Beginning User

I'm going to have to disagree. Woodworking systems are very fire-prone for
the reason you mentioned but they usually work well in practice. Metals
OTOH have to be powdered extremely finely before they become explosive.
I've used vacuum on metal chips for years with no problems, and it is also
quite popular in high-speed machining in industry. The best setup for HS
use is a standard shop-vac head mounted over a 55-gal drum with a ply disc
adaptor fitting the drum and having a hole for the suction side and filter
of the vac head. You don't need to seal them or even fasten down, the
vacuum does that for you. The hose should enter somewhat tangent, for a
cyclone seperation effect. I've filled up several drums per week during
some jobs and never had wear/tear problems with any portion of the setup.


At 07:39 AM 7/6/02 -0000, you wrote:

>Eric, using your woodworking dust collection system for metal chips
>is a bad idea. The main reason being that fine dust particles can be
>explosive. The metal chips hitting the ducting or fan at high
>velocity may cause a spark that can ignite it. Also, you need higher
>velocity to collect metal chips than for wood, and the metal chips
>are more abrasive and will wear your system out. Some comercial
>cyclones for metal chip collection have a rubber liner to retard wear.

Regards, Hoyt


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