Moderator… feel free to move this if you feel it would be more appropriate inside another thread or in another forum…
I’ve had people ask to see more details about my dust shoe prototype(s). I’ve tried several designs and found that they do well for certain types of milling and not so well for others. So, I still have more work to do. Here’s what I have so far. I’ll update this thread as I progress…
Big picture… the dust shoe is currently fixed to the stationary portion of the Z gantry (I.E. it does not move up and down with the spindle). That seems to work better for 90+% of the milling that I do. However, I designed it so that it can be secured to the stationary part or the moving part of the gantry, so it can be used either way (with a couple more mods)
The dust is pulled into a cyclone separator then goes to a shop vac with a good filter.
The hose is from of a Bissell (yard sale) household vacuum cleaner. I like this hose because it has a double helix spring steel winding that allows it to stretch the full travel of the SO3 XXL without putting much tension on the supports. That way the Machine can move its full extents without the hose binding or getting caught under the rails even though it does’t have any supports between the two ends.
The shoe is a 1/4" polycarbonate plate milled out to accept the brush material that I bought from McMaster.com. http://www.mcmaster.com/#catalog/122/1310/=12hf13z
Part number 7900T1 $2.28 per foot.
The hose connection is a 3D printed part that I solvent bonded to the Polycarbonate plate.
I added a cardboard plate (not shown) to channel the air closer to the cutter. That helped quite a bit. I’m going to make a 3D printed one soon.
Right now the shoe is held by one 1/4" steel rod that is clamped to a custom aluminum plate using a delrin block and two screws. The custom plate replaces the Z limit switch bracket plate. The plate doesn’t move with the router. If I want the shoe to move with the router I’ll add a Delrin clamp block to the router mounting ring so I can clamp the rod relative to that ring and it will just slide in the Delrin block I currently use to clamp the rod.
I had to bend the aluminum mounting plate to clear a boss on the moving plate that the router moves with. I just bent it in a vice. This all happened pretty quickly so its all very rough and prototypish… Don’t judge me
The 1/4" steel rod is screwed to a Polycarbonate block that is solvent bonded to the dust shoe plate.
I elevate the hose so it doesn’t drag when the gantry moves close to this corner. The red bracket is a 3D printed part and I’m using a 1/4" steel rod here also. The bottom black bracket is also 3D printed and is pressed into the enclosure floor. There’s another adapter on the bottom side that the shop vac plugs into. Its screwed to the bottom of the enclosure. That hose leads into the top of the cyclone separator (99.9+% efficient at removing dust so the shop vac never fills up and the filter lasts much longer between cleanings. I have another thread that shows more about that design.).
I don’t mind posting the .STL files if anyone wants them. Just let me know. It may be better to wait until I get to the final design though. Just post here if you want me to add them.
I’ll update this thread as the design progresses. Feel free to post constructive criticism or your design ideas and implementations. I don’t have any special love for this design and its still very crude. I find its better to just make something than to try to make a perfect design in CAD first. Its always better to make a crappy version then iterate based on lessons learned. This is about the 4th round of this design and its still has a long way to go.