Dust Collector Pipe Joint Template Online Software

A greatly enhanced version of this pipe joint software is now available! Digital Pipe Fitter Due to the popularity of this free online pipe joint template software, I have spent the past year developing a stand along PC based program to create pipe joint templates. It's called the Digital Pipe Fitter. Where this free online version generates the templates for one simple joint, Digital Pipe Fitter supports many different joints and has features and joint types not available in any other software. If you are creating pipe joints commerically, Digital Pipe Fitter could easily save you thousands of dollars in time and effort. If you are a welder or designer who works with pipe then Digital Pipe Fitter is for you. Tell Me More Visit DigitalPipeFitter.com today. Download the FREE evaluation version

The free online version described below is for personal (non-commercial) use only.

I was planning the ducts for my shop dust collection system and found that 6 inch PVC connectors are quite expensive. They also don't come in some of the odd angles and combinations that I wanted to optimize my layout. After reading some of what Bill Pentz says on his Cyclone Dust Collector Research website, about "How to Bend and Form PVC", I decided to make my own joints and bond them together with CA glue.

Couplers were easy and free, there is a flange at the end of each eight foot PVC sewer and drain pipe that fits around the end of the next pipe. Elbows were not so bad, just use the miter saw and glue the pieces back together. The difficult joins were the joints where a branch pipe joins at an angle into the main line. These 'T' joints could be made with a main pipe having a hole cut in the side and another pipe that had its end cut to a profile that fits snugly over the diameter of the main pipe.

This led me directly to a three dimentional geometry problem that needed to be solved. What is the shape of the intersection of two cylinders when joined at any given angle? And how could I transfer that shape to the surface of the pipe? If I could come up with a paper template that I could wrap around the pipe and simply cut on the line to get a perfect fit I'd be in business. I had heard of welders using a drafting method to determine the profile to cut the end of a pipe to butt up against another pipe. But this is the computer age and I always like to get some use out of that old Engineering degree I earned years ago. So, I wrote a software program to print out templates of cutting profiles given pipe diameters and an angle of intersection. I wrote it as an online application so you can try it out yourself.

Try it yourself for free: Pipe Joint Template Online Software

You might also want to look at Software Manual and Procedure Tutorial.

You many have noticed the wires wrapped around my ducts to reduce static electricity build up. The safety issues of using PVC for dust collection is highly debated. I include a wire inside and one wrapped around the outside of the pipe. Metal tape would probably have been a better choice to prevent possible blockage. But I haven't had any problems to so far. I have noticed that adding this grounded wire eleminates the static cling of dust to the outside of the pipe. For more information read Grounding PVC and Other Dust Collection Myths.