This is how the ‘Dyson’ vacuum cleaners work.

Posted at 1:51 pm on Jul 19th, 2009 by Alexander

Interesting how he said he cut the 45 degree expecting the dust to go one way, only to find it go the other, i suspect this has something to do with the coriolos effect! Depending on whether he is based in the northern or southern hemisphere?

Posted at 1:52 pm on Jul 19th, 2009 by grovenstien

the coriolos effect has about as much impact on this as the earth’s magnetic field does on how neodymium magnets stick to your fridge.

Posted at 2:29 pm on Jul 19th, 2009 by Insipid Melon

@grovenstien, possibly, or maybe by cutting the pipe it just exposed that direction of airflow first. at 2:16 you can see the input is offset… if he wanted to direct the airflow counter-clockwise he could leave the pipe straight or even rotate that 45 cut 180 degrees to encourage the air to hug the wall of the cup. if it wasnt offset it would just be a matter of angling it to the right.

Posted at 2:32 pm on Jul 19th, 2009 by Mono

The coriolis effect is significant whenever something is rotating and your frame of reference is rotating with it (be it your body, a video camera or just your “mind’s eye”), just like centripital force. Since a cyclone is rotating, the coriolis effect may play a part. But you are correct that it doesn’t have anything to do with whether you are in the northern or southern hemisphere. The earth rotates so slow that this only makes a difference for extremely large things like oceans. Likewise, the centripital force due to Earth’s rotation is not very significant (or is that centrifugal force? I can never remember).

There is a nice video on youtube showing the coriolis effect when some kids are tossing a ball around on a merry-go-round. When you are standing on the ground, the ball goes in a straight line, but when you are spinning with the merry-go-round the ball’s path appears to be a circle.

Posted at 3:47 pm on Jul 19th, 2009 by Dan

Pretty damn nice!
Cheap and practical and useful and intelligent.
Oh and environmentally friendly I guess.

Posted at 3:55 pm on Jul 19th, 2009 by Wwhat

I’m not sure where he got his source for a $100 cyclone, but oneida (oneida-air.com) make a great one for shop vacs for only $59.

Posted at 4:05 pm on Jul 19th, 2009 by Chris

Your right the dust deputy is $60 for the funnel, $100 for the kit that contains the bucket, hose and all relevant parts to hook it up. I think it is a good deal, I just wanted to see what I could come up with since spare money is lacking at the moment. No disrepect to anyone intended, if I had the cash I would have just ordered it.

Posted at 5:28 pm on Jul 19th, 2009 by Don Bailey

That’s a sweet t-shirt

Posted at 7:05 pm on Jul 19th, 2009 by Anonymous

a real geek would have used various sized beer cups instead of zoo cups and Chinese food containers. this is clearly why the cyclone spins the wrong way.

Posted at 9:35 pm on Jul 19th, 2009 by amk

Hmm interesting, i thought that the coriolos effect, effected even tiny bodies of water like that of the one in a sink goin down a plug hole.

@mono i see what your saying.

Posted at 12:50 am on Jul 20th, 2009 by grovenstien

@grovenstien
Coriolis does not effect tiny bodies of water.
Here is a bit of reading for you:
http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/bad/badcoriolis.html

Posted at 2:27 am on Jul 20th, 2009 by dnny

and here is the correct link :)
http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/Bad/BadCoriolis.html

Posted at 2:32 am on Jul 20th, 2009 by dnny

hmm… seems the links are not supporting caps… so the end of the url is Bad/BadCoriolis

Posted at 2:41 am on Jul 20th, 2009 by dnny

OK. Forgert it.

Posted at 2:42 am on Jul 20th, 2009 by dnny

@ dnny
This site came into existence before caps were invented. Someone should do a hack to allow proper grammar.

Anyway, your second link looks wrong, but works fine.

Posted at 3:30 am on Jul 20th, 2009 by nebulous

i figured the cups would collapse. tried converting a garage trashcan into a big ass shop vac container once, it would collapse.. I guess the smaller diameter and the top edge rings help. Cool setup though.

Posted at 4:13 am on Jul 20th, 2009 by barry99705

@barry99705

just how powerful of a vacuum device were you using? either way, might have tried putting rolled up strips of sheet steel in there to keep it from collapsing.

Excelent hach, ive thought about trying the same thing for a little while, just didnt have the immediate need to actually make it. keep it up.

Posted at 11:33 am on Jul 20th, 2009 by abbott

I like beans

Posted at 12:25 pm on Jul 20th, 2009 by Ervin Sholpnick

Here is the shop vac model I am using:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=8477891

Model Number 584-04-00
Peak Horsepower 2.0 Peak HP
Cubic Feet Per Minute
(CFM) of Air Flow 135
Sealed Pressure
(in inches) 54
Electrical Ratings 120V 60Hz 6Amps
Peak Air Watts 215

I have a new problem, every plastic tumbler I see looks like a cyclone… walmart had some really big ones a while back that would have made a perfect funnel…

Posted at 12:28 pm on Jul 20th, 2009 by don bailey

@abbott

cheap ass 5Hp from the big orange church. same with the trash can. one of those big grey industrial looking ones. i gave up and used a 55Gal drum from work. :)

Posted at 4:30 pm on Jul 20th, 2009 by barry99705

This is a great job. It’s nice and cheep, works well and seems sturdy. A little spray paint and it would look almost professional

Posted at 9:30 pm on Aug 2nd, 2009 by Amatoc Industries