Cnc Router It's Alive!!

I built the modification for the chip management shoe this morning.

Glued 2 pieces of 3/4 MDF together to get the height, then scrounged up a piece of 1/4 plastic of some kind for the base. Bolted the whole thing down on the mill table and started chewing. The most amazing thing about this picture is that the spindle is turning about 3000 RPM, it captured it with the flash with no motion blur at all. Not bad for a cheap point & shoot Cannon.

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And out pops the parts.
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The spacer in place:

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And the completed assembly

I used brad-lock T-nuts without the brads to keep everything compact. If I ever need to take it apart I'll have to drill the screws out, I assembled it with red LockTite. I didn't want it dripping parts in the middle of a cut.

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And this is how it looks installed. The bottom is just above the collet nut. If I ever run the Z down that far, I'm doing something wrong. It works great now. I should have copied every other shoe I've see to start with, but I didn't understand why they were built that way. I had to see for myself. Live & learn.

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I built the Enhanced Capacity Dust Management Unit this afternoon.

I bought a barrel with a removable top and a lever lock for easy servicing. Then I made up my mind that I was NOT going to make another trip into town for any hardware so I went scrounging through my stash of stuff to find enough bits and pieces to make it work.

Here's what I came up with out of my ABS plumbing supplies box. The main item that made things easy was a shower drain fitting, they screw together so mounting the bucket was easy.

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The Milwaukee Fuel had plenty of power to get through the barrel lid with a 3 inch hole saw. I didn't have to dig out my arm breaker Hole Shooter.

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and the 5 gal bucket mounted on the lid. The purpose of the bucket is the provide a low velocity airflow zone at the top of the barrel so hopefully as the sawdust swirls around it as it's dropping it won't be picked up and transported to the vacuum. We'll see how well this works, I may have to put a cone inside to get it to drop out better.

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And the inside view

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The inlet tube. I have probably had this kicking around for 20 years, hey, it might be useful some day. The only problem is that the adapter is glued into the end.

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No problem, that's what band saws are for.

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So how to secure the inlet tube through the lid? A Myers hub (an o-ringed electrical fitting) would be a good choice for this, but NO trips to the hardware for this project.

So I bored out an ABS coupling for a tight slip fit on the pipe so it would slide down the pipe and when glued in place will secure the tube.

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A little more glue to seal the gap and it's in place. But......There is another problem, I can't release the clamp, hits the outlet tube.

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Just cut on the mark.
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Here is the inner view of the inlet tube, it is installed kind of tangent to the barrel arc to get the sawdust to swirl.

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And here is the finished installation. I need to find some 55 gallon trash bags to put in the barrel to make disposal easier.

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I'll get to try it out tomorrow and see if it actually works. !!.
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I started cutting out the UHMW parts today. I ran a number of test parts in some scrap UHMW to get the feed and speed correct for the tool bit I'm using. This was also the first test run with the Enhanced Capacity Dust Management Unit (see ^^^ above) It seems to work as planned, not bad for a collection of stuff I had sitting around the shop. I cleaned out the vacuum canister before I started, and at the end of the run today there was only one UHMW chip in the vacuum canister, it all went into the barrel. The UHMW is pretty dense compared to sawdust so we'll see if it works with that.
 
very cool Jim. That's going to seriously expand your capabilities and the kinds of jobs/ projects you'll be able to do. Looking forward to the output!
 
When they do roll call on “calling all machinist”. You get to go in front of the line!

I've never really considered myself to be a machinist, more of of problem solver who sometimes uses machine tools as part of the process. There are a lot of folks out there who are much better at machining than I am. I have a natural feel for running machine tools so I'm lucky in that regard.
 
Very impressive restoration project. You obviously have a lot of talent and thanks for sharing.
 
I built the Enhanced Capacity Dust Management Unit this afternoon.

I bought a barrel with a removable top and a lever lock for easy servicing. Then I made up my mind that I was NOT going to make another trip into town for any hardware so I went scrounging through my stash of stuff to find enough bits and pieces to make it work.

Here's what I came up with out of my ABS plumbing supplies box. The main item that made things easy was a shower drain fitting, they screw together so mounting the bucket was easy.

View attachment 110460

The Milwaukee Fuel had plenty of power to get through the barrel lid with a 3 inch hole saw. I didn't have to dig out my arm breaker Hole Shooter.

View attachment 110461

and the 5 gal bucket mounted on the lid. The purpose of the bucket is the provide a low velocity airflow zone at the top of the barrel so hopefully as the sawdust swirls around it as it's dropping it won't be picked up and transported to the vacuum. We'll see how well this works, I may have to put a cone inside to get it to drop out better.

View attachment 110462

And the inside view

View attachment 110464

The inlet tube. I have probably had this kicking around for 20 years, hey, it might be useful some day. The only problem is that the adapter is glued into the end.

View attachment 110465

No problem, that's what band saws are for.

View attachment 110466

So how to secure the inlet tube through the lid? A Myers hub (an o-ringed electrical fitting) would be a good choice for this, but NO trips to the hardware for this project.

So I bored out an ABS coupling for a tight slip fit on the pipe so it would slide down the pipe and when glued in place will secure the tube.

View attachment 110471

A little more glue to seal the gap and it's in place. But......There is another problem, I can't release the clamp, hits the outlet tube.

View attachment 110472

Just cut on the mark.
View attachment 110473

Here is the inner view of the inlet tube, it is installed kind of tangent to the barrel arc to get the sawdust to swirl.

View attachment 110474

And here is the finished installation. I need to find some 55 gallon trash bags to put in the barrel to make disposal easier.

View attachment 110475

I'll get to try it out tomorrow and see if it actually works. !!.
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Nice one, I built one about ten years ago, virtually same design but much smaller. As I don't have a shop vac I wanted something for when cleaning the shop which is really just a corner in the car garage, which is connected to the house, I try to avoid dragging bits off the floor into the house.

I used a 25lt. (5gal) drum for the main container, and a 5lt. (1gal) drum for the inner bucket, likewise PVC plumbing fittings that were lying around the shop. I didn't have the same problem with the lid clamp as mine clamps to outside of the drum. I just hook it up to the house ducted vac system. The drum saves filling up the house system.

I do very little woodwork, mostly metal. However a couple of years ago the clamp broke, (too much use) and I discovered you just don't need it. Once you start the suction there is no way you can get that lid off.

Be careful if you put a trash bag inside the drum that no air can get down between the drum and trash bag or it will suck the whole bag out through the drum outlet. dont ask how I know., but I don't use a bag anymore. Still emptying a 5 gal bucket is abit different from a 55gal one.

It works very well, the only problem is It does get some carry over with very fine dust, but still, way better than filling up the vac cannister, and or getting small bits of metal through the house, which may be fatal for me.
 
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