I’ve got a Shapeoko Pro XL. It’s mounted on a rolling base. I’ve also got a large cyclone style dust collector, fed by 6" lines. It does a great job of sucking and filtering dust out of the air and I’ve rigged a connection to a shop vac hose that connects to Sweepy. Surprise! Not everything gets captured. After two years, I’ve stopped work and am designing an enclosure to go with the table. If I’m lucky, I may be able to show you the design at this point.
The blue and silver cylinders are my crude representation of the travel limits of the router and Sweepy.
I’m anticipating attaching a box (The Dust Collection Transition) somewhere on the the back side of the enclosure as the starting point for dust collection inside the enclosure.
The box itself may look like this, although less colorful. It is open on one 10 x 10 face, with 6" (maybe less) sides, screwed to the fixed back of the enclosure. The bright green thing entering the box represents the 6" line that goes to the dust collector, The pipe at the top is something like 2½" shop vac hose and will go over the back of the enclosure, entering the enclosure near the front center of the fixed panel on the top, and connect to Sweepy. Dust not captured by Sweepy will be sucked out via a hole on the back panel, of some undefined size and shape wherever the box is attached to the back. Thus a portion of the suction is directed to Sweepy and the remainder sucks up remaining airborne dust. I’m not concerned about bigger pieces that happen to get fired past Sweepy. That’s a minor nuisance but neither a health hazard or not contributor to shop dust.
I’m expecting to mount the box midway between the left and right sides. What I’m trying to figure out is it’s optimum vertical location. Close to the top, middle, bottom, and why. And if you’ve got any thoughts on the matter, how big should the hole be on the back panel so that Sweepy still gets enough suction?
Not sure I can help you with specific position of the fixture or the determination of the smaller sweepy 2.5” hose. Wha t I can tell you is that I don’t have an enclosure on my CNC and only use the 2.5” dust collector shoe that came on my 5 Pro. I have full shop size Oneida dust collector with an 8” main to the cyclone. This system removes dust particles very effectively, not all of the wood chips are picked up based on the location of the collection port on each individual machine.
I’m okay with that, dust is what I want removed from the air volume in the shop. The two removal systems have their place, the Oneida uses a very large volume to transport dust particles and most chips as well. The vacuum system moves much less air volume yet has a much higher static pressure change and physically picks up larger chips and as much dust as it can based on its specific volume of air moved.
I have my router table setup of a 4” drop (enclosed router box) on the Oneida with a 2.5” tap for the router fence. This system effectively removes all “dust” but leaves some chips. If I swap the router fence to the 2.5” vacuum it removes almost all of the chips but I have more dust residue on the router table.
I see good dust collection with the 4”/2.5” drop from the Oneida system, but chips need to be cleaned up later. Not sure you will get the collection of material you really want with setup.
If I were to build an enclosure I would have a separate vacuum/cyclone (like I am using now) for the spindle and at least a 4” port on the Oneida shop system for the enclosure itself. But that’s me, your not worried about getting all of your chips anyway.
Hope this helps, there are many users that have enclosures on the forum that will provide the help you are looking for.
After reading more dust collection / enclosure posts, I’m thking my more worriesome issue is how much overhead clearance does the enclosure need to have? In other words, inches above router at max height to top of the enclosure?
It can be tricky if you’re limited in overhead space for sure. For my application I will not use an enclosure. The spindle is sooooooo much quieter than a standard router motor. The 4x4 enclosure would be huge. I do see the need for them as some people have them setup.
LIke too many other things, maybe the answer is obvious. Clearly, I don’t want escaping dust. But I also don’t want dust where it will eventually screw up things. I’m thinking the linear bearings are the most vulnerable, so I’m setting up several vaccuum ports just above the bed of the CNC across the rear. 7 - 1½" holes spaced above 5" apart. That may prove to be overkill. If so, I can easily choke any / all of them.
No sure there is ever overkill with respect to dust collection. Your idea sounds good, especially if you have 600-1100+ SCFM flowing across the work area from front to back.
