John Beardon

I ramble about stuff. Sorry!

[johnbeardon]

John Beardon Photography

I'm an amateur photographer with professional aspirations. Subjects major on motor-sport, in particular the BTCC and associated support series. You will also find occasional landscape, wedding and abstract images.

[johnbeardon]

From the Autumn Classic at Castle Combe, October 2014

[johnbeardon]

I would like to make it clear that my numerous purposes in life do not include being your personal interface to Google

John Beardon - 2014

[johnbeardon]

Where clever people make things out of stuff.

[johnbeardon]

Up-cycled Cyclone Dust Separator

I’m quite a DIY enthusiast and have a bit of a workshop set up in my garage. Woodworking tools generate dust, lots of it and collecting this dust straight into a Vacuum cleaner is either a good way to get through lots of bags or just destroying the vacuum.

What’s needed is some method of dust separation. You can buy commercial products that cost (at least) hundreds and they all work on a cyclonic principle, basically firing collected debris at the side of a cylinder. The debris naturally begin to slow and fall to the bottom of the cylinder:

"Cyclone separator" by en:User:Cburnett - Own work with Inkscape based on visual inspection of this image which can be found on on this page. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

I’ve been Googling cyclone dust separators for some time and having seen a number of designs on instructables.com, I decided to knock one up out of some bits I had lying around.

After a bit of a scrabble through the pile of 'things that might be useful one day', I came up with a few 32mm waste pipe fittings, the bottom of a 'Henry' vacuum cleaner, complete with hose and a plastic bin that I think was used for toy storage.

Here is 'Henry'. The straight tube at the top is from the original pick-up hose and stuck to a 32mm pipe fitting with copious quantities of Sikaflex.

Underside of 'Henry'. The straight pipe is the clean air inlet and the right angle fitting where the debris will enter.

'Henry' mounted on top of the toy bucket. Both 'about' the same size, how's that for luck? The toy bucket has metal lid clamps that had to be re-aligned slightly to reach over Henry's lid. I've just used rubber bungees to keep the clamps in place. The wooden box you can see around the clean air inlet is to strengthen the top and reduce the shear forces on the Sikaflex joint. I probably should have used an adhesive that sets hard but I had a part used tube of Sikaflex that needed using.

With everything assembled and a convenient pile of dust on the bench, it's time for a test....

It works! There was a tiny bit of fine dust in the vacuum (being brave I used it without the dust bag as a test) but the vast majority is in the bottom of the separator bin. Result!

[johnbeardon]

Really?

Before I set up this Tumblr account, I read a post that Tumblr was now the fastest growing Social Network. I now find that none of my Facebook friends have an account and only 1 of my email contacts has one that has ever been used.

Not exactly promising!

[johnbeardon]

First Post

So here I am checking out Tumblr. Do I need another 'social' network in my life? Doubtful. Trouble is, Facebook tends to 'do my head in' nowadays with inanely facile posts. Google Plus is an option but it's confused and hardly anyone I know actively uses it.

I also want to post more than aged photos, so Instagram doesn't cut it. Hence the start of my Tumblr adventure.