Official Luthiers Forum!

I have a modified Delta dust collector with an Oneida Super Dust Deputy and Wynn Environmental cartridge filter. There is no bottom bag, which may be a mistake I need to rectify. Today I blew out the Wynn cartridge for the first time and it was pretty much a nightmare. I blew it out the best I could but I am sure it is not in as-new condition. There were a few larger chunks that got blown out, which leads me to believe these could possibly fall into a bottom bag rather than hitting the filter media. There was a surprising amount of dust in the pleats on the inside which makes me wonder about the efficiency of the Super Dust Deputy.
All this is a prologue to the question asked in the title. It would seem possible to knock together a box with high efficiency furnace filters and simply discard them once they are clogged. The Delta is a 50-760, which generously lists its CFM rating at 1200.

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Stay with the happy people.
--Reynolds Large

I've heard that it is better to tap or brush out the loose dust particles from the filter, but not clean it too completely. The layer of dust clinging to the surface of the pleated filter or bag acts as a "filter" to catch the smaller particles (so I've been told).

I have learned to use air blow them clean. I have a grizzly unit that had internal brushes. That actually blocked the filter more than cleaned it.

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

I don't know anything about the efficiency of the Dust Deputy but for any cyclone the collection drum and
the connection of the cyclone to the drum needs to be 100% airtight for any degree of efficiency.

Making a filter box as you suggest should work as long as the filtering area is at least as much as your
Wynn filter and you come up with some means to seal against air leakage around each furnace filter. As
well, you may need some sort of support such as alum. mesh to prevent them from blowing out.

In the 7 or 8 years I've used my homebuilt 3hp. cyclone DC I've cleaned the canister filters once a year, at most.
There's hardly ever any dust in them to speak of.

Thanks for the replies. I now think it likely I let the drum get overfilled and the dust had no place to go but into the pleats. Time for a window at the top of the drum!

_________________
Stay with the happy people.
--Reynolds Large

I found the Wynn filter to be difficult to clean because the pleats were so tight. I think the extra surface area was the selling point but it became problematic for that reason. Bigger pleats are much easier to clean, I have to do it at work all the time with the stock Oneida filters and it isn't too bad.

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Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.