[cnczane]

MC,

VER-y nice. Goodonya.

[Mountaincraft]

MC,

VER-y nice. Goodonya.

Thanks zane!

I cut all the parts for the mounts for my home switches today... So I finally had a chance to try the new dust shoe and dust deputy and light out...

I'm happy to say, that virtually 'nothing' escaped..

I'll be installing a 3/4" brush around the perimeter of the shoe later on... and then I think dust issues will be something I pretty much 'never' worry about...

Now if I could just do something about all the noise... Will have to build me a sound box for it soon...

Love the light too.. It's nice and bright and I'm not struggling to see the center mark on the material, plus an added benefit is that I can use the light to set the height of the dust shoe as it instantly appears the moment I adjust it up off of the work surface...

This dust deputy is 'awesome'.. nothing gets to the vacuum...

[boomerize]

Awesome set up. I never thought of installing a light in my dust shoe. May I ask where you purchased that circular light set up from?

[EBC]

Shopbot Vintage PR - YouTube

[Mountaincraft]

Awesome set up. I never thought of installing a light in my dust shoe. May I ask where you purchased that circular light set up from?

Got it from eBay..
Search for "Angel eye light" or similar...

[cnczane]

Disclaimer: I only made it; I haven't used it...

It works.

And surprisingly well. The latest project (I've done 17) was a 20x20x1 cut into "that thick, solid, pink, foam, construction insulation." In fact, that was the first material on which I tried out the machine, which I promptly shut down, and left until I had a vacuum solution. I went with the Harbor Freight 2hp 5-micron dust collector which I've used with foam, pine, spruce, and walnut. (The intake requires periodic inspection, esp. when vacuum falls off, because it has a "+" cross across it which is able to collect 'curls' which then start sealing off the opening.)

BTW, I thought it was worth trying an ordinary 1-1/2" flex hose first, and bought the stuff at Woodcrafters to stop the 4" opening down to that. That's worked fine (but I still realize a solid 4" overhead pipe will be even better).

Another thing that contributed to the clogging was that I had taken someone's advice (from the web) to insert a "ground wire" into the hose for the sake of draining electrons when static-prone material like plastic is sucked through the hose. I drilled a small hole in the intake and inserted a longggg aluminum wire, feeding it "upstream" to the mill, while grounding the end to the metal body of the collector. Astute readers will immediately realize that the wire was bound to be sucked and knocked and otherwise headed back to the intake, balling up as it went. After cleaning it out a couple of times, I finally clipped it off to about 4" and folded it back inside the intake, towards the collector, but well away from the fan blades. Not a hint of a problem with static--but I've never tried it without it.

I added about a 2-in-high skirt, after the photos were taken, made out of a strip of "clear"(ish) vinyl "carpet runner" which I think pop-riveted into the plastic and sealed with silicone. After that I cut the skirt into "strips" (like those long strips hanging down in the "brushless" car washes). One side effect I just noted is that vinyl is harder than construction foam, so the sharp corners of the strips were able to gouge the foam when the boot was in a tight spot; for example, when reversing directions or encountering a clamp.

The vinyl was all I could find in a 2-3 hour exploration of a large building-supply place; just couldn't find any decent source of flexible "bristle-stock". (Please advise.)

I was attracted to the stiffness of the vinyl, but the suction is still enough to suck it inside the boot.

The boot's exceeded my expectations: I can see the bit, it's lightweight, and even foam dust hasn't escaped.

I feel nearly almost quite certain that the same idea could be followed with a non-alcoholic container...

[Originally, I thought I wanted to machine models with my machine, but I have now been busily "creating empties" for my new idea of building lightweight dustshoes. (Well, I haven't actually made a second one yet--but I don't see the need to rush into it either. I mean, if demand really takes off, and I didn't have enough material on-hand, it would be embarrassing, so I'm just biding my time until my pile of empties gets to at least 500. Or so... Actually, I can't always find the pile...)]

the cnczane

[Plan_B]

Hi all,
Forgive me if I'm telling you things you already know here. When I made my dust shoe I searched far and wide for an appropriate brush material. I found out that it is called "strip brush" and McMaster Carr sells it. They don't ship to where I am but I think you can get it there. I searched vacuum cleaner stores/repair shops, internet, home depot,etc.. Most vacuum repair shops have a box or two of old fittings and some of them have nice strip brushes but they are generally too short and the guys want good $ for the fittings - none would just sell me the brushes alone. I found one place that sells exactly what we need for this(~3" and higher brushes on 4' strips) but they would only sell in large quantity.

The closest thing I found is the door sweeper weather stripping. The brushes are only about 3/4 in high but the strips are long enough to wrap around the shoe.

What I ended up doing is using a strip of thick felt about 3 inches high and I backed it with the shorter 3/4" strip brush from the weather stripping. This keeps the felt from getting sucked in toward the vacuum hose. It actually works pretty well.

[cnczane]

Thank you, Plan B. It's good information to have in this thread.

The moment I saw the phrase, I immediately remembered too another fellow's "very reasonably priced solution."

He bought a mess of paintbrushes and sawed the handles off and affixed them around the outside. (I'm already wondering how those throwaway foam brushes would stand up to the vacuum. I expect the wood might be a little hard on them though.)

[boblon]

I'm building a machine now (wood) and have been watching this thread.

In regards to the length of skirt / skirt material / material damage ....

I like the sounds of the dual approach, fairly short brush stock for general work, and longer for deep cuts, foam and such. I was thinking thin neoprene, like the wet suits (shouldn't damage foam). Could be held on with velcro tabs maybe, provides two configurations.

I've seen a lot of 'adult beverage' wraps (coozies here) made of 1/8" neoprene. Seen piles of 'em in the clearance bins if your not picky about the logos/pics on them. (Seemed appropriate somehow ).

Oh, got me some of those lights coming, that's cool.

Thanks all,
BobL.

P.S. Oh I forgot, gotta love Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

[cnczane]

Neoprene sounds very good--I think my dust collector would swallow them, but I wonder about making a neoprene sandwich of two or more layers, with a penny between?

(Oh, right, like you were going to BUY something with them??)

I don't like my flat-wide shapes but I had to do it in order to keep them heavy enough not to be sucked up, and even at that I failed. I'd prefer individual finger shapes (but there goes the penny idea). My son brought me some split-shot yesterday from an old tackle box and that might be useful.

What I'd like: it seems:
Soda straws made of neoprene that I can fill with lead shot so they stay down-boy-down, and I can sew Raggedy-Andy style around the boot.'

Source for rubber non-marring soda straws? Anybody?

[boblon]

Soda? SODA?

Oh sorry, lost control.

I was thinking the inner brushes would help keep the skirt in place like Plan B reported. But yeah, if you JUST wanted the soft neoprene. Hmmm. Soda straws huh?

BobL.

[cnczane]

Source for rubber non-marring soda straws? Anybody?

Dear Somebody,

Start a company.

You know who you are.

[justforfun]

I just finished my home designed and built router today and thought the first thing to make on the machine would be a dusts shoe. Went looking on CNCzone for what others had done. Since I did that I thought if a good idea to share.

I made this out of scrap plywood some left over magnets and a brush purchased from a ebay seller.

Works like a charm if I do say so my self, with a 2" shop vac hose running from my shop vacuum.

The brush was the most expense , as I said the brush was from ebay item # 130698791123.

The magnets I had left from another project, a setting gauge for my jointer.

[HelicopterJohn]

Hi,

I recently finished a Hardware, Software and Added Features Update to my Shopbot PRT Router which included a new Dust Shoe.

I chose to keep the size of the Dust Shoe to 4" in diameter to give me maximum vacuum while allowing me to get very close to the edge of the table or fixtures without losing much of the vacuum power. The plenum chamber is above the brush. The unit was built in a modular approach so that the size of the plenum chamber can easily be adjusted by adding or subtracting plexiglas rings. Also, I made a variety of lower plates with different length brushes on them that are easily replaceable and can accommodate various router bit tool lengths. Furthermore, I also made the top plate adjustable allowing for additional dust shoe adjustment.

I designed my shoe to give me maximum adjustment and debris pickup ability. I also added a cyclone chip separator and Harbor Freight 2HP Dust collector. My system puts all the larger chips in the cyclone unit and the finer dust goes to the dust collection bag. It really works nice.

Here is a link to the video of my Shopbot Update. If you go to 10:40 in the video you can see details on the dust shoe and its features.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WQ8KcTSKyQ]Shopbot PRT Electronic and Software Retrofit - YouTube[/ame]

Hope you enjoy!

John

[OCNC]

Hi Helicopter John,

I enjoyed watching your video. I'm interested in how you set up your laser cross hair. Can give the part source and any other information about how you wired it?

Thanks.

Chris

[HelicopterJohn]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the favorable comment.

Here is a link to the laser a friend of mine gave to me.

Focusable 650nm 5mW Red Laser Module 5V DC Cross for Industrial Lab | eBay

I purchased a multivoltage DC adapter at Radio Shack to power the laser.

My friend also wrote the macro and made the button on my 2010 Screen Set that automatically sets the datum position to the crosshair corner and resets the Mach 3 X and Y DRO's to Zero and moves the router to that new datum position.

Let me know if I can be of further help.

John

[Kazik_Wichura]

Hi,

Great idea with those magnets. I think that I will try to use them in my machine too.

Btw. Here you can find my dust shoe Fightech

[CaptainVee]

I wanted mine to take up less space:

[DonFrambach]

Here are some photos of my dust shoe for a Kress spindle. The dust shoe is two parts held together by magnets. I made four shoes, three with nylon brushes of different lengths which are working well. One dust shoe using long lengths of artist foam hasn't worked so well because the soft foam gets sucked into the cutter. The fourth photo show the dust shoes with nylon brushes of different lengths in a holder mounted next to my router. The drawings are not quite what I built (for one, they're reversed). The dust shoes are described more fully in my build thread: http://www.cnczone.com/forums/diy-cn...ry_router.html

[AJ Negvesky]

This works great fitted to my Joe's 2006