Dust removal: what to use?

Coming from XCarve with z-independent dust shoe I was surprised that Shapeoko has a dust shoe that is attached to the router spindle, and therefore I expect to experience some hefty trouble with thick stock >=0.75 inch, what I use and intend to use further.
So I purchased the Dust Boot from PWNCNC. That item matches wonderfully, nicely to be attached. But when it comes to work the router spindle that came with the shapeoko blows the air that strong downwards,that the dust and chips are blown all over the place, and are not sucked up by the dust shoe.

That is really hefty, asa if there would be no dust shoe at all, so I decided to go back to the original Shapeoko dust shoe, and surprisingly now with the same spindle the vacuum dust collector keeps the whole stock clean.

Now I am holding my 1inch projects because I do not know how the Shapeoko dust shoe will work with this stock. Possibly longer bristles on this one could fix the issue?

I already got another spindle that does not blow the air down to the bit, and will try another attempt when I could mount it to the z-axis.

Any thoughts about the best dust removal?

The downward blowing is the spindle motor fan. This is designed to suck air from the top of the router and cool the motor. The C3D router is a clone of the Makita and the Makita was designed as a trim router and not for a CNC. The router works fine on a CNC but not what it was designed for. The Sweepy is fixed but you can move it up if required. There is a cam clamp that can be loosened and adjusted to give you more clearance. The original Suckit you could adjust but was a pain to change the bit. You had to remove the bottom piece and then the side arms limited the swing of the wrenches. The types of dust boots that are fixed and not attached to the router are good but you still have to adjust it for taller stock. So in the end it is 6 of one and half a dozen of another.

I run the Dewalt router and it has a fixed dust boot. I have two brushes, one long and one short. In reality with short bits I just have to leave the brush off because it would scrape excessively on the material but I still run the DC to suck up what I can. I dont think there is a golden one that does everything. Many people like the Sweepy and I just ordered one for my Dewalt (69MM) so I can use whichever one I want. I just bought a JTech laser and that is not compatible with my existing dust boot so that is why I ordered the Sweepy. I can remove the Sweepy when I mount the laser and put it back on when in CNC mode. My original one has two screws that hold it on so it is not easy to remove and put back on. I will keep it but likely not use it anymore.

If you find the goldilock one let us know. You know the one that is just right for everything. Kind of like Unicorns, rumored but never found in the wild. Much of what you need is dependent on what and how you cut and what materials.

Does it need to be perfect? If you can live with some chips on your waste board you can move the dust shoe slightly higher, so the bristles do not touch the first few cuts. The dust is still sucked away.

Another non-perfect solution is a dust-boot like this where the cutting area is shielded from the down-draft of the router: Printables . It does suck away the dust, but also leaves some chips behind.

In my experience, a Sweepy works well — just might have to pause during a cut and adjust up/down a bit.

The air moved by a motor fan should be negligible compared to that moved by a vacuum (consider the size of the motor/blades, and that for one, air movement is incidental to purpose and only for cooling, while for the other, it is the purpose of the device) — you can test this by getting a large plastic bag, and trying to use one or the other device to fill it w/ air and timing how long it takes.

Using a 2.5" hose is a huge upgrade if you’re on a smaller size, and having a quiet vacuum which can be adjusted for airflow will make usage much more comfortable.

I agree: the sweepy i a solid piece. I did not realize that the that the bristles may be echanged, so probably I will get some longer ones, attach them and see how it goes. Will keep you in touch. Will take a while because I only work few hours a month with the CNC machine. Wish I could have more time for woodworking. Thanks for the quick and thorough response!

Thanks! No, has not to be perfect. Thing is: now the dust is blown all over the space the whole room is dusty, and even on the CNC tracks there very fast is so much dust, that the movement is not smooth any more. So the dust apears to be the problems, the chips rather not so much. So I will try your advice to adjust the dust shoe a little higher at the beginning to have the dust removed. Will keep you informed…

My dust collection system w/Sweepy works well. When I start getting bits of dust and debris on the work surface, it is time to clean the filters. Again.

Yes, one would think that the motor fan would be neglegible. It is all about the direction I think. With thinner stock the sweepy works like a charm, it is only my concern with thicker stock that I wrote my note here. And yes: with the sweepy the motor fan air stream does not interfer with the dust removing vacuum stream, the same setting with the PwnCNC does not, since IMO the stream of the motor fan air blows in a direction away from the vacuum. I tried also my really powerful Kaercher vacuum, same effect. Must have something to do with the direction of the air streams. Anyway: learned a lot in this discussion, thank you all. Will continue my thicker stock with the Sweepy too, adjusting it little higher at the beginning that it does not sratch at the end. Later I will change the router with a spindle from Kress, with a 43 (I think) mm collar, need to use another clamp etc., will take longer than that post stays open.

Good idea! Will look after that too of course.

The Sweepy base comes off for the “Winston” base but there are only one length of brush as far as I know. There is nothing keeping you from gluing an auxiliary brush on. My 3rd party for the Dewalt has multiple brushes. Well two that were both long and one I gave a haircut to. The shorter one is the most used. The longer one is used when I have a long bit in the router.

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