Visit to ClearVue Cyclones

[McRabbet]

On Tuesday, three of "we Westerners" (Jerry Grant = Purple Thumb; Steven Keull of Mountain Sawyers; and I) drove down to the shop facility of ClearVue Cyclones, near Pickens, SC. All of us are considering upgrades to our dust collection systems and we wanted to see these very efficient units "in the flesh". We all were impressed by the systems and the main force behind ClearVue, machinist and woodworker Ed Morgano. ClearVue is building Cyclones using the design guidance of Bill Pentz and makes them as the company name implies, of clear plastic materials. I took a number of pictures to share -- see my Dust Collection Album for more details on each picture and more.
Ed Morgano CV1800 Ready to Ship Blower Impeller Blower Housing
6" Blast Gate Mini CV06 Shop Vac Unit CNC Router Dust Barrel

Why is there a 25' tape measure in the fiber drum used to collect dust at the bottom of the cyclone? Well, Ed placed it in the palm of his hand under the dust hood on their large CNC machine and it disappeared up nearly 10 feet through 6" clear flexible duct to the main duct line and then shot another 20 feet to the CV Max cyclone in about 2 seconds! Since the blower is downstream of the cyclone, it never hits the impeller and the cyclone was undamaged. The CV Max pulls at 1900 CFM, the CV1800 at over 1400 CFM and the CV1400 at more than 800 CFM.

One last point about efficiency. Ed said they installed the CV Max in the shop about 4 months ago and the filters have not needed cleaning yet -- we know users of other "commercial" units need to clean their filters nearly every time they empty the collection bin.

We would all have brought one back to NC if we could have (they are filling orders from the end of September right now). I'm placing my order for a CV1800 this week, and I'm sure Jerry and Steve won't be far behind me! They cost over $1,000, but are worth every penny!

[WoodWrangler]

This is the one I'm getting ... one day

Thanks for the pics!

[McRabbet]

I ordered mine late this afternoon -- for folks that may be interested, Ed Morgano is going to come to the November meeting of the Western NC Woodworkers Association on Nov 3rd. We're having our Fall BBQ and will feature a Tool/Wood Swap Session as well. Ed is going to demonstrate the Mini CV06 SHop Vac Cyclone. I'll post more details as we finalize meeting space.

[Alan in Little Washington]

The Clearvu is a great system. I wish the mini cyclone wasn't so expensive (I'm cheap) but it costs more than I spent building my big cyclone. I guess I'll have to make a mini. I wanted to make a clear one but don't have that special stuff Ed uses so I'll make one out of sheet metal.

[McRabbet]

$120 for the mini is a little pricey, but I'm using about $40-60 worth of drywall dust bags in my 16 gallon Shop Vac per year, so the payback may well be worth it. I've found that the bags plus a conventional $10 filter work fine, but they fill up fairly quickly with sanding dust. As I think you know, if you use Bill Pentz's spreadsheet to calculate the dimensions for a 6" unit, it will calculate the part sizes for you.

Keep us posted if you do build one.

[Trog777]

They were running an anniversary special last month when I got mine. Timing couldn't have been better. Now I just gotta get er up and running. I picked up the mini too while I was at it and it was on sale. I rigged it up to my shop vac. I put a hepa in the vac and now all I gotta do is dump the 5gal bucket occasionally. I put the whole set up on a rolling cart, and made kind of a rotating boom out of a 2X to hold the hose. That way I can roll it up behind me, or on the other side of the work, and swing the boom over to keep the hose out of the way. I had most everything on hand except the hose (expensive lil sucker) and the mini, so outlay wasn't too bad. It works outstanding with my PCmag and one of the I-Socket switches. My old ROS doesn't have any dust collection so I need to upgrade it.

Hopefully I'll get started on the 1800 install shortly.