Tag: Sustainability

DIY Swarf ‘Cyclone’ Separator

I spent 30 minutes on a Friday evening making up something that has been on my project list for awhile.  I made a swarf separator to go in front of the vacuum.  Often these are called dust cyclones, or particulate cyclones, or separators of some sort.  I made a video of how I constructed it (which took longer than actually making the separator):

The design is very simple.  The pail itself was  from someone with a pool – it was used to hold bromine (I love re-purposing stuff!).  I’ve been saving the pail for this for awhile because it has a nice tight fitting lid.  I cut 2 holes in the top for some 1 1/2″ threaded ABS couplings and a 1 1/2″ to 1 1/4″ bushing found at a local hardware store.  One coupling was male threaded and the other was female threaded.  The 1 7/8 Ridgid vacuum hose fit well onto these couplings after I turned them to fit.  A long 1 1/2″ ABS elbow was used to direct the dirty suction flow along the side of the container.  The ‘clean’ air comes out the centre and into the vacuum.

I immediately tried it by cleaning up the lathe.  It worked very well for metal chips.  I’m not sure how well this design would work with saw dust – something I’m bound to try out at some point.  I don’t do that much work with wood, and when I do it generally is general construction – which usually happens outdoors.

I was considering purchasing a Dust Deputy – a purchased cyclone attachment for standard vacuums.  They are $60 for just the cyclone (still requires a pail with a lid) or $135 for a cyclone, pail, lid and hose.  Lee Valley also has their Veritas cyclone lids for larger containers for about $50, but I prefer the 5 gallon pail size.

I have about $30 into the project including the hose (the most expensive part of the project), which isn’t too bad at all.  Now I won’t fill expensive vacuum bags up with metal chips anymore, and I can keep the vacuum bag for filtration of fine particulate like grinding dust.

I didn’t make drawings for this project because I thought it was very simple.  If you really would like something, send me an email and I’ll try to do something up.

 

 

 

Terrible Design 101

Recently I had to fix a toy for the new addition in the family.  It was a car seat toy.  The toy is suppose to play a song when you push the dog’s nose.  We’ve had this toy for a few years and all it needed was a new battery.  I made a short video going through what I needed to do to change the battery.

I hate tamper proof screws.  The only point to them is to either sell more tools, or force people to throw stuff out.  They don’t keep people out.  People who want to get in will get in, and people who don’t want to will not.  And keeping people out of products so they can’t change batteries doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.  Then there is the problem of end of life.  How many people would just chuck this item into the garbage?

End users or consumers should always be able to remove and replace batteries without the need for specialty tools so they can remove the batteries before they dispose of the device, or prolong the life of the device.  Why is this such a big deal?  Devices with non removable batteries cannot be automatically processed by waste recycling facilities (because these facilities grind up the entire device – which would cause major issues with batteries).  This forces these types of devices to be shipped overseas where low cost labour disassembles them.  Often kids are doing this work, and the waste is not disposed of properly.

Apple is one major manufacturer that insists on fully enclosed non removable batteries.  This is terrible, but it helps their agenda: sell more devices or sell more over priced service.  Numerous reasons are given for built in batteries in small electronic devices, but in reality they don’t have any merit.  I have a inexpensive ($100) Android phone with a removable battery and it works great.  And if the battery needs to be replaced, I don’t even need any tools to replace it.   And when the device fails I can remove the battery and send them to appropriate recycling facilities, instead of across the globe.

We really have to stop designing for the dump and quickest assembly, and start designing for service and longevity.