Dust collection for bench grinders and belt grinders?

Do you have a dust collection system for your bench or belt grinder?

  • Yes

    Votes: 2 7.4%
  • No

    Votes: 6 22.2%
  • No, but I want one

    Votes: 18 66.7%
  • No, and I don't want or need one

    Votes: 1 3.7%

  • Total voters
    27

Cavediver

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Jan 9, 2016
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Do you have a dust collection setup for your bench grinders or belt grinders?

I'm planning a 2x42 belt grinder build and thought I ought to incorporate some dust collection if possible. While I'm at it, I want to add it to my existing bench grinders if possible.

I'm planning on using a mid-size shop-vac in conjunction with a small cyclone separator lid and a metal 5 gallon bucket, probably with water in the bottom. Will this be enough, or will I be wasting time and money?
 
For my metal sander no. For my wood sander yes.
I don't want to ignite anything, so no I wait for things to cool and then vac them up.
A DC for a grinder would have to have a metal can, no plastic in the motor housing, and some way to close it if it goes on fire.
Why would it go on fire.. well oils on the metal and the sparks, or just hot metal.
It would be fine in a shop, they could isolate and control, but in the house, a little more trouble.
 
Grinding anything, especially HSS and cobalt, is not nice to lungs so I agree that some kind of effort should be made to clear the majority of the dust as quickly and efficiently as possible. I have a water-filled tray directly under my lower grinder wheel and it catches most of the dust but not all of it. I tried making a shroud that hooked up to my Dust Deputy but it was a clumsy affair that got in my way and didn't seem to catch all the dust so I dumped it. I hope your iteration is more effective.

Regardless of what you come up with, use eye protection and a respirator/dust mask. You cannot catch all the dust ...
 
I built a dust collector for my surface grinder 15 years ago roughly based on a Torrit unit at a place I used to work at. I have dual ports on it so I can use it with other grinding equipment. The air is sucked into a dead space behind the filter box and comes out from under a panel 3" from the bottom of the pan before passing up through the filter bags and a HEPA filter before passing through the blower and out the top of the muffler. The design allows all the heavy particles to drop into the pan and the lighter particles to get caught in the filters. The blower unit I used is from a portable 650CFM HF wood dust collector. The exhaust chute (chimney) is lined with foam from a mattress pad to muffle the noise making it quite pleasant to work around.

dustcollector3.jpg


I placed rocks in the bottom of the filter bags so they wouldn't get sucked up towards the blower.
dustcollector1.jpg


dustcollectorstack.jpg


I've been running it for around 15 years without any problems. I pulled the front covers off a couple of years ago to knock off the dust and check the filter bags expecting to see evidence of damage from sparks and there was none, the stuff doesn't burn. There was very little contaminant coloration on the HEPA filter either. I just vacuumed the grit out and buttoned it back up.
 
I built a dust collector for my surface grinder 15 years ago roughly based on a Torrit unit at a place I used to work at. I have dual ports on it so I can use it with other grinding equipment. The air is sucked into a dead space behind the filter box and comes out from under a panel 3" from the bottom of the pan before passing up through the filter bags and a HEPA filter before passing through the blower and out the top of the muffler. The design allows all the heavy particles to drop into the pan and the lighter particles to get caught in the filters. The blower unit I used is from a portable 650CFM HF wood dust collector. The exhaust chute (chimney) is lined with foam from a mattress pad to muffle the noise making it quite pleasant to work around.

dustcollector3.jpg


I placed rocks in the bottom of the filter bags so they wouldn't get sucked up towards the blower.
dustcollector1.jpg


dustcollectorstack.jpg


I've been running it for around 15 years without any problems. I pulled the front covers off a couple of years ago to knock off the dust and check the filter bags expecting to see evidence of damage from sparks and there was none, the stuff doesn't burn. There was very little contaminant coloration on the HEPA filter either. I just vacuumed the grit out and buttoned it back up.
Clever! Can you post a pic of it installed? I'm having a hard time figuring out where the inlet is in relation to the grinder.
 
I don't have any current photos available (I'm at work) but here's an old one showing the chute. Follow the hose and you'll see it enters the box below the sliding shelf that holds the bags. There is a vertical panel inside the box that creates a 3" wide dead space with the opening at the bottom as I said previously. My hose connections are on each side of the box, I have the surface grinder on the right side and a Deckel carbide grinder on the left. I was just considering attaching a hose to my pedestal grinder (which sits in front of the dust collector) the other day.

chute062005.jpg
 
See if this helps. The red area indicates the dead space created by an inside panel and a covered top when the filter tray is pushed back in place. The blue line shows the air entering the dead space, then down towards the pan then up through the filters.
dust collector flow.jpg
 
See if this helps. The red area indicates the dead space created by an inside panel and a covered top when the filter tray is pushed back in place. The blue line shows the air entering the dead space, then down towards the pan then up through the filters.View attachment 234187
Got it. Thanks!
 
Got it. Thanks!
Really, that confused me more.
I just don't see that airflow from that, or from the diagram laid on top of the pic.
Those hanging filters should be receiving the already filtered air, and those should be doing the secondary filtration, catching the fines.
I see you are moving air toward the impeller, but I don't see where the air is entering. What I do see, is that you expect the air to go through the cloth filters toward the bottom then come back up through the filter on top? and out.. how? won't it go back through the cloth filters?

i just don't see that happening the way it's drawn.
I do see the ability to make it work, but not as it looks now. Since those cloth filters are made to fill with air, the air should hit the paper filter first and get pulled through the cloth filters and exit. So either the impeller housing needs to suck the air from the hose and send it to the filter, or the impeller needs to move toward the bottom and pull the air through and push it out. If those cloth filters aren't expanded fully while working then they will not work efficiently. the best way is to have the impeller after the filtered air, so that it is not hitting metal fines and destroying the impeller.

So what am I mising?
 
A spray booth or filtered exhaust walls is one of the best ways to get most particles out of the air in your shop. They're expensive, but they clear out the dust quickly.
Plus direct suction right on the grinder or sander, plus a good 3m respirator, plus good eye protection...
Open Dry Filter.jpg
 
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