyclone, which is not untypical for a respectably decent system. No way will a bin that size go on a conventional floor sweeping vacuum cleaner. Cyclone and bin size is inversely proportional to the smallest dust particle removed. For really tiny stuff things get huge. Which is why woodworking shops need big floor standing systems to shift the minuscule particles that are a really serious cancer risk.

Regrettably the Dyston is an engineering con on the same level that Amstrad "Hi-Fi" was. It looks like a cyclone. It sort of behaves like a cyclone and separates general house dust pretty well but I seriously doubt if much of that is due to real cyclone performance. I suspect that a set of cunning baffles would work just as well. All the fine stuff sticks to the "cyclone" walls anyway and has to be wiped off. Tried one once on fine wood dust and the HEPA filter blocked up in nothing flat with lots of dusty air whizzing out. Getting covered in dust when emptying the container is an experience I can well do without.

Clive

[iNfParticipant @inf]

Another slightly different take on the cyclone type separation devices is this **LINK**

Search for 'Thien separator'. I made a very rough version of this using a 10 litre plastic paint container. I made the baffle out of scrap hardboard and used plumbing waste fittings for the 90° inlet and straight outlet. The result is that virtually nothing goes through to the bag in the cleaner. Another benefit is that it is a bit more compact than the cyclone on top type separation devices as it's built inside the collection container.

Dave

[Author]

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