marc rosen wrote:

| Thanks for putting up the link to your site and the picture of your
| tandem 55 gal drums. Have you ever had the first drum fill up and
| clog without allowing dust to get into drum number two?

No - when the first drum becomes much more than about 1/2 full, it
begins passing chips through to the second drum. I've been glad that I
ordered the clear lids so that I could easily monitor the fill levels.

Actually, a clear lid on just one drum would have been enough. When
the first drum approaches its limit, I empty _both_ drums because I
don't want to have to empty the collector bag.

| I was
| thinking of running a second can - I'm using a 30 gal traskcan as
| my first stage - because I can fill up the first stage quickly when
| I make pine boards in my planer. However, I am concerned that it
| won't pass the chips very easily.

I don't think you should have a problem.

| I noticed that the collector bags where almost empty but the trash
| can was "overflowing".

That was the result that I hoped for (and got).

| I am not using Lee Valley's cyclone lid, it's from another
| manufacturer. My DC is the 50-760 from Delta- a 1.5 hp motor and
| I'm running through 4 inch lines.

I'm fairly sure that my 2 HP motor isn't really. I run only a single
4" line and the whole setup is dedicated to the 'Bot. The very first
thing I did with it was to mill the entire 4x8 MDF table surface flat.
It took close to 3 hours with a 1/2" bit; and by the time it finished
the dust was so thick it was difficult to see all the way across the
shop. This setup was my first experience with dust collection - and
does a first class job.

I chose the HF 2HP DC because it was on sale for $150 in a local store
when I realized that dust collection was a must. It had a hole in one
of the bags (I patched that with duct tape on both sides) and HF
eventually (took 6 months) provided a replacement bag.

| Thanks in advance for any suggestions. (Maybe just buying the LV
| tops would make a difference.)

I don't have anything to compare the LV lids to. They were just the
first I found that offered an easy way to keep an eye on the fill
level.

I think that if I were to set up something like this for a planer that
got a lot of use, I'd be tempted to add a third separator drum and use
the clear lid on the drum closest to the DC.

My lunchbox planer turns out a lot of shavings but not much dust. I've
thought about connecting it to the DC - but still do that chip
collection with snow shovel and ShopVac.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto