Ineed a larger dust collector. How large is too large

I've recently purchased a Powermatic 221 20", 10hp planer. The 3/4 hp 2 stage roll around Delta dust collector I've used for the last 25 years is too small to keep up with it. So, I need to find a replacement. Since I am building a new shop, I've been thinking of going to a stationary cyclone system and have found a Delta 50-904 which has a 7 1/2hp motor and 2400cfm which is a lot larger than the text book requirements for the planer or any of the other tools I will have in the shop.

Is it worth considering the Delta, especially since the price is right, or would I be better off looking at a 3-5 hp machine? My longest duct runs will be less than 40' and I probably won't ever be using more than two machines at a time.

If you can power it and have room for it, I see no reason not to go with the Delta over a 5HP something else.

Either a 5HP or a 7.5HP machine can pose a problem with air circulation if your shop is decently air sealed for heating/cooling. Unless you have a pretty big space, you'll probably be locating the cyclone outside, which raises the questions of return air and/or fighting unnecessary static pressure and/or preserving your well-paid-for heating and cooling.

Just wondering, but instead of replacing your collector, what about adding to it? Multiple dust collectors, one turned on for small producers, more than one turned on for larger. Balance may be an issue, of course.

That Delta will work fine. Your limiting factor is chip capacity of a 55 gal drum. Keep an eye on that drum because once full all chips go into the second drum with the filter bag. Major mess to empty once the second drum overflows up into the filter bag.
I have that model connected to a Weeke Point to point with router. Works for me. But for a planer you need more barrels. I have a bigger system that used to fill up plastic bags. Those bags are not cheap and total PITA to dump. I made a big long steel hopper that just fits between the forks and has bomber doors on the bottom. Lift over dumpster and trip the lever.
Does OSHA get involved with your shop? I am not up on the latest but I thing an internal collector must be located against an exterior wall? But they prefer outside.

Bigger motor means bigger electric bill.
Gets even worse if the exit outdoors as in the winter you are pumping heat out of the building and in the summer pushing out A/C and trying too cool the neighborhood.
You may want to calculate total shop air volume and how fast you are changing it.
As noted if outside exit you can suck air in the furnace exhaust so other fresh air inlet vents become necessary.
Assume you know the pipe size changes needed with two machines to keep the velocity constant.
I wonder if bigger guy used with a vfd or pulley changes. Sort of the reverse of home heating systems with 3 or 4 speed fans.
Bob

Andy,how much stock will you be planing up? Production situation or occasional use? As Scruffy mentions, handling of large quantities of shavings can be a major PITA.

When I had a large shop, had a shopmade central system with a big hopper that held 8 of those giant contractor cleanup bags of shavings and dust. 3 hp, with a big cast iron buffalo forge blower. Blast gates on all the machines, was enuf for a 20" planer or 36" wide belt. Had a local raku potter who would come by for the shavings.

In my smaller shop, with the same machines, using a few 1-1/2hp Jet and Delta units. Works ok, but I don't take huge cuts on either machine. And very modest volumes of wood.

The PM 221 is an old cast iron planer and those machines need more cfm than new ones. I run old iron and a 7.5 hp impeller is what I need. If you find you need less, put a vfd on the system and throttle the hz down a little. More likely you will find you want to speed it up when running a machine at the end of the line. The working cfm range through piping, fittings, and restrictions inside the machine will be more like 1500-1800 cfm. Run 8" mains and 6-7" drops to the large machines and make sure the filters are decent. If bags, get new ones from American Fabric Filter and oversize them. Additional surface area for cloth bags gives better airflow and filtration. Dave

beckerkumm said:

If bags, get new ones from American Fabric Filter and oversize them. Additional surface area for cloth bags gives better airflow and filtration. Dave

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This for sure! For my 3hp system, I used a pair of custom made 30" diam x 10'ht bags, I think from those guys. They were open on the bottom and went over a pair of short cardboard barrels w/ plastic bags in them to make handling fine dust easy. Reducing back pressure made a huge difference!

Thanks to everyone for their thoughtful responses. I ended up purchasing the dust collector and hope to install it next month once construction of my new shop building is complete.

Return air is a worthy consideration. My 2 hp dust collector cab remove all of the cooled or heated air in my shop in under 4 minutes. I was going to locate it in an adjacent room without return air until I realized how fast it would exchange air.

I don't have that large of a planer, but I do generate a lot of chips and dust. I have a 2hp delta that I added a second filter bag to (one supported from the ceiling). My main input to this conversation is that I have a 8' x 4' x 4' box on wheels that the chips run through just before the vac unit. Almost all of the chips will collect in the box and when it's full, I roll it out of my shop on onto a trailer to bring to my brothers farm. The box is made from 1/2" plywood with an external framework of 2x4 lumber. I have a "false tailgate" with a cable on it so I can pull all the chips out without a shovel. I've been using this system for 30 years and am real happy with it.

Jack
Fort Loramie, Ohio
Machinist Tools

Be careful with air balance, if you suck air out of the shop and dump it outside, you can end up back-drafting your exhaust vents on your heating system and drawing the carbon monoxide into the shop. Then again, if you return the filtered dust collection air back into the shop, you may have some regulatory hurdles to jump with respect to spark detection and an abort gate. Then there's the whole matter of filtration, particularly with any dust that is listed as a carcinogen. It gets complicated and expensive in a hurry.

Last time I looked at the NFPA guidelines for interior dust collectors, the cap was 5,000 cfm before you were forced to install it outside. It sound like you've already bought a unit, but Nedemeyer / Dantherm make some really nice units with a high cloth to air ratio, so that the bags don't clog as fast. We have a larger Dantherm with a VFD, and the electricity savings of having a VFD and automatic (electronic) blast gates is huge. Our 50hp system often runs at around 11hp when only 3 or 4 machines are running. In our area, if the blast gates aren't automated, then they're not allowed - you have to run all collection points wide open.

Good luck with the new building and dust collector - please share pics when you'e all set up.

Here putting the dust collector outside requires Ministry of Environment Permits engineering studies etc.