Sweepy 2.0 first impressions (review)

CNC Machines Shapeoko
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So the nice busy people at Fedex delivered my new Sweepy 2.0 today, and I took it for a spin tonight.

Basically the 2.0 is a pretty big upgrade over the 1.0

I had 2 of the 1.0 since I like to have a bottom without bristles and one with. The 2.0 came entirely set up like this already (so one bottom with and one without bristles). Bonus. Sure the 2.0 is a bit more expensive than the 1.0, but less than 2 of the 1.0’s.

First impression: It’s much larger… most importantly, it will stick out more to the front, so if you’re tight in your enclosure you need to be aware of this. This larger size gets you the most important upgrade: The much bigger dust port and air channel. 2 1/2 inch, with adapters for 2 1/4 inch as well as another adapter to at least my Bosch “festool clone” hose.
More on this in a bit.

Putting the dust boot on my spindle was as easy (or hard) as the 1.0; my spindle is slightly large so I had to loosen the set bolts. But here is the second HUGE improvement: While Sweepy 1.0 had a ridge at the bottom that would sit snug on the bottom of the spindle, Sweepy 2.0 does not have this. This allowed me to move the sweepy 2.0 a bit higher. Specifically, this allowed me to put it exactly so high that the bottom of the “no bristles” bottom half is exactly level with the bottom of my collet nut… meaning that on cuts where I cut “close to the collet” I don’t have to remove the dust collection anymore. Score 2 for the Sweepy 2.0

Suction appears to also have improved a lot, the bigger air channel not constricting the air as much (and I can imagine with stringy wood, not getting strings stuck in it).

Overall, a huge upgrade. These may look like little things, but the combination of increased suction/airflow plus the ability to put it higher up on my spindle made it totally worth it for me… no more cutting without any dust collection.

There is one modification that I plan to do. My Bosch “festool clone” hose has the option to take the festool-compatible “end nozzle” off… this nozzle is much narrower than the hose itself and is restricting air flow. Unfortunately, the connector that remains if EXACTLY the size of the plastic converter (so not inner or outer of it) that came with the Sweepy 2.0. Oh well, I have a machine that can make any shape I want out of a piece of wood, so I can remove the converter thingy, and just go from 2 1/2" to the exact hose diameter and get more suction than right now.

[*] the Bosch hose has a larger diameter than my original festool hose, which gives me much better suction.

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Thank you for your review, I have an old Suck-It dust boot that has a big hole in the back, due to it hitting the collet of my router. I have been debating about trying the Sweepy 2.0, and this answers a few of my questions.

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I’ve had a 2.0 for a bit as a beta tester. Agreed on all points… much better. I wanted to add a couple things that add up to extra points.

Not only did they loose the flange inside the spindle clamping area, but the clamping area is also taller. So you get extra latitude for movement up and down. Makes it easier to get the height right.

The brushes are also slightly longer. Again making it easier to get setup to work most effectively.

It’s a nice evolution for sure. I have a 2.5" connection, so the 2.0 sucks WAY harder with my setup.

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Sweepy 2.0 promo video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbeZPAC18uE

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Either of you have a Suck-It, or used one before the Sweepy? The main difference between the two, obviously is the constant Z-Height with the Suck-It and variable Z-Height with the Sweepy. I am curious if this results in a lot of dust for the sweepy.

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@BLKKROW I just ordered Sweepy 2.0 and can compare it against my Suck-It. I’m not sure which will be less mental overhead to avoid fixtures/clamps, but dust collection looks good with both from what I’ve seen. I also cracked my Suck-It insert on the collet :frowning:

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I used to have a suckit, but really did not like it (I fully admit it;s a taste kind of thing), and that I do better with dust collection that is variable Z.

On very specific cases there is a more dust I suppose, but the even the 1.0 has a LOT of suction and most stuff gets just sucked upwards… and the 2.0 has more suction even (but I have only used it a little bit)… all the little chips get sucked up for sure…

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I did the same previously on my Suck-It, luckily I paid for replacements and got them from Suck it. But then shortly after, the magnets holding my Suck-It were not strong enough for some reason, so the shoe came loose, and the router collet put a giant hole in the back of the shoe. I also have the HDZ and utilize aluminum fixtures, but it still feels unstable. This is why I was looking at the Sweepy.

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One other difference - I route my hose through a 3D printed clamp (easy to pull it out) on top of the Z-stage. With the Sweepy it will be expanding and contracting the hose with every retract, so I’ll have to make sure it doesn’t pop off or pop out.

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ah I solved that differently. I put a linear rail at the ceiling of my enclosure, and the hose goes through a little loop coming out of the carriage of the linear rail. as the machine moves around (forward/backwards but it also does it up/down a bit) the carriage just moves on the linear rail and I have enough slop in the hose to be able to do basic moves.

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If you have a 3D printer, you could print a super sized 4" version of the Suckit if you want.

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I’ve had several Suckits, S1, and S2.

S1 = Sweepy V1, S2 = Sweepy V2

I even did a comparison between the last version of Suckit and S1 back to back on the exact same project. I adjusted both to work a well as possible. The Suckit got more MDF dust than the S1. But the difference wasn’t huge. I also showed how I setup S1 for optimal results.

I still like the Suckit a lot, but I imagine if I did another comparison, S2 would be about even dust wise, and would factor in even, or better once we factored in the extra X travel the S2 allows over the Suckit… especially with the extra extra travel the HDZ allows.

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I will chime it with Josh and say that as a beta tester, the improved z-axis travel of Sweepy on the router shaft makes a big difference in being able to adjust the dust boot to the ideal height for what I’m cutting. Overall, Sweepy is a steal at the price it’s at compared to every other option on the market and it performs excellently for MDF dust, maple chips, and HDPE snow. The easily swappable bristle length adapters make it a breeze to change out. :slight_smile:

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Good point…I forgot to factor in price.

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Thank you for everyone’s input. I figured they would be close, I just love the simplicity of the Sweepy compared to the arms, extensions, and everything with the Suck-It.

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I really like the new Sweepy. I had the SuckIt & one thing I didn’t like was that it would slam into a clamp on the wastebaord & either screw up my settings or break the pieces that held the vacuum height adjustment.
One thing to note, the magnets on the sweepy could be a little more powerful, I have added some small clamps to mine to keep the bottom from dropping off is hit.

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This will be a brief review, but so far I’m very happy with the Sweepy 2.0 vs the Suck-It I was using previously.

  • Tool changes don’t require removing the dust hose, which is appreciated.
    I should note that with the original square router mount a 2.5" coiled dust hose is a bit of a tight squeeze - the outside of the hose rubs the aluminum router mount during install.

  • The belt driven Z stage has more of a tendency to drop on power down now that it is supporting the dust shoe and about a foot of hose. Not an issue, but I’m going to be more careful during bit changes that I don’t overload the position.

  • Visibility is improved since the bristles cover a much smaller footprint on the workpiece - better for monitoring and WIP videos/photos

  • Dust collection with my 1HP collector is improved over Suck-It in a few scenarios - since the bristle footprint is smaller it’s on top of the part more often, where the Suck-It would overhang a void and lose pressure. Even with the bristles ~1cm above the workpiece I have very little cleanup to do in comparison.

  • The price is great, and continued evolution of the platform makes me really happy as a customer.

Great job!

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Mine is set to arrive today! BitZero 2.0 came this morning. Looking forward to setting it up. Made a new threaded wasteboard as well.

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Are there any hose brackets like the one in this picture that can be bought if so where.
I have the HDZ upgrade to put on next.

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If you have a 3D printer there are some designs on thingiverse (fair warning their search is not great). I wasn’t able to find the exact one I printed, and you would need to make sure that it would be compatible with hdz anyway.

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