We can finally share the dust shoe we’ve been working on
Starting today, every Shapeoko will ship with a free Sweepy! The team is busy assembling these and once we have enough inventory, we’ll sell them separately along with additional brush kits.
Some people might want to know how we came onto this design… I had a late night call from @rob who was pretty pumped and with a blur of excitement said it was time we rolled out a dustboot… and he wanted it to be free…!
It was a pretty broad brief but a fun project, the requirements were:
Simple to use
Robust
Non invasive
Easy to remove
Free to new owners
Suck like a champ
Over the next three months myself, Winston, Rob, Ed and Jorge toyed with hundreds of designs and samples. We tested different vacuums, hoses and chewed through lots of MFD. With a handful of solid designs we tested some boots to destruction, however after all of this and much deliberation Sweepy was born.
I’m pretty confident that Sweepy is one of the simplest, smallest and best made dust shoes out there for the money, most importantly he/she sucks like a champ and doesn’t bolt onto the Z, so no matter what Z/spindle you have he will work.
It comes in 65mm, 69mm and… coming soon 80mm!!! (people forget I love a spindle)
This is probably a strange request/question but I have multiple dewalt and multiple makita routers (don’t ask why, I apparently have a problem!), but I have only used the dewalt in this machine. To prepare for possible switch overs, I also have precision collets for both routers. I also have the suck it dust boot (actually have a second one because I bought a full new one when I got the HDZ), but I would buy this setup with the thoughts that I might use it. However, what might be nice for me is this: assuming the bottom part with the brush is the same for any configuration, could I buy one of those along with 2 of the bases (since the router diameters are different)? Is there any thought to offering the pieces separately? No worries if not-they are priced low enough, but it would keep me from throwing another piece of a tool in a box to collect dust.
I mean I am not gonna throw away my suck it and switch, but it’s a great value for a casual user or beginner who might not be thrilled about having to immediately sink $150 on something so unsexy.
They were placed in the shop because we’ve begun shipping them with new machines (if you bought in the past week, contact us at support@carbide3d.com) — we’ll list them as in stock once we have a sufficient production to allow that.
The preorder thing (would always be nice) had come up before with the good 'ole touch probe and I’m sure will always come up. As @WillAdams mentioned back then, the site isn’t set up for that
Staying on topic, I do love the simple design and price point of this dust boot! Very competitive shiny shiny
Took me a year and a half to get my hands on a touch probe so I guess I can be patient for a while more lol. Waiting list perhaps, to keep some kind of a place in line?
Rob I’m about ready to throw mine away, and I have not even received it yet!!! I ordered it on the 6th of January and it has not even shipped yet!! I have been in contact with them and to top it off I have to modify the brushes when it does arrive! Something about they did not have the correct brushes in stock… Pay that kind of money for it and still have to alter it to use it, not a good way to get happy customers!
I wished I had known that Carbide 3d was going to offer their version, I would have waited to order my machine this month instead of last month Just my luck day late and a dollar short!
I also try to cut people a little slack when they are getting their side hustle on, but the rapid ascendence of the PNWCNC dust boot coupled with the constant complaints about suck it ship times should be a good lesson for us all.
shiny shiny
I kid I kid.