I have a 5 pro 4x4. Thinking about upgrading to a flow through vac table. I do mostly nested parts in 4x4 sheets. It gets old dealing with work holding while also trying to keep the factory slats in decent shape, I use a half sheet of 1” mdf as a waste board an I use thread inserts in the bottom of the sheet and 1/4” bolts for hood downs.
Everything that’s not is held by a jig of some sort including gaskets vac fixtures.
My thought is to remove the slats and extrusions and replace them with a solid piece of 3/4-1” thick phenolic or aluminum that will be manufactured on the machine prior. This would keep the machine rigid while also allowing me to use it to distribute vac to the entire surface of the machine.
Then I would use a resurfaced and edge sealed piece of 1” mdf on top as a waste board. And a black box or similar vac pump. This should get me all set up for around $2k.
What’s everyone’s thoughts on this? Does anyone have a drawing of the structure of the machine and the hole locations in the structure they would like to share?
It’s a cool idea but I’m unsure what your profit per hour, downtime for workholding and average uptime per year is to comment on if it’s justified. If you were planning to switch to a rack and pinion machine down the road or something capable of a higher IPM it probably is! The weight of either would be the same but the phenolic is less likely to scratch your workpeices and won’t require the same level of care to debur, etc.
Edit; Do the machining somewhere with good ventilation as the material should release formaldehyde gas supposedly.
There will always be a waste board on top of the structural piece so scratching won’t be an issue.
For what I do the 275 ipm in at at with the 5pro is plenty. And I have no intention of evert going to a rack and pinion machine and inducing accuracy losses.
I plan on adding another 4x4 5pro if I need more production. I made a table so they can be stacked. But it’s going to take a while before that happens. What used to take me 12 hours of cutting on my s3xxl is now completed in 1-2 hours on the 5. I went from 180 ipm and 1/4” doc to 275 ipm and 1/2 doc both with the same 2.2kw spindle.