The first thing that had to be done was transform the motor and impellor from open air suction to more of dust collection. Since I already had the box made with the motor mount it seemed logical to keep all of this and build from there. So it was on to all the things I didn’t have the main two being the impellor cover with an intake connection on it and the output connection cover. The output was easy to do by cutting another piece of plywood larger than the bolt pattern of the impellor output and attaching a 4” flange inlet dust collection fitting (Woodcraft item# 152674). The input on the other hand was a little trickier, I first measured and cut out my circle out of plywood and then had to reach inside to trace where the holes are so I could line them up with the existing. Once the bolt holes were aligned and machine bolts selected the impellor cover plate was installed and another 4” flanged inlet fitting was screwed into the center.
The other thing I knew I wanted to do was have a Thein separator because my original idea was to vent the system outside (I think I have decide against this now but I may change my mind again). For this I used a sketchup model I found online imported it into AutoCAD and created my construction drawings and set out to build it. It is constructed out of MDF and aluminum flashing and I couldn’t be happier with how well it works. Even with no form of filtering on the exit port of the dust collector there is a very minimal amount of dust coming out. I do plan to add a Rockler Dust Right 5 micron bag to this (Rockler item# 20431). The Thein top hat is attached to a 32 gal Brute Trash can so I shouldn’t have to empty it very often which covered one of my original pet peeves about “Dusty”.
