New Shopsmith DC-6000 Dust Collector

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RFGuy
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Re: New Shopsmith DC-6000 Dust Collector

Post by RFGuy »

DLB wrote: Fri Aug 27, 2021 1:38 pm Yes, it is a plastic cooling fan and blows warm dusty air out the back through the grate. But where is that air coming from? Mine is only a subjective opinion. But the fan is recessed in the housing. And the grate is considerably smaller than the opening in that pic. So I seriously doubt that the fan is moving an appreciable amount of cooling air over the length of the motor case. I'm not a fluid dynamics guy, but I see no way that this fan is pulling shop air through that grate, routing it back along the outside perimeter of the housing, and then back along the motor case and out the front through the same grate with no ducts. What I see when I look at this more oven like. I suspect the fan and motor case are designed for cooling in free air, preferably mounted vertically with the fan at the top.

I know a lot more about the leak now than I did when I duct-taped this. The tape was quick and dirty to help me definitively determine between a couple of possible/probable sources, and it was already in stock. ;) It was also enough to satisfy me that this thing has serious cooling challenges. I don't think I had it fully sealed, at the time I had no intent to fully seal it unless/until I get a new motor housing.

- David
I agree with your previous comment regarding not wanting the dust from inside of the DC-3300 to get into the motor, so I think you have no choice but to seal off the motor housing compartment from the inside of the DC-3300. At least, that is my opinion. So, if the motor housing is sealed on the one end and open on the back end to the outside, then I agree this is less than ideal for cooling the motor. What I envision is that there will be some natural convection that results in a small amount of heat to escape from the motor to the ambient air inside the motor housing and eventually expelled with natural convection currents out the back vented opening of the DC-3300. However, with the addition of that crude fan on the back of the motor it should blow even more hot ambient air from around the motor and expel it out the back. When it does so, it will create a bit of a negative pressure situation in the air around the motor housing causing more air turnover between this motor housing air and the air outside the DC-3300. If the fan is blowing air out, then I expect makeup air to be sucked in on the periphery around the diameter of the fan until it reaches the backside of the fan. It may short cycle a bit, but it should work to crudely cool the motor. Due to 2nd law of thermodynamics, heat will naturally flow from an area of higher heat to an area/object that is cooler, so this will cool the motor, but the real question is whether it cools it fast enough to keep the thermal rise down. Only way to know for sure would be to thermocouple the motor and test it with & without sealing the front of the motor housing. Just have to keep the motor to a reasonable temperature to not degrade its performance/longevity, so this cooling system doesn't have to be perfect. Remember active cooling is about managing thermal rise, not preventing any rise, so as long as that crude plastic fan keeps hot air moving away from the motor such that the motor stays under its thermal design limit then it should be "okay".

Just trying to think of ways to improve what you have got. Another option would be to mod it to have a PVC inlet near the front of the motor housing and connect this to outside, clean air, but this new inlet might be difficult to seal inside the DC-3300. Also, it doesn't look like that great of a fan on the back of the motor, so I am not sure how much airflow would actually flow through a new air inlet if you created one. An alternative might be to use small computer case fans mounted in the 4 corners on the inside of the motor housing with a push-pull configuration to help exhaust more motor heat out the back of the DC-3300 while simultaneously pulling more air in with the pulling (computer) fans.
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dusty
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Re: New Shopsmith DC-6000 Dust Collector

Post by dusty »

I don't think that the cooling fan is intended to "draw air" at all. I believe it just moves the air same as did the DC3300. In the DC3300 the motor is mounted to the back wall pf the fan housing. Whatever air flow there might have been it had to be drawn through some tiny cracks around the motor.

The fan draws air from the manifold and dumps it directly into the dust bag. There is no seal between to two pieces that make of the housing. If that joint does leak how does it adversely effect the dust collector. It is enclosed within the dust chamber. It don't see how it effects the draw.
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The DC3300 Motor Housing and part of the Fan Housing
The DC3300 Motor Housing and part of the Fan Housing
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The Motor Housing
The Motor Housing
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DLB
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Re: New Shopsmith DC-6000 Dust Collector

Post by DLB »

dusty wrote: Fri Aug 27, 2021 3:41 pm I don't think that the cooling fan is intended to "draw air" at all. I believe it just moves the air same as did the DC3300. In the DC3300 the motor is mounted to the back wall pf the fan housing. Whatever air flow there might have been it had to be drawn through some tiny cracks around the motor.

The fan draws air from the manifold and dumps it directly into the dust bag. There is no seal between to two pieces that make of the housing. If that joint does leak how does it adversely effect the dust collector. It is enclosed within the dust chamber. It don't see how it effects the draw.
The DC-3300 motor has an internal fan that draws air from the other end of the motor, near the grate. It then exhausts that air into the motor housing at the shaft end (deep in the cave). The exhaust air travels along the outside of the motor, back to the grate. It's a pretty good implementation, the only problem I see is that some of the warm exhaust air is going to get pulled back into the motor. (Called recirculation.) Other than the recirculation, it is classic forced-air cooling. To my thinking it is almost the opposite of the DC-6000. If there were any leaks into the fan housing, say around the bolts or shaft, they'd be leaking into the low pressure (negative pressure) area of the impeller, so we'd likely never know. The only likely leak of high pressure dusty air into the motor housing on the DC-3300 is the foam seals.

To be fair, I don't know how much heat (in watts) either motor emits so I don't know how much cooling, (in watts) either motor actually needs. In the case of the DC-6000, the tool we're reviewing, I don't know much about the motor because information I would normally expect on the label is not there. Again, it's very subjective. I do know that the DC-6000 motor got fairly hot when I duct-taped the gaps between the housings. So this reinforced my subjective opinion that the cooling is inadequate. Looking at the finned aluminum motor case, I think I'm seeing something intended to be cooled by ambient air drawn or blown along its case. (Along the lines of the PowerPro motor but this one lacks the cover that directs the air toward the fins.)

- David
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Re: New Shopsmith DC-6000 Dust Collector

Post by DLB »

Quantifying a couple of Dusty's earlier findings using a main housing with the protruding screw cleaned up and no 'seals,' with each system pulled so that the top gap was minimized:

DC-3300 measure 1/8" top gap
DC-6000 measured 15/64" top gap (almost double)

I used drill bits as feeler gauges, these are not meant to be precise. Root cause seems to be that the that the two motor/fan systems sit at different angles. I measured the DC-6000 tilting downward 1.4 degrees compared to the DC-3300. These measurements are with an almost new foam donut seal on the DC-6000 inlet. If that seal compresses or deteriorates over time, both the gap and angle will increase.

- David
RFGuy
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Re: New Shopsmith DC-6000 Dust Collector

Post by RFGuy »

DLB wrote: Fri Aug 27, 2021 5:51 pm The DC-3300 motor has an internal fan that draws air from the other end of the motor, near the grate. It then exhausts that air into the motor housing at the shaft end (deep in the cave). The exhaust air travels along the outside of the motor, back to the grate. It's a pretty good implementation, the only problem I see is that some of the warm exhaust air is going to get pulled back into the motor. (Called recirculation.) Other than the recirculation, it is classic forced-air cooling. To my thinking it is almost the opposite of the DC-6000. If there were any leaks into the fan housing, say around the bolts or shaft, they'd be leaking into the low pressure (negative pressure) area of the impeller, so we'd likely never know. The only likely leak of high pressure dusty air into the motor housing on the DC-3300 is the foam seals.

To be fair, I don't know how much heat (in watts) either motor emits so I don't know how much cooling, (in watts) either motor actually needs. In the case of the DC-6000, the tool we're reviewing, I don't know much about the motor because information I would normally expect on the label is not there. Again, it's very subjective. I do know that the DC-6000 motor got fairly hot when I duct-taped the gaps between the housings. So this reinforced my subjective opinion that the cooling is inadequate. Looking at the finned aluminum motor case, I think I'm seeing something intended to be cooled by ambient air drawn or blown along its case. (Along the lines of the PowerPro motor but this one lacks the cover that directs the air toward the fins.)

- David
Just because there are cooling fins on the motor doesn't necessarily mean the expectation is forced air cooling. Many products are engineered with a heat sink or simply chassis cooling through natural convection of ambient air around the product, i.e. no fan or other means of drawing air is needed. However, in this case we don't know what is intended since we don't have more specs on the motor. This is just a rule of thumb, but typically an AC motor designed to run continuously can have a case surface temperature around 175-200°F and be considered "normal" operation. How hot was your motor again? Sorry this thread has gotten so long now that I can't find your previous post with the thermocouple temps you measured.

In any event, I don't think it is wise to have dust air circulate around the motor housing, no matter how well the motor is sealed. JMO.
📶RF Guy

Mark V 520 (Bought New '98) | 4" jointer | 6" beltsander | 12" planer | bandsaw | router table | speed reducer | univ. tool rest
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DLB
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Re: New Shopsmith DC-6000 Dust Collector

Post by DLB »

RFGuy wrote: Fri Aug 27, 2021 7:30 pm Just because there are cooling fins on the motor doesn't necessarily mean the expectation is forced air cooling. Many products are engineered with a heat sink or simply chassis cooling through natural convection of ambient air around the product, i.e. no fan or other means of drawing air is needed. However, in this case we don't know what is intended since we don't have more specs on the motor. This is just a rule of thumb, but typically an AC motor designed to run continuously can have a case surface temperature around 175-200°F and be considered "normal" operation. How hot was your motor again? Sorry this thread has gotten so long now that I can't find your previous post with the thermocouple temps you measured.

In any event, I don't think it is wise to have dust air circulate around the motor housing, no matter how well the motor is sealed. JMO.
The temps when I terminated my eval were 225F nearer the impeller and 235F nearer the cooling fan. Suggesting, IMO and not confirming, conductive cooling to the impeller and fan housing as the predominant cooling method.

I agree with your statement I underlined. When I said I'm not endorsing this 'solution,' it was because of my concern that elevated temps might result. Ultimately we don't know enough about this behavior.

- David
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Re: New Shopsmith DC-6000 Dust Collector

Post by RFGuy »

DLB wrote: Fri Aug 27, 2021 8:52 pm The temps when I terminated my eval were 225F nearer the impeller and 235F nearer the cooling fan. Suggesting, IMO and not confirming, conductive cooling to the impeller and fan housing as the predominant cooling method.

I agree with your statement I underlined. When I said I'm not endorsing this 'solution,' it was because of my concern that elevated temps might result. Ultimately we don't know enough about this behavior.

- David
Yeah, at those temps I would be more than a little worried. Either that motor is not intended for continuous duty and/or can't be in a confined space without proper active cooling. Will be interesting if Shopsmith comments back to you on the thermal issues you presented to them. I am guessing they have sold only a small number of these so far because only a few have commented about their purchase here on the forum. Only a few have commented on FB about the purchase as well. My guess on this very small sample size of postings is that this upgrade hasn't sold many units thus far.
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dusty
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Re: New Shopsmith DC-6000 Dust Collector

Post by dusty »

Is it being suggested that cooling air is being drawn from the fan side of the fan housing into the motor housing. I have been under the impression that the area between the fan housing and the motor was sealed. Am I wrong? Is there a free flow of air into the motor housing from the fan housing?

Is there a cooling fan on/in the back side of the DC-6000 motor?
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Re: New Shopsmith DC-6000 Dust Collector

Post by DLB »

dusty wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 5:13 am Is it being suggested that cooling air is being drawn from the fan side of the fan housing into the motor housing. I have been under the impression that the area between the fan housing and the motor was sealed. Am I wrong? Is there a free flow of air into the motor housing from the fan housing?

No. Sorry for any confusion. It is being suggested that the air (with dust) leaking past the perimeter of the motor housing may be providing some of the motor cooling. And conversely, that sealing up the five-sided box that forms the motor housing makes cooling air flow inside that box problematic. Resulting in elevated motor temperatures for extended run time.

Is there a cooling fan on/in the back side of the DC-6000 motor?

Please clarify. Are you asking if there is a second fan, besides the one that's exposed? Or did you mean DC-3300?
-David
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Re: New Shopsmith DC-6000 Dust Collector

Post by RFGuy »

DLB wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 8:13 am
dusty wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 5:13 am
Is there a cooling fan on/in the back side of the DC-6000 motor?

Please clarify. Are you asking if there is a second fan, besides the one that's exposed? Or did you mean DC-3300?
-David
Isn't Dusty talking about this fan?
cooling_fan.jpg
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Mark V 520 (Bought New '98) | 4" jointer | 6" beltsander | 12" planer | bandsaw | router table | speed reducer | univ. tool rest
Porter Cable 12" Compound Miter Saw | Rikon 8" Low Speed Bench Grinder w/CBN wheels | Jessem Clear-Cut TS™ Stock Guides
Festool (Emerald): DF 500 Q | RO 150 FEQ | OF 1400 EQ | TS 55 REQ | CT 26 E
DC3300 | Shopvac w/ClearVue CV06 Mini Cyclone | JDS AirTech 2000 | Sundstrom PAPR | Dylos DC1100 Pro particulate monitor
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