CT Cyclone Suction Loss

[silence2-38554]

Hey everyone, first post here!  Just yesterday I picked up a brand new CT MIDI and a VE Cyclone for my small guitar building shop.  I picked both up from a local Woodcraft just in case I decided to return the cyclone, as I have read a good bit about the suction loss issues.

Unfortunately, I got everything hooked up today & while I am very impressed by the suction straight out of the MIDI, there is a noticeable drop in suction when going through the Cyclone.  I very much plan on upgrading to a 36mm hose as well, but it seems the percentage of suction loss when using that hose will be even greater if using the cyclone. 

With the layout of my shop, I really, really want the CT Cyclone to work out.  I can't help but suspect the intersections of the black internal components.  There are no gaskets or friction-fit components to speak of & everything just sort of gets pressure from the rubber bump on the underside of the lid.  I understand this is probably to maintain continuity for the anti-static component of the vac, but there must be a solution! 

Has anyone else taken the time to dive into this & try some experimentation to eliminate the suction loss?  I have an airflow meter on order that should get delivered on Tuesday.  I'll probably try making some makeshift foam rubber gaskets for the cyclone assembly to see what happens.  If it works, I'll find a more elegant solution to maintain the anti-static function.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

 

[tjbnwi]

Open the top of the cyclone, make sure the baffle is in place and the sealed port is aligned properly.

I have 5 cyclones, no loss to mention out of any of them unless the guts get misaligned when emptying the bin.

Tom

 

[silence2-38554]

Okay, so my airflow meter came in today & I got to do some testing:

Measured at the end nozzle of my 27mm hose plugged straight into my CT MIDI at full speed, I got a reading of 249 CFM.  Running through the CT Cyclone, the best it could do was 182 CFM.  That's nearly a 27% loss! 

As a former mechanic, I know that even the smallest vacuum leak can cause chaos in a closed system, so I started evaluating.  I took the cyclone assembly apart & there are three very obvious potential vacuum leak points:

Where the 90º arm seats into the lid
The perimeter of the lid
Where the cyclone seats into the Systainer

I went to work with some tape to address these seams & test my results.  However, I had to be careful that some contact remained between the original components, as they are all carbon & that is how it maintains it's anti-static properties.

So then, I wrapped the outer perimeter of the elbow in plumber's tape.  Two full wraps seemed to be all it took to make this more of a friction fit.  Testing with just this modification came in at 200 CFM!  Now only a 19% decrease from plugging straight into the MIDI.  Definitely an improvement, but still not fantastic.

Next, I ran a strip of electrical tape around the edge of the lid.  This yielded 200 CFM again, so no real change there.  Not a big surprise, as the lid feels darn near impossible to move with the vac running.

Lastly, the conical perimeter of the carbon cyclone where it seats into the Systainer.  I ran a strip of electrical tape around the bottom edge of the funnel & that seemed to do the trick.  Testing after this got us up to 214 CFM!  Another win, resulting in only a 14% loss from going straight to the vac. 

The suction at the hose is noticeably improved.  It's not a complicated system, but there seem to be some glaring oversights for being a $375 unit from FESTOOL!  I'll most likely copy / paste this post in an email directly to them to see what they have to say.  Perhaps they'll come out with a retrofit gasket set?  All I know is that for now, I'll be seeking some thin foam gasket material to make my own.

 

[ghhsolutions]

Very interesting results, thanks for sharing. Definitely a quick and easy way to improve the performance. I'll be doing the same to mine today. Keep us updated on your gasket search.

 

[woodferret]

Nice work narrowing down the leaks.  I wonder though if there's a way to keep the antistatic bridging without resorting to wirework given all the 'gaskets'. 

 

[Rick Herrick]

Hi [member=76668]silence2-38554[/member] Thanks for doing this work, much appreciated.  I would like to duplicate this on my Sys-Vac.  Which air flow meter did you get?  I had an issue with another of my DD set ups and would like to investigate it.

 

[silence2-38554]

Hi [member=76668]silence2-38554[/member] Thanks for doing this work, much appreciated.  I would like to duplicate this on my Sys-Vac.  Which air flow meter did you get?  I had an issue with another of my DD set ups and would like to investigate it.

Any of the inexpensive meters off Amazon will work.  I just grabbed the first one that popped up, it was around $25

 

[silence2-38554]

Nice work narrowing down the leaks.  I wonder though if there's a way to keep the antistatic bridging without resorting to wirework given all the 'gaskets'.

There is still carbon to carbon contact at all of the problematic areas.  I mention keeping this a priority in the op, as anti static is one of the main reasons I got a Festool extractor to begin with.

 

[semenza]

    I think some simple improvements to reduce suction loss are great. On the other hand I have not found that in real world use that it is a problem.

  In my personal use of the CT Cyclone I do notice a loss of suction. But I have not had that loss create any significant impact on the DC in actual use. I might get a meter to check out of curiosity and maybe make some improvements from a 'why not' stand point.

  My cyclone is running on a CT33 (older vac model) with a five meter D36 hose going to a 3.5 meter D32/27 (which is swapped to a 3.5 meter D36 for some tools). 8.5 meters of hose total. Had no trouble collecting while routing 1/4" grooves for cabinet backs with the OF1400 a couple days ago.

  I use this set up mainly for routers, 850 planer, and pocket holes. I am sure it will handle sanders since they need less suction. I have not used it for the TS saws. I will have to see if it can keep up with 3/4" dados and the OF2200.

Seth

 

[Rick Herrick]

Any of the inexpensive meters off Amazon will work.  I just grabbed the first one that popped up, it was around $25

Actually that is not always the case, that's why I was looking for a referral to a specific one that we know did work.

 

[silence2-38554]

Any of the inexpensive meters off Amazon will work.  I just grabbed the first one that popped up, it was around $25

Actually that is not always the case, that's why I was looking for a referral to a specific one that we know did work.

Gotcha.  I grabbed the BTMETER BT-100 on Amazon HERE

 

[lshj]

The CT Midi has the maximum flow of 130 CFM, are you sure 249 CFM is correct?

 

[silence2-38554]

The CT Midi has the maximum flow of 130 CFM, are you sure 249 CFM is correct?

I caught that in the specs last night haha.  Not sure how / where they're taking their measurements.  I certainly wouldn't take my figures as absolute, but rather a consistent reference in my own personal testing.

 

[Rick Herrick]

Gotcha.  I grabbed the BTMETER BT-100 on Amazon HERE

Thank you.

 

[WillettBarrel]

I had similar issues with suction loss on the CT Cyclone and found this thread very helpful. I wound up running some of my own tests, and thought I'd post some of the results here for anyone else trying to navigate the same/similar issue in years to come.

My setup was a CT 26 with CT Cyclone and Boom arm. I ran the 27 mm hose that came with the Cyclone to the CT 26. I ran the 50 mm hose that came with the boom arm from the Cyclone to the 27 mm hose.

The issues I had included:
a) suction loss over the system that left small debris airborne, where it had been collected prior to Cyclone/Boom Arm install,
b) heavier particles settling in the 50 mm hose and never making it to the Cyclone
c) potential suction loss cause by the dust liner in the cyclone
d) I wanted to upgrade to a 36 mm hose and was worried this would exacerbate the pressure loss across the system. (I was thinking the CT 26 would hold suction force constant, and increasing hose diameter would decrease pressure and similarly air velocity. Spoiler Alert: I clearly only remember enough of my physics class to be dangerous, because that's not how it went down!)

I grabbed a $25 anemometer off Amazon; a different one than previously linked in this thread, but I don't think the model really matters. I used the same instrument for all measurements, so I'll just post relative values.

Plugging the 26 mm hose directly into the CT 26 mm yielded an air speed of 27.7 m/s. The cyclone, 27 mm hose with 90-degree bend, dust liner bag, and 50 mm hose with boom arm extension dropped this all the way down to 9.75 m/s, or a 65% drop in air speed. Again, I think the relative drop is all that matters here, and we can simply say it's significant.

Removing the 50 mm hose from this set up increased air speed by about 10%. Removing the dust liner from the cyclone increased the air speed by another 20%. I tried using the 50 mm hose between the CT 26 and Cyclone, removing the 27 mm hose with 90-degree bend that comes with the Cyclone (still no liner in the cylcone). This set up actually dropped air speed by about 10%. I also applied two wraps of plumbers tape on cyclone parts, as previously mentioned in this thread, and got  roughly the same 10-15% increase in air speed noted by the OP.

I was able to procure a 36 mm hose for the purpose of this test, and duplicated all of these setups, but with the D36x3.5 hose instead of the D27x3.5m hose. The 36 mm hose didn't seem as susceptible to loss over the different configurations. The difference between the initial configuration and going direct to the CT26 with the D36 was still a 40% drop. The other configurations only ever showed about a 5% improvement, which given that I wasn't being too scientific here, should be considered negligible. In general though, it's worth noting the 36 mm hose direct to the CT 26 was roughly 10% improvement over the 27 mm hose plugged directly into the CT 26, and produced higher air speed than the 27 mm hose in every like-for-like configuration.

My recommendations, for anyone else considering these different set up options:
a) If you're worried about large chips and how often you swap CT bags, then you can likely accept the pressure dorp and the Cyclone is a great option. But if you're in a situation where small debris collection is just as, if not more, important, you may want to consider skipping the Cyclone. The long-life bag may be a better investment to consider.
b) If you do go with the Cyclone, adding some plumbers tape to the internals is a must. It's a five minute fix that really does have a notable impact on performance
c) The Cyclone seems to operate slightly better without the dust liner installed. Though, it's probably a wash after the plumbers tape fix, particularly if you're mostly concerned about large chips.
d) The 50 mm hose from the boom arm offers additional reach, but otherwise only seems to impede system performance
e) The 36 mm hose doesn't sacrifice air speed or pressure. In fact, it only  seems to upgrade performance regardless cyclone or other setup factors. (I'm sure there are other threads that dive deeper into this particular subject.)

Hope someone finds this useful down the line!

 

[Mini Me]

In general and I have never seen the cyclone being discussed here cyclones work at separating the debris from the air because they are inefficient and slow the air down. Never calculate CFM using an anemometer, it simply doesn't work and requires very accurate placement to even get the same air speed results when making changes. In bigger ducts they don't work at all unless a jig is made to place it accurately as air flow speed across the duct is affected by the inside walls and is nowhere like linear and it is always turbulent at the duct entry for all ducts. 

 

[woodbutcherbower]

I run a CTL26 and a CT-VA-20. For 95% of the time the cyclone's hooked up and it works great. For anything more critical (e.g. cutting slate or ceramic tile with a Hilti diamond slitter) I'll unhook the CT-VA and run to the CTL26 direct.

The best of both worlds .......

 

[WillettBarrel]

In general and I have never seen the cyclone being discussed here cyclones work at separating the debris from the air because they are inefficient and slow the air down. Never calculate CFM using an anemometer, it simply doesn't work and requires very accurate placement to even get the same air speed results when making changes. In bigger ducts they don't work at all unless a jig is made to place it accurately as air flow speed across the duct is affected by the inside walls and is nowhere like linear and it is always turbulent at the duct entry for all ducts.

In general, you don't need to slow the air down to create mass separation. I agree less heavy mass will separate at lower speeds. But you do need high air speed to collect low mass debris. So, as others have mentioned, it really depends on your application.

As for calculating CFM ... well, I didn't. Nor did I need to. I only needed to see relative changes, so the anemometer worked just fine for the application.

As I said, hopefully someone else will find this helpful. If that's not you, no worries! Have a great time in the shop!

 

[darita]

Just FYI, I know you didn't ask this, but I use and Oneida 2.5 DIY DD and notice little or no loss.  I had tried a Dustopper and did notice loss, that's why I switched to the Oneida.  It's not as convenient as the Festool, but it sure does work.

 

[Mini Me]

In general and I have never seen the cyclone being discussed here cyclones work at separating the debris from the air because they are inefficient and slow the air down. Never calculate CFM using an anemometer, it simply doesn't work and requires very accurate placement to even get the same air speed results when making changes. In bigger ducts they don't work at all unless a jig is made to place it accurately as air flow speed across the duct is affected by the inside walls and is nowhere like linear and it is always turbulent at the duct entry for all ducts.

In general, you don't need to slow the air down to create mass separation. I agree less heavy mass will separate at lower speeds. But you do need high air speed to collect low mass debris. So, as others have mentioned, it really depends on your application.

As for calculating CFM ... well, I didn't. Nor did I need to. I only needed to see relative changes, so the anemometer worked just fine for the application.

As I said, hopefully someone else will find this helpful. If that's not you, no worries! Have a great time in the shop!

My point was how cyclones work not the air speed as that will still be high but slightly slower at the exhaust. Air/debris separation is affected by the cone height ratio and that is another bag of worms.