# Ceiling mounted air filter



## Herb Stoops (Aug 28, 2012)

In my previous shop I made a ceiling mounted air filter that turned out well.
A fellow wood worker had hi furnace upgraded and kept the squirrel cage fan which he stored for years, finally handing it off to me.

So I made a box out of plywood and mounted the fan into it. Then I cut a hole in the ceiling of my shop and mounted the fan in the attic above the hole. 
Underneath on the ceiling I put a hinged plywood box. inside the box Was a Grizzly air filter, (Cost about $39.00). In front of the Grizzly filter I put a couple of furnace filters I could throw away and replace. The grizzly filter was made to be blown out and laundered.

Herb


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## Cherryville Chuck (Sep 28, 2010)

I've seen one other homemade one and recall a couple of members responding about purchased ones and all agreed they help clean the air up.


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## Herb Stoops (Aug 28, 2012)

Cherryville Chuck said:


> I've seen one other homemade one and recall a couple of members responding about purchased ones and all agreed they help clean the air up.


The nice thing about those old furnace fans, they are usually 3-5 speeds and I hooked mine up to a remote switch that I could regulate the speeds. They will move an horrendous amount of air.

If a person stops by an HVAC outfit thy can pick them up cheap/free.

Herb


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## hawkeye10 (Jul 28, 2015)

Great job Herb. I have not thought about venting it into the attic.


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## DaninVan (Jan 1, 2012)

*Global Warming!*



hawkeye10 said:


> Great job Herb. I have not thought about venting it into the attic.


Hang on...I didn't even notice that there's no return venting!
I just assumed it was taking shop air, cleaning it, and then returning it to the shop(?). 
:surprise:


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## Herb Stoops (Aug 28, 2012)

DaninVan said:


> Hang on...I didn't even notice that there's no return venting!
> I just assumed it was taking shop air, cleaning it, and then returning it to the shop(?).
> :surprise:


I is not ducted, just a grill in the ceiling about 10 'away. Ideally it could have a return air duct piping it thru the attic.
Herb


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## DaninVan (Jan 1, 2012)

Herb Stoops said:


> I is not ducted, just a grill in the ceiling about 10 'away. Ideally it could have a return air duct piping it thru the attic.
> Herb


Up here, N. of 49 we're so used to huddling around our seal blubber lamps, trying to keep warm, that pumping heat out (except in the Summer) never occurs to us!


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## Web Shepherd (Feb 8, 2012)

Herb ~ Nice project. I am saving this to my "To Do" list. Is the placement of the ceiling air filter critical or did you simply place it approximately in the center of your workshop? I noticed some fancy electrical wiring up in the attic. Can you elaborate on that? Also, does your attic have a continuous ridge vent? If so, I am assuming that you could direct the air flow toward the ridge vent so that it escapes to the outside. But I can also see Dan's point about wanting to capture that heated air in the winter. So it might make sense to vent the filtered air back into the workshop. 

Thanks.

Bob


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## tomp913 (Mar 7, 2014)

I talked to the technical people at Jet when I bought their air cleaner and they recommended that it be mounted at the wall with the intake/exhaust oriented to produce a circular airflow around the room. MY A/C unit is mounted on the adjacent wall so I'm hoping that this is going to work for me. I haven't been making much sawdust lately so really haven't had a chance to see how well it works yet. I cleaned the internal filters in the A/C yesterday so now will be able to get a feel for how much dust escapes the Jet and is pulled into the A/C - the air intake is on top of the unit, right next to the ceiling. I'm working on improving the dust collection at the source as much as possible - current project is mounting dust pickup in the top of the TS guard, and I've ordered the Betterley Stacc-Vac base to see how that works on collecting dust at a hand-held router.


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## Herb Stoops (Aug 28, 2012)

Web Shepherd said:


> Herb ~ Nice project. I am saving this to my "To Do" list. Is the placement of the ceiling air filter critical or did you simply place it approximately in the center of your workshop? I noticed some fancy electrical wiring up in the attic. Can you elaborate on that? Also, does your attic have a continuous ridge vent? If so, I am assuming that you could direct the air flow toward the ridge vent so that it escapes to the outside. But I can also see Dan's point about wanting to capture that heated air in the winter. So it might make sense to vent the filtered air back into the workshop.
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Bob



The attic was insulated and unvented to the outside. It had about 5' of head room down the center that I used for storage on the sides of the sloping area. I had put a plywood floor all the way from side to side. There was a folding ceiling ladder to get into the space. It was a good lumber stroage area too.

The power came into a 4X4 elec.box and since it had several sets of wires to the motor, I had an electrician friend hook it up for lo,med,hi speeds. he them hooked that up to a low voltage switch to control the speed setting by a remote push button pad.

The unit was mounted in the most convenient place in the attic and the return air grill was cut in on the other side of the shop ceiling so as not to short circuit the air flow.

Herb


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## Herb Stoops (Aug 28, 2012)

tomp913 said:


> I talked to the technical people at Jet when I bought their air cleaner and they recommended that it be mounted at the wall with the intake/exhaust oriented to produce a circular airflow around the room. MY A/C unit is mounted on the adjacent wall so I'm hoping that this is going to work for me. I haven't been making much sawdust lately so really haven't had a chance to see how well it works yet. I cleaned the internal filters in the A/C yesterday so now will be able to get a feel for how much dust escapes the Jet and is pulled into the A/C - the air intake is on top of the unit, right next to the ceiling. I'm working on improving the dust collection at the source as much as possible - current project is mounting dust pickup in the top of the TS guard, and I've ordered the Betterley Stacc-Vac base to see how that works on collecting dust at a hand-held router.


I have a similar air filter unit in my shop now and have it hooked to the light circuit so that whenever the lights are on ,it is running. It is located in the far end of the shop on one side about 5' out from the wall and seems to do the job.

Herb


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## DaninVan (Jan 1, 2012)

"The unit was mounted in the most convenient place in the attic and *the return air grill was cut in on the other side of the shop ceiling* so as not to short circuit the air flow."
So the attic _is_ the plenum! No moisture up there then.


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## JFPNCM (Dec 13, 2009)

@tomp913 @Herb Stoops

As my shop is only 12x16 I mounted the Jet in the center just below the rafters and it seems to work very well. It's also tied into the lights.


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## tomp913 (Mar 7, 2014)

JFPNCM said:


> @tomp913 @Herb Stoops
> 
> As my shop is only 12x16 I mounted the Jet in the center just below the rafters and it seems to work very well. It's also tied into the lights.


So, you're turning on the air cleaner as soon as you enter your shop. I haven't used mine enough to know if that's good for me or not. I was kind of thinking along the lines of turning it on when I left - it has a timer - thinking for some reason that the air circulation developed by the filter would spread the dust, but I may have to rethink that. I have a separator on my shop vac (track saw, spindle sander, band saw and soon the guard on the TS) and am putting together a separator for the DC (table saw, router table and jointer) so my thought was that I needed to pick up the fine dust left over or exhausted by the DC. Is the thought that the air cleaner should be on all the time that I'm working and also left running for some time period after I leave the shop?


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## Herb Stoops (Aug 28, 2012)

tomp913 said:


> So, you're turning on the air cleaner as soon as you enter your shop. I haven't used mine enough to know if that's good for me or not. I was kind of thinking along the lines of turning it on when I left - it has a timer - thinking for some reason that the air circulation developed by the filter would spread the dust, but I may have to rethink that. I have a separator on my shop vac (track saw, spindle sander, band saw and soon the guard on the TS) and am putting together a separator for the DC (table saw, router table and jointer) so my thought was that I needed to pick up the fine dust left over or exhausted by the DC. Is the thought that the air cleaner should be on all the time that I'm working and also left running for some time period after I leave the shop?


If the DC exhaust is unfiltered,then you are breathing all the fine dust particles before they ever get to the overhead air filter.
Herb


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## tomp913 (Mar 7, 2014)

Herb Stoops said:


> If the DC exhaust is unfiltered,then you are breathing all the fine dust particles before they ever get to the overhead air filter.
> Herb


I have, I think, the Delta50-850 dust collector and it seems to work pretty well - a little loud but, I wear ear protection when it, or any other tool, is running. Recent reading is telling me that I need to upgrade the upper bag to a 5 or even a 1 micron filter. Is there a better option? And should I consider wearing a mask as well?


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## Herb Stoops (Aug 28, 2012)

tomp913 said:


> I have, I think, the Delta50-850 dust collector and it seems to work pretty well - a little loud but, I wear ear protection when it, or any other tool, is running. Recent reading is telling me that I need to upgrade the upper bag to a 5 or even a 1 micron filter. Is there a better option? And should I consider wearing a mask as well?


I don't know that, I am not an expert in that, I know that a lot of guys are upgrading to canister type filters. Wynn Industries sells conversion kits for most bag type fiter systems to the canister type. They are really nice people there,you can call them and they will discuss what they can do to meet your requirements. I think they are in PA but they shipped my filters out of CAl so they must have a west coast shipping outlet.too. Their web site has a ton of information too.
Herb


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## tomp913 (Mar 7, 2014)

Herb Stoops said:


> I don't know that, I am not an expert in that, I know that a lot of guys are upgrading to canister type filters. Wynn Industries sells conversion kits for most bag type fiter systems to the canister type. They are really nice people there,you can call them and they will discuss what they can do to meet your requirements. I think they are in PA but they shipped my filters out of CAl so they must have a west coast shipping outlet.too. Their web site has a ton of information too.
> Herb


I talked to Mr. Wynn this morning and placed an order for one of his filters. My DC is a Delta 50-840 (not 850 as I said before) and apparently this is a pretty straightforward installation - install the (3) eye bolts in the body of the collector, fit his rubber gasket to the top of the housing and drop the filter in place. I talked to him about the Jet - he's not a big fan - and he recommended that I look at Stumpy Nubs video about "upgrading" the Jet and go from there. At this point, I'm going to get the modified DC up and running and see how that does, specifically how long it takes before the filter in the Jet needs to be replaced - that will determine how much further I go as I've got some other areas that I probably need to work on first,


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## JFPNCM (Dec 13, 2009)

@tomp913 @Herb Stoops

I'm intrigued by the idea of the Wynn canister. I changed the standard bag on my Delta 850 to the 5 micron version and with the Jet that seems to be holding the dust within reason. The last time I checked on swapping the bag for a canister the cost was close to that of a new system. So I would appreciate any details re prices and contact information for Wynn that one would care to forward.


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## Herb Stoops (Aug 28, 2012)

tomp913 said:


> I talked to Mr. Wynn this morning and placed an order for one of his filters. My DC is a Delta 50-840 (not 850 as I said before) and apparently this is a pretty straightforward installation - install the (3) eye bolts in the body of the collector, fit his rubber gasket to the top of the housing and drop the filter in place. I talked to him about the Jet - he's not a big fan - and he recommended that I look at Stumpy Nubs video about "upgrading" the Jet and go from there. At this point, I'm going to get the modified DC up and running and see how that does, specifically how long it takes before the filter in the Jet needs to be replaced - that will determine how much further I go as I've got some other areas that I probably need to work on first,


Bill Wynn is tops in my book, he wont try to sell you something that doesn't fit for you.

Herb


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## tomp913 (Mar 7, 2014)

JFPNCM said:


> @tomp913 @Herb Stoops
> 
> I'm intrigued by the idea of the Wynn canister. I changed the standard bag on my Delta 850 to the 5 micron version and with the Jet that seems to be holding the dust within reason. The last time I checked on swapping the bag for a canister the cost was close to that of a new system. So I would appreciate any details re prices and contact information for Wynn that one would care to forward.


I'm not sure if the 850 would take the same canister (Wynn P/N 35A274BLOL, 99.99% efficiency rating at 0.5 micron) as my 840 - the cost of that canister is $115, the rubber gasket that fits on top of the DC housing and seals to the bottom face of the canister is $21. Shipping from the Philadelphia area down to Baltimore was around $16. By comparison, the cloth bags on Amazon seem to run in the $30 range. Prices for the Wynn components are shown on their web site.


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## JFPNCM (Dec 13, 2009)

@tomp913

appreciate the information and I'll follow up.

Thanks.


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