fine dust on cyclone

[drgene]

Hello,

I have had my Clear Vue cyclone for about 5 years and am very happy with it. I have it in a closet at the end of my shop where I also have my compressor linked to a compressed air system to provide compressed air into the shop at various locations. After all these years the cyclone is covered with a very fine layer of dust, held there I suppose by static elecricity and less of this fine dust on the compressor and copper tubing leading out to my shop. How can I figure out where this dust is coming from?

A word about my set up. I vent the cyclone through a muffler to outside of my shop. I haven't provided any return air to the cyclone and when it is on and you open a door, you can feel it being pulled into the shop. I live in Massachusetts and built my shop as tight as I could to cut down on the cost of providing heat. It seems like going against my gut to cut a hole in the wall to let air in as that would increase my heating costs. Any suggestions on how to do this to limit heat loss?

Best

Ron aka drgene

 

[bababrown]

fine dust on cyclone

Ron,
Dust leaking out must come from the positive pressure parts; the blower housing, the transition to your outlet duct, the muffler, and any other piping you have to the outside. It won't come from the rest of the cyclone and the bin since all of that is under vacuum and if anything will leak inward. (Some will come from emptying the bin and some will migrate into the closet from the shop but not much). You might be able to find a leak using incense to produce smoke. Run it along the pipe and joints and watch for any spots were it gets blown away.
As to make up air, it somehow is coming back into your shop. It must leak through all the tiny cracks and seams in normal construction. The lack of a vent probably hurts the cyclone performance some. If you open up a vent the difference you will notice is a draft since it will be a concentrated airstream. But about the same amount of air will come back into the shop anyway. Most of us in cold or hot/humid locations use a pair of Wynn filters to circulate the air in the shop rather than dumping it outside. You can go to Bill Pentz's site to understand the trade (health) if you haven't already done so. Other than that I would look at radiant heaters to warm yourself rather than the air and I also would look into air to air heat exchangers. In my small shop I have the opposite problem, I need to dump heat.
bababrown