Dust Collector Cyclone Lids

[dlcw]

Very nice. I like it and have been thinking about building a cyclone for a 55 gallon drum for my Shopbot which is connected to a Harbor Freight 2.5hp dust collector.

Lots of MDF cutting and am tired of dealing with bags of MDF chips and dust. Would rather be able to use my front loader to pick up the barrel and take it to the burn pile.

[mrdovey]

Don...

If you can afford the space, I suggest adding a second drum. I found that each separator would capture somewhat more than 90% of the dust it received - so that the first drum would catch all of the larger chips and most of the dust, and the second would capture nearly all of the very fine dust.

It's important to empty the drums when they're about half to 2/3 full for the cyclone action to work properly - but if you do that, the second drum will fill much more slowly and overall performance will be much better.

I bought the clear Lee Valley lids. They work well and make it easy to check the dust levels, but if I'd known then what I've learned since I would have made my own out of plywood (with clear plastic viewports) and saved half of what I spent.