on a well designed DC the impeller and blower housing are matched. The impeller is not in the center. It is offset to cause more of a spiral effect. If you go to Bill Pentz's website he has a further more scientific explanation.

 

You are proposing something impossible.
Any one of the major components that make up the HF dust collector, if purchased saparately, would cost as much as you paid for the entire collector.
It would be like going to the auto parts store and buying a car, piece at a time. It would cost over $100,000.
And, what's the point?
If you were to be phenomenally lucky and find an impellor that fit the motor shaft, and fit in the housing, and was larger in diameter, and you could afford it, I will gurantee that it will overload the motor under some operating situations.
Then when your motor fries what you going to do?

 

Hi Shawn, crank49

"on a well designed DC" you are right. The problem is the HF DC is by many accounts not well designed. They are usually cheap ripoff of other DC designs. The impeller is way undersized for a 2HP motor. But being cheap also, makes them an attractive option for tinkering with. The going price for replacement impellers from grizzly and delta that I think might work are [$110-$136] and $82 respectively.
If you look at sites like ereplacementparts.com, you'll see that the same impeller is often sold as a replacement for several DC models despite having different HP motors. Also most induction motors within the same HP range tend to have the same shaft diameter to fit within a NEMA standard.

I actually have another 2hp 240V motor that I got off of craigslist in case this one blows.

Update: I found this while I was writing this post:

…As Alan stated the impeller is smaller than most, measuring 9.75", but the 12" impeller from a Rikon 60-200 DC is a perfect and easy direct fit replacement. It was $60 + shipping when I got mine.

I got this from comment #13
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?186964-Dust-Collector-One-6-quot-Intake-VS-Two-4-quot-Intakes

 

Sarit, I would think a 12" impeller would overwhelm that motor. Most 2 HP blowers come with the 12", but the HF is more like a 1.5 HP, and those are usually sold with 11" impellers. Not trying to dissuade you from any plans, but give it careful consideration. I dod remember a guy who increased his impeller. Years ago some of the forums had a member with the screen name "Dizzy". Dizzy was a talented metalworker/welder as well as a skilled woodworker. He took a Jet 1100 impeller and welded an extension on each vane (1/2" more, I think). Then carefully checked for imbalance (none) and motor overload (also none). Regardless, good luck with your quest….but if it were me, starting with a more capable unit would be a lot easier.

 

That forum is saying that all or the HF impellers are backwards!

 

Some fans are designed with forward inclined vanes and some are straight or backward inclined. Can't say they are made incorrectly unless you know what the original design was. The angle has a great deal to do with the volume v.s. pressure curves and also the capacity to run in different temperatures without overloading.

 

Yes, HF's use forward-inclined fans whereas most use backward inclined or just straight radial fans. Forward inclines provide more flow at the expense of more HP and noise, but quickly lose their flow as pressure increases which makes them bad candidates if you plan to add things like cyclones or thein baffles and/or a duct network.

I'm not trying to do the impossible here, I just heard somewhere that someone actually did it. It was a simple drop in replacement and since I'll be monitoring the amp draw I think there's little to worry about. If it was any more work than that, then I would forget about it.

I'm hoping that someone who's actually tried it, could chime in here to let us know about their experiences.

 

There is a lot to consider to be sure! what is the operating current draw of the present motor without any ducting either to or from the fan? I don't believe the fan blade from grizzley was to heavy. it was trying to move to much air with the given power. the current is directly effected by the volume of air that it is moving and Inversely effected by pressure. it takes less current to run a plugged fan than it does to run an open one.different fan styles have different effects on pressure, volume and staying clean.
what part of performance are you hoping to make better? higher pressure(suction) or more volume. other things that change are the opening size and style. with the same fan housing and blade more air can be moved if there is a properly shaped inlet rather than a blunt square edge. also the amount of clearance between the fan blades and the entrance side of the housing is important. is the existing blade set to far back from the inlet surface. You may have seen where someone got lucky and found a "drop in upgrade" if you have please be sure to report your findings.

 

The starting (0 rpm) current of any motor is going to be the highest current that it will ever see. It will almost always exceed the rated amp capacity of the amps on the motor plate. Also on 1 phase motors there is an extra starting coil that gets power until the centrifugal switch turns it off.
From my reading of the posts, I don't believe they ever got the fan up to full operating speed such that the centrifugal switch would engage.

UPDATE: Someone on the other forum answered my question:
Hello, I have a HF DC with the Rikon 12" impeller installed. If you contact Rikon service you can order it, the model of their DC is the 60-200 and the part reference is #22. This easily slipped right onto the motor shaft.

http://www.jpthien.com/smf/index.php?topic=470.15

 

Here's a link to a 5 video tutorial on a Thien separator that will increase performance without modifying the machine itself. I have built a cyclone before using plans in an old issue of Wood magazine and this will be a much easier build. It looks so simple it's hard to believe it will actually work but seeing is believing.

 

!https://storage.googleapis.com/aws-s3-lumberjocks-com/mm3umm8.jr
I ordered the impeller from Rikon and recieved it last Friday. This is what I got when I opened the box the impeller is setup counter clockwise. The harbor freight DC impeller spins clockwise so I have to send it back. The one thing that is true is that it does fit in the DC but spins the wrong way, that's sinks!

 

No, the direction is the same, just the shape of the blades are different. The rikon is designed with the more popular backward-inclined fan blade design whereas the HF is using a forward-inclined design.

Just look at Rikon's photo. The shape of the housing dictates which direction the impeller should spin. Since the housing is the same as the HF's, then it spins in the same direction.

 

Backward inclined impellers have a wider tollerance for loading.
They trade a little volume capacity for stability.

The forward inclined impellers, like HF uses, get a little more air flow from a given horse power motor but can more easily be overloaded.

Overload situations to be careful of with forward inclined impellers, like HF, are running without a bag, opening up the inlet to let more air in, running on a cold day.

 

I was wrong about the impeller! Sarit was right, I'm glad I didn't send it back yet, I put on this past weekend. It took me a while because I didn't realize I needed a puller to get the impeller off. I got the puller and the impeller was off within 30sec. Put the Rikon impeller on and turned it on. Big difference with suction, the hum of the dust collector is slightly louder and the start up of the impeller takes a second longer to bring up to full speed. I want to thank Sarit for making me realize that I was wrong about the impeller.

 

Wondering how much the new implellor costs? If you don't feel like posting it, would you message it to me. I'm interested possibly.

 

Alan72, did you get a current draw rating from before and after the impeller swap? That would be interesting to see.

 

Alan72, you have done a great job by not giving up. I have the same DC and have been watching closely. I would be interested to know the performance gain in your opinion, and weather or not you think the time and money spent were worth it. It is a great DC for us DIY who can't justify spending the big bucks on dust collection, I would feel different if I did this for a living.

 

I'm so happy you were able to use the impeller, Alan72.

Yeah, the HF DC is one of those purchases that you can keep tinkering and upgrading. The simplest way of seeing how your changes affects the performance of the whole DC system IMO is to use one of these:

http://www.harborfreight.com/clamp-on-digital-multimeter-95683.html

so you can measure the amp draw. Higher amp draw means more CFM. I think that's what TomB19 is getting at.

 

Alan72: I have read that people ordering the Rikon impeller had to provide a serial number of the machine it was going to be used on. I heard this most recently less than a month ago. Did you have to provide a serial number?

 

Sorry I been working the last few days and haven't had a chance to respond. The impeller cost $60.00 wth shippiing, and another $6.00 for the puller.
I was lucky, when you call Rikon to order make sure you don't try to order it with guy, he told me that he didn't want to be liable for selling the impeller if something goes wrong. I think that just BS, I called around 1300 EST and spoke to a young lady that help me order the part.
I dont' have the equipment to measure the amp output from one another, and I really don't wan't to spend the extra money to find out. It does take longer to bring up to full speed with the new Impeller. The suction from the collector has improved greatly! So far I'am very pleased with the upgrade and if you can manage to get the impeller I believe you would be just as happy with the increase performance of the DC.

 

it is very stupid not to check the amps. if you are drawing at peak or higher then you will burn up the motor. when I built mine I had the intake cut out to 9" and watched the amps, they were 8 amps over. I covered the intake a little at a time and the amps started to come down. I reconfigured the intake so the amps were at 3 amps over it ended up being 7". The reason I left them high is that once the cyclone and piping were added to the mix the amps were under the FLA rating on the motor. A DC blower draws its peek amps in it's most open configuration.

 

I was looking through some of my old posted comments and I figured I would give an update too how well the Rikon impeller was doing. The HF dust collector is still running without any issues, I know the DC is drawing more amps at start up. I didn't measure it yet but I did burn through 3 remote starters that I got from Home Depot. I did upgrade the dust collector to a Super Dust Deputy and have been getting good result . I use this DC at least 3-4 wk (emptying a 30 gallon drum of saw dust weekly) and still it keeps on running. For me I believe it was a good upgrade except for the burning out the 3 remote starts.

 

Hi Alan,

Nice to see that your DC is working well.

 

Alan, I'm wondering if this system will work with a 2" hose system? Have you tried it at this smaller level? I have been in the process of converting mine to a canister collector but my work requires the use of 2'' hoses. Does anyone know if this may work? Perhaps I will need to leave a "Y" open at the top to draw air in both a 2" line and a 4" vent?

 

Usually 2" hoses are for shop vacs since they have the static pressure necessary to overcome the resistance in a 2" hose. DC's provide lots of CFM, but only if you have very low resistance ductwork which is why they are always 4+ in in diameter.