Dust Collection: How Often Do You Empty Your Dust Bin

[Philip1231]

Ever since I went to a segmented head jointer/planer, I seem to be going through 55 gallon dust collection bags like crazy. Just wondering, how often do you have to empty your dust collector?

[lift mechanic]

It really depends what I am doing. On a large project I can fill 2 - 55 gal drums in a day. With small projects a drum can last several weeks. I have a Winn filter on my DC, I will turn the internal paddles to knock the dust out of the pleats at least once a day. When using the 24" drum sander I will spin the paddles several times a day it seems the fine dust plugs the pleats much faster that the tablesaw or jointer and planer.

[6270_Productions]

It is very difficult to calculate frequency of Dust Collector Fill Reduction (DCFR) based on a calendar, frequency, or project involvement.

I prefer to document my DCFR based on percentage of fill.

Therefore I can say honestly that I dump mine at 10% overfill.  I should try for 25% underfill - but it never works that way.

More than a few times I have dumped mine at approximately 75% overfill. 

That is just an estimate since there is a fair amount still floating in the air. 

I consider myself fortunate if I can get the darn thing shut down before I look like some kind of baked-brown-suger-coated cookie dessert. 

Shortly (immediately?) after the shut down I evacuate The Shop and wait for the dust to settle (literally) . . . somewhere around 2 hours or so.

[Phil Thien]

Never soon enough.

[R Clark]

I did a project last summer where I was planing quite a few lengths of 1X6 pine.

I knew I was getting close, but I thought I could make it and finish before dumping the DC.  It caught up with me, though, and I ended up spending a couple hours getting the shavings out of the ducting farthest away from the collector.

[Stwood_]

Mine all exits outside into a pile

[shoottmx]

Mine all exits outside into a pile

So does mine, right after I realize the da** thing is (over)full. YMMV

g

[barryvabeach]

I use a J. Thein Separator -  I know it is time to empty that when I see shavings start to collect in the plastic bag.  I also tried using a long dowel inserted through the top of the separator to gauge how full the separator is, but the results are inconsistent,  also put a plexiglass window in the separator can, but not enough light gets in there to see clearly.

To the original question, others have reported that changing to a segmented head greatly increased the volume of the chips.  I changed to segmented head a while ago, but have never tried to monitor whether it fills up quicker ,  since it would be some fairly detailed math .  Sometimes I am face jointing then planing a 12 inch wide board,  other times it is 3 inches wide, or just edge jointing 3/4 stock, so time that it is working is not a good indicator.

[fredhargis]

It seems to me that the segmented heads fill the can faster, though I'm not quite sure why. After all, it's the same amount of wood...just in smaller chips. I would have though the smaller chips would occupy less space.

[Philip1231]

Segmented heads seem to produce fluffy shavings that end up being quite a bit less dense then ordinary sawdust. I noticed when extracting the plastic bag from the 55 gallon barrel that the bag weighed maybe half what it used to weigh when I had the straight blade planer. It is of course way easier now to empty the barrel. FWIW, when I purchased my dust collection system, I went for the gizmo that tells you when the barrel is full. Once I got it dialed in (have to set the sensitivity on the sensor) I have not had sawdust backing up into the cyclone and filling the HEPA filter like it did a few times prior
IMHO one of these sensors (I have the Oneida unit), properly setup, is not a bad investment.