Question
I am thinking about hooking up two 5 hp cyclone dust collectors in order to increase the ability to overcome static pressure. Is this doable? From a cost perspective, I can purchase the two 5hp units for quite a bit less than a single 7.5 hp unit.
There are a number of ways of doing this. I could have both cyclones very close to each other, both connected into a length of ducting which would act as plenum. This seems like the most straightforward way.
A single 5 hp cyclone does a great job on one machine, but performance goes down with two machines. Two cyclones hooked together should be able to run pretty much everything in the shop simultaneously. I'm sure I'm missing something. I'm sure that a bigger fan on a big cyclone with a 10HP motor is a much more efficient configuration, but it is also priced at 3 to 5 times the price of my proposed configuration. Any advice is appreciated.
Forum Responses
(Dust Collection and Safety Equipment Forum)
From contributor A:
I think it would be simpler to divide your ductwork between the two cyclones. Have one cyclone hooked up to two or three machines and the other hooked up to the remaining pick up points.
Or you could stick with one cyclone and build yourself a distribution valve in between the connection of the main duct line and the cyclone where you open the line to one machine and close off all the others so that the cyclone works only with the machine you are working on.
If you really need to have a cyclone running all pick up points at once you need to calculate the cfm required first to see if this is doable.
