New S5 with Vacuum Table

95% done with this build. Still have some tidying up of wires and securing the Vac plumbing.
Might move the Black Box to another room to lower the noise. Quite impressed by the rigidness of the new machine!



Now to rebuild the table for the S3 that has been used daily since 2018.

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Nice. I just did the same thing but I removed the hybrid table T track and MDF. Fastened my board with the grid directly to the 4 cross rails

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I’ve been running a similar setup for several months. I pull vac through a 1” mdf spoil board

Home made black box style pump.

I have 3 zones front to back.

Some advice for others you only need one vac pipe to each zone. It provides no benefit and just gives you more fittings to leak.

I can’t do 1/2” doc through 1/2” baltic birch st 275ipm without issue. 1/4” Jenny bit.

I took my mdf slats off. To save a little space.

I really want to get a piece of 5/8” aluminum and machine it so I can replace the aluminum t slats with it and bolt into their wholes and use it as vac plenum.

It doesn’t take much to run out of z height on these machines.

I still use a lot of jigs to hold smaller non sheet hood pieces for engraving.

I put lips on the edges so it indexes off my zero and use the vac table to hold the jig them hold down bolts to hold the piece to the jig.

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hmmm, super interesting, i would love to get a vac table setup going, i’m so sick of clamps

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Nice! My original plan was to run four valves, I decided to go with just the two (left and right). I still plumbed for four quadrants, so I can use a plug to get down 1 if needed. The Blackbox has plenty of pull, so that really was not needed.

3 sides going full width work best for me.

I’m either cutting a full 4x4 sheet or I’m using a jig on the front of the machine.

Here’s a picture of some of the things I make. My 3xxl used tot make me 6-8 hours of cutting to make an order of these and now I do it in 1 and have less waste. The customer insists on grain direction otherwise I would nest and fit more.

I do have 3 small tabs holding the inside piece. I’m not sure if it’s necessary but with post machine operations it adds zero work to have them there. They are only 1/16 thick and 1/8” wide. I hit them on the corner of my work bench to break them out.

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Could you share more about the black box underneath? That looks pretty awesome.

Also, I’ve heard hours of advice about grounding PVC because it tends to generate static electricity.

Is that an issue here?

That looks awesome the way you’ve configed it, I must say!

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The machine only has a couple hours on it. so far we haven’t had any disconnects. On the older S3 we only had a few instances with this, usually in the winter months. As we move into winter here in the midwest there might be a need to ground.
https://blackboxvac.com
Using the Cyclone on the 4x4 table. Noise is between 90-95 decibels. the box needs good airflow to keep the motors cool. Might move the box to an 8’x10’ storage room next door. Also had a power switch for the box installed at the CNC in case we needed to move it.

What you doing with the hybrid table? and t tracks?

They are all ready gone. I sent them to someone else.

Do you have like a youtube channel? I’d like to see a video of how that dust cyclone thing you have really works. Very nice setup either way man

I’m with you, clamps are a Bummer.

Killer Setup Bro. Let me know how it works. Looks Pricey :grin:

Awesome! would you be willing to share any plans/files used? Would like to build similar for my 4x4 S5

Lots of ways to get the same result. Hardest part was making the holes through the bed of the CNC and base table line up. I made a program to mark the center of those holes with an engraving bit. Used a hole saw to bore through the CNC bed and base table. Used the same program to machine the holes and grid into the plenum (1" MDF).

Also used some old corner brackets to keep the CNC in place while I was getting everything cut and plumbed.

An alternative Method that I used.

First my machine is screwed to my table through the side extrusions so it can’t move.

I removed all the mdf slats. They are not needed and use up z height.

I removed two of the aluminum slats. No need to drill holes through them. Just remove them and store them.

I placed 3 pieces of plywood where the mdf slats would go and held them off the bottom. This allowed me to glue them to the bottom of my would be plenum piece to make sure I could repeat location easily if removed and prevent movement in the next step.

My plenum file has 5 hold down locations. One near each corner and one in the center. Mdf was placed on the slats and I drilled and counter hired for all hold downs with the cnc. Then used t nuts to secure everything.

File was designed to avoid bracing under table. Plenum was machined in place. Then used a hole a drill bit in the cnc to to drill the center of the vac ports through. The plenum and into the table. Then a hole saw to complete the holes. All through wood. No metal cut. Used a paint brush and clear coated the entire thing to seal it. Next time I’d remove it and spray it.

Then Plenum was surfaced. 1” mdf waste board placed then surfaced on both sides and edges tapped.

Eventually I would like to remove all the t slats and replace it with a 4x4 piece of phenolic or aluminum and secure it with original hole locations for the t slats. This would gain an additional 5/8” of z height.

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