The importance of proper dust collection for woodworking applications.
Many professional woodworking companies spend significant capital on production machinery but fail to adequately address dust collection issues. Proper dust collection has many advantages, well beyond the obvious health benefits. An inadequate dust collection system can result in a poor quality finished product, reduced tooling life, and can damage your woodworking machinery.
Wood dust that is not properly extracted can cause havoc on your finished product. In sanding applications, the dust can build up on sanding belts which can load up the belt. This can lead to friction between the belt and the workpiece, causing heat, and resulting in a polished finish or a broken belt. It can also cause chatter as you are asking the belt to remove more material than it can actually handle thus the belt will skip because it is overloaded.
On edgebanders, it is critical as well. Laminate and PVC chips can fall onto the panel, and tracing wheels will roll over these chips causing a poor banded edge finish. Also, these chips can get into the glue pot and can contaminate the glue. On moulders and planers, inadequate airflow from the collector or poorly designed ducting will result in excess wood chips deflecting back onto the finished work surface, coating feed rolls and being pressed into the wood surface causing small dents in the workpiece. This will force the manufacturer to sand his product to remove the dents or discard the piece.
There are a number of formulas that go into sizing a dust system. Each diameter of the dust port requires a certain amount of CFM. Add up all of your ports and you will then get a rough idea of the CFM required. If some machines are only running periodically you can reduce this figure by installing blast gates to restrict the airflow from that particular machine.
Port Dia.
|
3″
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4″
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5″
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6″
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7″
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8″
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9″
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10”
|
12″
|
CFM/Port
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225
|
400
|
600
|
900
|
1200
|
1600
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2000
|
2450
|
3500
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BELFAB BA-1800 industrial air cleaner is a multi-purpose unit for ambient air filtering. This filtering system can be used on a wide range of industrial shop applications involving releases of fine dust into the air. The BA-1800C is designed to be suspended from the ceiling, while the BA-1800G is to be installed on the ground with the discharge going towards the ceiling, to improve air circulation.
Our Cantek range of portable dust collectors is ideal for smaller shops or shops with existing dust systems that are at capacity or which can’t easily be modified to add existing machinery.
Akhurst Machinery. Building Trust. Creating together.