Abstract: A fiber collector collects fiber from a moving airflow having entrained fibers. A primary plenum has a fiber collection zone in its lower portion. Adjacent screens downstream of the primary plenum are slanted with respect to the primary plenum so that fiber held by the screens will be gravitationally attracted to the fiber collection zone. Secondary plenums downstream of the screens have independently openable air inlets and independently closable passages. A fan downstream of the passages pulls air through the primary plenum, screens, secondary plenums and passages. Pressure sensors upstream of the screens and downstream of the passages provide pressure sense data to a control means which closes the passages for one of the secondary plenums and opens the independently openable air inlet of the same secondary plenum when the pressure difference between the first and second pressure sensors exceeds a desired range.

Abstract: Dirty air contaminated with cotton dust or the like is alternately directed against the left-hand section of a filter screen, then the right-hand section by a pair of movable baffle plates or vanes. While the dirty air impinges upon one section of the filter screen, backwash air is blown in the reverse direction through the opposite section of the other section to flush the impurities there collected. Upon receipt of a pressure differential generated signal that the one side is loaded, the baffle plates or vanes are moved to the opposite position whereby the one section of the filter screen is cleaned by the backwash air while the dirty air impinges upon the opposite side section. The interior of the filter apparatus is so constructed that the backwash air, after passing through the filter screen in the reverse direction circulates back beneath the vanes and exits in the forward direction through the screen with the clean air.