I’ve had this noodling around my brain for a while, and given all the conversation around HDZ ears, Sweepy, Brush Length, and the viral broomstick challenge I’m going to let this genius idea go for someone who is more proficient in manufacturing then myself (I want the royalties tho).
The fundamental problem with dust shoes comes boils down to z-axis independence vs. not; my question to you is why not have your cake and eat it too.
Headed pins not brushes are the solution. 10-15 row ring of headed pins around a spindle mounted dust shoe. Find pins that are flexible enough to allow for you to approach from the side as well as from the plunging motion. If such a material, pin & flexibility combination does not exist… Bond all of the heads of all of the pins together. Make the outermost (furthest from the spindle) pins the progressively the shortest … so that when you approach stock from the side the outermost rings raises the inner most rings so that you don’t get “caught” on the side of stock.
I can’t be the first guy to ever think of this am I?
Doesn’t your brainstorm work the same as a brush, because the dust shoe forces are mostly side-to-side? Your item would certainly work if the forces were up-and-down, but would tend to jam the “rods” with side-to-side motion.
or you could design the most over-engineered dust shoe ever, control the height of each pin individually, 3D-map the initial stock, and have the CAM generate motion control of each pin to match the toolpath progress
or, it’s 2025, AI is everywhere and has become so cheap that one can embed a microchip and sensors in a dust shoe for a few dollars, that will dynamically adjust pins as it goes.
In the meantime, the floating dust shoe is the closest match to that idea of a dust shoe that would adapt to the surface being milled.
Could someone make it do this? https://giant.gfycat.com/AdorableInferiorDalmatian.mp4
It’s a good idea. I wonder if brush bristles could still be used to give the flex it would need for lateral pressure? You could have a rigid holder for the bristles, much like a regular dust boot. But that rigid holder would ride above the lower plate that would have oversized holes for the bristles to move up and down. This seems to be a simple enough of a concept.
@Julien you beat me to the kinetic bristles as I was searching for the video.
That floating shoe is awesome!
In the ideal world there’s a material out there that gives it the flex it needs, is already made in a headedpin, and is ECONOMICAL to obtain. I’m not a plastics-guy but it’s bound to exist.
Whatever they use in women’s hair brushes would be close.
The yellow to white is attached by magnets, and the green to white also. I’m thinking the green part can be flat (possibly teflon) for flat work, or bristled for 3D work. I may end up sealing the open holes between the blue and yellow with expandable tubing of some sort. That would completely seal it off. No dust should escape.
This is not a new concept. This is what I found on the rabbit trail you sent me on. The top part is a pressure plate and is sometimes used on large CNC routers.
It’s not what you were talking about, but my mind went a little nuts when I found this on the rabbit trail.
I hope it works.
You’ve probably already accepted this as a design limitation but wont the suction port exiting like that basically mean that if you approach stock from that direction you’ll hit the suction port?
I’m thinking if the carve is deep enough for that to happen, then I’ll need to lock the springs closed and use it as a more standard style dust shoe. Having the green section detachable with different options should help also.
You beat me to it! I was actually hoping to make a dust boot much like this after had watching that video you linked (of the AXZY) and this one vhf Extraction System long ago.
Very cool, can’t wait to see it in action and how it works out.
