SO3, with dust boot and Powertec 1HP dust collector, 1 micron filter bag.
so here’s the thing. i’ve been using the mill for about a month now. i had an adhoc setup keeping the hose (from a shop vac) from putting too much pressure on the dust boot.
the big issue for me is the spindle bracket catching on the rim of the dust boot and then messing up the alignment as it’s milling, and / or causing other related problems. but i’m also dealing with a hose that right now likes to get snagged during homing operations and has a tendency to irritate the dust boot.
so what does everyone do to keep their hoses up in the air and away from the spinning bits, the pinching pits and generally running a happy cnc?
i built a cabinet for my dust collector - which has reduced the noise in really nice ways but i gotta be able to run the machine without assisting in dust collection.
part of me is thinking to run a line across the X and use a line with shower curtain loops to ease the hose around. another thought is to drop a line straight down from the ceiling to the right height. i have seen a bunch of right angle solutions online - that look good. Also fancy ball joint things that i’d like to avoid for time / cost.
i’m looking ideally for a quick hack / fix right now. and something more built out long term. this set up looks good Support for dust collection hose Shapeoko 3 but i wonder how it would scale for a larger machine.
Maybe it’s just the way I work, but I’ve noticed that most of the chips and dust ends up going to the back of the machine. I was thinking that maybe a dust collection vacuum vent at the back and several fans mounted to the front to blow the stuff into the vent might be a possibility. Right now, I’m using a 2 inch fan that attaches to the DeWalt router collet to keep chips and dust out of the cutting path. It works very well, but I’m getting sawdust everywhere (I don’t have an enclosure; I have a small room–4x5x7–in which I do all my high dust work). Frankly, I enjoy watching the machine cut and the pattern develop so I don’t want anything to block my view as a dust shoe does.
this is where i landed - pivoting right angle, rotating around the Z. if this works i’m going to put a bearing or rotation device on the top so it swings easier. right now it’s a screw holding it together up there. also i am going to look for a better hose with more flexibility. this shop vac hose is not the right tool for the job.
Ya know, whatever works is what matters. When I did mine I did everything i could to try to use rigid pipe for better airflow, made the flexible plumbing as short as possible, but still be able to reach all corners of the XXL without binding. It works great, but before that I had a simple ShopVac with a semi stiff hose just kinda zip tied to the side of my bench, no boom at all, no Dust Deputy…and it worked just fine too. I tend to overbuild, I’m a former jet mechanic (about 10 years) I’ve been working as a mechanical engineer for the last 9 years or so, and prior to that I supervised a prototyping shop…I can’t help it, I overbuild, I enjoy optimizing, even when it doesn’t always need it, haha!!! I saw your note “Waiting for the fail.”, it’s awesome!
Thanks,
Dan
p.s. my first job in prototyping many years ago was to build a machine that would drop a bowling ball from about 2 stories up in the air onto parts we make so we could see how they would fail. Breaking stuff is fun, what’s better is when it works when you expect it to fail, something tells me that yours will work for a long while, or until you get bored like me and make it “more better”.
thanks - !
it worked for a full 3-4 hours and now it’s off again. i think this may be the one. next job is to build an enclosure and deaden the sound of the endmill tearing thru pink foam !!!
This video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEJ-C8S7TvY&list=PLg_lAmARK3Q6Ji23NYPpbC0FTWbLZ4gsF&index=2 shows a little bit of my setup including the dust boot and hose. I just used a super expandable vacuum cleaner hose and routed it out the front bottom corner. I connected it to a cyclone then to a shop vac that I added a speed control to. The speed control lets me set the shop vac to a low power setting so its not very noisy and it still captures all of the dust.
