[DonFrambach]

Inspired by the 10 gallon drum available from Oneida, I bought a 5 gallon drum from Amazon because the 5 gallon size would fit more easily into my enclosure and 5 gallons was sufficient for my needs when using the ClearVue supplied bucket. ([ame="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006P5RJ4E/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00"]SKOLNIK Carbon Steel Open Head Drum, 5 gallons, Bolt Ring, 0.9mm Body Gauge (Pack of 1): Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific[/ame])

I was concerned that I would have trouble cutting the holes for the cyclone and its mounting bolts in the steel lid but found it quite easy with my small router. I drilled 3 holes with my drill press to secure the drum lid to some sacrifical MDF mounted on my table. I used the machine to precisely locate and create the holes to mount the cyclone. I used those holes to further secure the drum lid to the MDF and then cut the 6.1" hole for the cyclone.

Photos below show the lid as it was being cut. The last photo shows the ClearVue cyclone mounted on the bucket in my router's enclosure. (I now need to clean up the vacuum hoses.)

This steel drum gives a much more positive seal than the one I got with the bucket. I use a 15/16" socket that I drive with my battery powered hand drill so it is very easy to open and close the steel drum.

[DonFrambach]

Got the vacuum hoses cut to length and tied down. Only used the dust collection a little bit today but am very impressed with how clean the cyclone appears. I interpret the clean cyclone to indicate that the dust is falling into the barrel whereas before the leak in the dust bucket allowed it to circulate longer in the cyclone and this allowed more fine dust to escape to my shop vacuum.

Bottom line, using a well sealed duct container is important when using a cyclone. So far, I'm very pleased with the steel barrel.

Two photos:

[kolias]

Looks very nice your vac system Don; I’m not planning to have a vac system on my new build but perhaps later. Is very noisy your vac system?

As I mentioned earlier, I liked your USB idea and I ordered today a similar one from Amazon. Are you happy with it?

If I may ask, what motor you use to drive your Taig? I will be receiving my Taig this week and for motor I plan to try an old 3/4HP VS DC motor I have but eventually I plan to get the 90 VDC Sherline VS motor assembly with the 2 step pulley which should give me 70 – 10K RPM

[DonFrambach]

Looks very nice your vac system Don; I’m not planning to have a vac system on my new build but perhaps later. Is very noisy your vac system?

It was important to me that my vacuum system not be noisy as I run it in an attached garage at all hours and did not want to bother my wife. I bought a very quiet Fein vacuum [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Fein-9-20-25-Turbo-II-9-Gallon-Auto-Start/dp/B001GCVJ4W/ref=sr_1_1?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1343660055&sr=1-1&keywords=fein+vacuum+turbo+II"](http://www.amazon.com/Fein-9-20-25-Turbo-II-9-Gallon-Auto-Start/dp/B001GCVJ4W/ref=sr_1_1?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1343660055&sr=1-1&keywords=fein+vacuum+turbo+II[/ame]) which is fairly quiet at its highest setting. When I do very long runs of fine cutting, I run the vacuum at its lowest setting which is very quiet. My router enclosure is fairly sound resistant so the router and vacuum cannot be heard in our house.

As I mentioned earlier, I liked your USB idea and I ordered today a similar one from Amazon. Are you happy with it?

The USB port has worked out very well. One bit of caution is that the USB connector makes a very firm grip on the flash drive. (I think this is intentional because the port is designed to go into boats where it could be very bad if the connector came out.) I have the USB connector very firmly attached to my router case so this is not a problem for me.

If I may ask, what motor you use to drive your Taig? I will be receiving my Taig this week and for motor I plan to try an old 3/4HP VS DC motor I have but eventually I plan to get the 90 VDC Sherline VS motor assembly with the 2 step pulley which should give me 70 – 10K RPM

I used the 1/4 hp continuous duty motor from Taig designed for their CNC mills. I have a Sherline motor and spindle and found that both the motor and spindle got very hot during long runs. I much prefer the Taig motor. The motor is the first listing on this page: http://taigtools.com/accessories.html

[kolias]

Thank you Don for all the answers

[DonFrambach]

Like many others dust shoes, my dust shoe separates into two parts held together by magnets. This makes it easy to change bits but also allowed me to make several bottom parts with different length brushes. Since some of my bits are much longer than others, my original bottom part works well for some bits but not so well for others.

I finally got around to making some more bottom parts of my dust shoe. My original was aluminum but I'm trying two from plastic empregnated plywood and one from baltic birch plywood. One is completed and two more are under construction.

I also made a mounting area in my enclosure which uses magnets to hold unused brushes.

Here are some photos:

[kolias]

Makes sense what you did Don and very convenient to have different length bruches which they look fantastic

[DonFrambach]

I made three dust shoe bottoms with nylon brushes of three different lengths. Thought I'd make the fourth shoe bottom with longer artist foam as has been done previously by Michael Simpsn at Kronos Robotics.

First picture shows the three shoes with nylon brushes. (brushes 1", 1.5", and 2" long)

Second picture shows the cut artist foam cut 2.5" and 3" long.

Third picture shows the way I glued the foam to the mount. Did one side first and let it dry before going the rest of the way around.

Fourth picture shows the 2.5" foam glued in place. Did the same for the 3" foam. Effective length of brush is 2.5".

Fifth picure shows the shoe in operation. Didn't work as well as nylon brushes. Some wood particles can be seen escaping. However, this shoe has longer and more compressible brushes hence a wider vertical range than the nylon brushes so it may have some utility.

[DonFrambach]

Not so good. A number of the foam "bristles" were cut during its first use. Darn! I'll make another dust shoe with a 2.5" nylon brush.

edit: didn't make it clear last night. There's nothing wrong with foam dust skirts in general. It's just that this foam dust skirt is too long for my small dust shoe. Nylon brushes are a little stiffer so they won't be pulled into the cutter and will be more appropriate for my setup.

[DonFrambach]

Wanted to work out a way to monitor the activity of my router spindle when I was doing something else in my house. I can barely hear the router in my office which shares a wall with my garage. Cannot hear it at all in our TV room. Sometimes a pain to repeatedly check to see if it's time to change a bit. Here's what I came up with:

Bought a "Garage Hawk" garage door monitor from Smart Home which uses "Insteon" to communicate between its base unit and remote unit through my house wiring. (http://www.smarthome.com/74503/Garag...ter-Kit/p.aspx)

Replaced the magnet activated switch in the Garage Hawk with a 120 volt AC relay.

Mounted the relay in a box with an electrical output. Power to the relay and power to the electrical sockets are from different lines. Power to electrical sockets always on. Power to the relay connected to same outlet as power to the spindle which I switch on and off through Mach 3.

Attachment 181916
This is a picture of the base unit attached to the box I made with the remote to the left.

Attachment 181917
This is a picture of the remote in my kitchen when the router spindle is off. (LED dull green)

Attachment 181918
Here the remote has turned red showing that the spindle is on. (LED bright red)

Attachment 181919
This is the inside of the box (the relay is on the left)

Attachment 181920
The box is on the floor of my router enclosure before installation

Attachment 181922
The power connection (foreground) and connection for my spindle (background) are shown on the underside of the router's enclosure.

Attachment 181923
The unit is installed on the underside of the router's enclosure.

What's nice about this is that I can move the remote to any power source in my house to visually monitor the router's spindle activity. Both the remote and the base unit use 110 power (no batteries) and automatically "link" when I move the remote throughout my house.

Certainly not for everybody but very convenient for me!

[DonFrambach]

Haven't been able to work with my router for a long time because we moved and setting up the workshop was a second priority. I got the mill working on Friday and made this plaque (overnight) for my nephew who has just enlisted in the marines. It feels great to be back!

[Drools]

Nice work Don! Welcome back.
I just recently got my machines running after quite a while.