Thoughts on knowing when to empty the Felder

Woodshop
#1

I seem to be emptying the Felder more than my share of generated sawdust. Perhaps I’m generating a ton of chips or I am overly conscientious about checking the Felder or others just don’t check it or I am unlucky to be in the shop when it is close to full.

Which got me thinking several questions:

Question 1: What am I contributing in terms of chips? I recently planed 1/8 off of about 20 square feet of wood which is about .21 cubic feet of solid wood. Kind of a typical jointing/planing session for me.

Question 2: How much expansion is there when you plane wood? A quick search of the internet found expansion factors for planing wood between 3 and 4. Ie take the solid wood planed off and multiply by 3 or 4 to get the volume of loosely compacted wood chips. Since I generally don’t trust the internet. I calculated my own expansion factor using my planer and dust collector at home – long story short, I got an expansion factor of 6 using pine.

So .21cubic feet of solid wood planed off * 3 = .63 cubic feet of chips at the low end to .21*6 = 1.26 cubic feet at the high.

Question 3: how much does the Felder hold? Per the Felder manual – the storage bins hold 500 litres of chips (2x250 each) or about 17.6 cubic feet. So I filled up somewhere between 3.5% to 7% of the Felder.

So I’m not generating a ton of chips.

Recently someone jointed/planed about 100 board feet of cedar – don’t know how much they planed/off but it was probably taking 4/4 down to .75 so maybe 3/16” or ¼” (a guess) so that should have generated 9.4 to 12.5 cubic feet of chips. Even that wouldn’t fill the felder. Don’t know what was already in the bins or of the expansion factor is valid. But… It takes a lot of wood to fill up the Felder bins (17.5 cubic feet is planing/jointing 200 square feet of wood 3/16” of an inch assuming an expansion factor of 6)

It might be useful to have a chart of generated chip volume given square footage and depth planed/jointed. But we should verify the expansion factor.

Next step: Calculate the expansion factor for our planer/jointer on hard and soft woods and generate a chart – I’ll run this test next time I have a lot to joint/plane because it interests me. Has any one calculated an expansion factor for our jointer/planer and Felder system?

But knowing what you generate is interesting to know but it doesn’t tell you if the Felder is full. Something even more useful might be to install windows on the bin – it looks like newer Felders come with windows! [Maybe it was option at the time we purchased the Felder that costs 2.7 gazillion extra dollars and we decided to save the $$]. Then it would be easy to see of the Felder is full or not.

Felder
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Anyone want to do minor surgery (but wait until Ian says it is OK)? One question – would adding our own windows somehow void the existing warrantee (if any)?

Bottom line- I’m not generating a ton of chips – I’m probably overly conscientious and/or others don’t check as often as they should. Charts to estimate chip volume are interesting but don’t solve the “is the felder full problem” like a window in the bin would.

@Ian – Thoughts? Has this come up before?

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#2

There are windows but they leak. Thats why they have tape over them. A few of us talked about modifying that so that it bolts to it instead of it being double sided taped.

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#3

I have occasionally gotten roped into emptying the Felder even though I virtually never do anything that feeds it. Slightly irritating.

#4

My guess would be you are among a group of less than 20 DMS members that actually empties the Felder while at the space, this may be an overly generous number from my experience.

I don’t feel your chart would get you the response of more people emptying the Felder. Instead, I feel it would further incentivise the majority of DMS Woodshop user like yourself to ignore emptying it. Because, most users of the Woodshop, like yourself only use the tools in that area for about 15 minutes at a time. So given the knowledge you only filled the Felder by 3% or 5% why would you feel you need to empty it? Instead leave it for one of the big users. Except, 20 or 30 people will pop in and use the Woodshop in a given period lets say 5 or 10 hours. Shoot on weekends I’m sure that many could come through in less than 2 hours.

So, instead of incentivising our own defensive response of, “I only did a tiny part of the problem, thus the bigger problem makers should have to deal with it.” We should try to incentivise checking the Felder whenever you pop by the Woodshop, as likely 20 or 30 people have done little projects and filled the Felder. I attempted this while giving tours of DMS, I would walk my tour group through emptying the old dust collector, while giving the tour of the space. in the worst case it got the dust collector emptied once during a tour night. In the best case it impowered a new member on a way to help through group in about 10 minutes at the space.

If we could find a way to publicly notice and thank those that empty the Felder, we would likely get more help doing so. But, that is work in itself.

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#5

Emptying the Felder needs to be added to woodshop basics. It was not taught in my class and not in any I incidentally witnessed.

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#6

It was taught and demonstrated in mine, so there’s that…

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#7

I am new to DMS about 3 months. I took woodshop 101 with @TSki. During his class he said, "Whenever you come in, shout out "Has anybody emptied the Felder?’, and be sure to check it. So it seems it is supposed to be part of the lesson.

I have emptied it myself several times.

If there is some way to seal the windows, I think that would be a big plus, because you would not need to shut it down just to check it, which is a problem if there are several people in the middle of a project.

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#8

@Hanna_Kessler and @jast you highlight an inconsistency that I also remember. This is also likely a part of the problem.

#9

I also think re-enabling (so to speak) the window(s) would be helpful. @TBJK do you recall a specific plan of action? Did we need a larger piece of clear plastic, a gasket and some bolts + holes added or was it more than that?

What if we hung a clipboard on the machine with a log of who empties it and when?

#10

At risk of being a naysayer, we’ve tried this before. End result: a clipboard with a perpetually blank piece of paper on it, regardless of whether the dust collector had been emptied or not.

Only two real solutions here: some sort of sensing device that makes noise or shuts tools off until the dust collector is emptied; or someone tasked or that has volunteered to walk around keeping an eye on things, e.g. a shop steward.

Even if Woodshop enacted a policy that Felder gets emptied twice a day by whoever is in the woodshop at the time, say 11a.m. and 7p.m., no matter what, rain or shine, would need monitoring and enforcement

1 Like
#11

Good points,

I wouldn’t call you a naysayer for pointing out past failures. I would ask though, was there any positive incentive for filling your name on the clip board?

Without a tempting incentive I would expect it not to work.

#12

You must be new here. Welcome to the Dallas Makerspace. :tada:

1 Like
#13

If sarcasm is your intent, I would point out it doesn’t come across well in a text only format. It is also not helpful nor productive in this thread.

#14

I volunteer to help repair the windows. Having “working” windows will at least help identify when the Felder needs emptying.

Quick internet search on ways to bond polycarb to alum or stainless steel:

  1. Silicon sealant with rivots or bolts to clamp the plastic in place.

  2. CA glue

  3. Two part Epoxy

I like #1 the best but I am open to other methods/suggestions. #1 is mechanical - can’t pop off and the silicon allows the polycarb to expand/contract and seals the joint. Easy to redo if needed. CA and two part epoxy can crac/fail especially of there is movement in the poly carb - like people kicking the bins to get them back in place. I’ll test the solution first (I don’t fully trust the internet) and won’t do anything until/unless @Ian Okays the fix.

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#15

I’m fine with attempting to repair the windows.

Sounds like generally it’s some Lexan/ plexi, some form of sealant/ caulk/ glue, and mechanical fastener. Makes sense to me.

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#16

We talked about it. Not much moved beyond that. It was one of the times I was fixing the felder.

I’d suggest a version on @dwolf suggestion number 1. Bolt the window but use weather striping as a gasket or even red rubber. If it needs to be removed, it can pretty easily be done.

I believe it was @PearceDunlap, @SWA, & @got_tools I think when we talked about it. Ive slept a few hours since then.

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#17

We could probably get a couple ultrasonic level sensors and a bar chart display. I haven’t used ultrasonic sensors but have used proximity sensors, Turk or Sick probably makes something that would work. It could shut the dust collector off when it was close to full or whatever level we chose.

https://www.turck.us/en/productgroup/Sensors/Ultrasonic%20Sensors

https://www.sick.com/us/en/distance-sensors/ultrasonic-sensors/um30/c/g185672

#18

To a certain extent, you might also be able to hook up a light or disable based on the amount of vacuum suction on one of the inputs to it (via a air flow sensor or something). Generally I’m able to determine if the bins need to be empty just by how well it actually picks up dust/chips.

I definitely think a window will help though. I almost always check it anytime I start and finish work in there, however it’s a real nightmare to actually get the bin re-lined up in my experience, so it’s not usually a super quick and easy check.

#19

We ordered the replacement compression gasket… supply chain issues have prevented the delivery… the machine is as made and engineered in Germany

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#20

Do we need a new bin gasket?