I have been on a mission to increase the air quality in the shop and this is the latest upgrade. I have been using the cheap HF dust collectors for years. As far as the blower units are concerned they work well and last forever ( 10 years so far). But beyond the basic blower unit they are horrible. The upper bag concept is just inadequate to say the least. The lower bag concept would be fine except that the unit is made of very thin sheet metal and over a period of time deforms to the point the band clamp will not seal the bag to the unit and the whole thing becomes a giant dust blower. So the first upgrade was the canister filter which as supplied will not seal to the unit because it is trying to seal the flat bottom of the canister filter to a conical surface of the DC which is also slightly deformed. So after doing some YouTube research I came up with making a bunch of mdf donuts for the upper and lower parts of the DC. This gives me a flat surface on the top which then gives me the full surface of the canister to seal to. On the bottom it gives me a round and rigid surface for the band clamp to seal the bag to. So far it seems to work perfectly. I checked in the dark with a flashlight and can’t detect any dust escaping. 
So for about $50 worth of mdf this seems to solve the problem. 
Paul

Looks really well made. Nice adaptation to the non-flat parts

I put a Super Dust Deputy under my HF collector and it works wonders.

 

 

The box next to it houses 12 engine air filters.  Here is a picture of the other side.

 

 

The container below is an old shop vacuum canister.  Made the lid clear acrylic so I can see when it is full.

That is a great idea. My canister fits well to my 25 yo Grizz . How did you attach the lower ring ?That looks like a wonderful solution. 

 

I saw a solution to create a vortex inside using a wok mounted upside down to lower part of the ring and that also helped.  I think it was based on the vortex Jet developed.

I attached the lower ring by making it a pretty snug fit and then drilled holes in the housing and four woo screws. So far it’s all working well. I have been making a duplicate for my sons shop. He came up with an interesting idea that allows him to quantify the amount of restriction the “cake” on the inside of the filter is causing. Bit of overkill. Doubt if I will bother. 
Paul

Paul, suggest you give the manometer more thought about the cake buildup on the filter. It's extremely useful. My last collector would clog the filter very quickly, so I installed one to keep track it it. I used a Magnehelic gauge but the results are the same. During long sessions at the drum sander I could actually see the gauge climb as I worked. In my case when it hit 4" of pressure I would stop to clean the filter. That collector was an Oneida and I've since replaced it. But here's a pic of how mine was set up. BTW, the Magnehelic was only about $20 (10 years ago) on e bay so this wasn't all that costly.

16 hours ago, Fred W. Hargis Jr said:

Paul, suggest you give the manometer more thought about the cake buildup on the filter. It's extremely useful. My last collector would clog the filter very quickly, so I installed one to keep track it it. I used a Magnehelic gauge but the results are the same. During long sessions at the drum sander I could actually see the gauge climb as I worked. In my case when it hit 4" of pressure I would stop to clean the filter. That collector was an Oneida and I've since replaced it. But here's a pic of how mine was set up. BTW, the Magnehelic was only about $20 (10 years ago) on e bay so this wasn't all that costly.

Now the start at 25 for a 2 inch and go up to 350 and minimum shipping usually 15+. Is this just connected via tube ?

Did find vacuum gauges and pressure gauges on Amazon starting at about 8. I am guessing here you would use pressure gauge after blower and vacuum gauge before the blower???

Edited January 3, 20233 yr by Gerald

I'll have to go look at which port I plugged the tube into, I don't remember. But I started with a 4" (I think, I'll check on that as well) and found the needle bounced so much I couldn't determine the reading. So I switched to the 10" in the pic and it works very well. Yes, the tube on mine is on the discharge side since I wanted to monitor the filters. Oneida sells a kit to the same thing, though they include a pitot tube, but it was about $150. They recommended cleaning the filter at 4" of pressure, so that's what i did. Anyway, when i get put to the shop later I check on meter, and post back.

Thanks Fred. I did see the Onieda kit which looks pretty good. 
Paul

I went out to the shop to confirm how I had that gauge hooked up. The plastic tube just runs to the high pressure port on the cab of the gauge. There is also a low pressure port that stays inactive for this.

I went ahead and quickly put together a standard water column type indicator. The Onieda one takes about 10 days so I thought I would play with this. 
Paul

Only my opinion, but I think it will do the same thing after you use it a while. What did you use to color the water (and is that water)?

I used water and red food coloring. 
Paul

My collector is in the attic. Wondering if

i dropped a tube down would that work?

I'm sure who the question is intended, but my guess would be it will do just fine. I remember at work we had some tubes run from the plant ceiling (24') down to a Magnehelic at floor level and they had usable readings; I have to think a water column would be the same way. One thing I noticed is that it looks like Paul plugged the end of his tube. The one hs son did doesn't seem to be plugged. Another guess...I'm not sure how well they would work with the end of the tube plugged.

Edited January 5, 20233 yr by Fred W. Hargis Jr

I plugged it with a piece of cotton just to keep the dust out. I left it fairly loose fitting so it shouldn’t impede anything. Gerald as far as making a long run of tubing I don’t think it would matter. There isn’t enough pressure to worry about the tube collapsing or absorbing pressure. Would a longer air column possibly reduce the reading ? Not sure but it’s all a relative reading anyway. You can determine the max pressure by just taping a plastic bag over the filter but I’m not even sure that would be worth the trouble. When the column goes up an inch or two it would be time to blow it out. Another method would be to install the apparatus after letting the filter operate for an appropriate amount of time ( a few months ?) and mark where the column is at that point and then blow out the filter. 
Paul