Choosing a Dust Collector

[debeer920]

We just purchased our first CNC Router (Shop Sabre IS408). We are about a week away from having it up and running. The last piece of the puzzle is choosing a dust collector that will get the job done. We will primarily be working with ACM, Acrylic, PVC, Aluminum, EVA foam, and HDU. Rarely do we work with wood. Getting this machine up and running has been painful, with many unforeseen expenses haha. We’ve had the machine in our procession for 3 months now and need to start seeing a return on investment. Would a harbor freight 2hp dust collector get us by until the budget allows for a cyclone system?

 

[ikarasu]

Buy a 2 HP dust collector and by a dust deputy and connect it to that. We use it and run our CNC 8 hours a day.... The harbor freight dust collector is actually really good.

We've been through 2 though.... 1 died after 3 years, 8 hours everyday use.. the second died within a year because our CNC guy let the dust deputy get full and all the aluminum chips went into the dust collector and destroyed the fans... So if you're going to CNC anything aside from wood, a dust deputy or similar system is necessary along with whatever collector you buy.

 

[debeer920]

Buy a 2 HP dust collector and by a dust deputy and connect it to that. We use it and run our CNC 8 hours a day.... The harbor freight dust collector is actually really good.

We've been through 2 though.... 1 died after 3 years, 8 hours everyday use.. the second died within a year because our CNC guy let the dust deputy get full and all the aluminum chips went into the dust collector and destroyed the fans... So if you're going to CNC anything aside from wood, a dust deputy or similar system is necessary along with whatever collector you buy.

Much appreciated!! Would this unit suffice?

https://www.oneida-air.com/super-dust-deputy-4-5-inch-deluxe-15-gal-cyclone-separator-kit?gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADzmatoNbGEEkt46wT3taGlgk08j2&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIyvLM3N6-iAMV4VFHAR1royxmEAQYASABEgKevPD_BwE

 

[JBurton]

15 gallons isn't a lot. I wish I'd gotten one that mounted on a 55 gallon drum, as I have to clean it out once a week now. I never use mine on aluminum, figured the oily chips would hang up or that it'd disrupt my misting. ikarasu, what cnc and bit are you guys using, and do you use mist on aluminum?

 

[ikarasu]

Yup! You can buy the knockoff for like $20-40 and just screw / tape it into any barrel if you already have a barrel though. If you're doing aluminum, it gets pretty heavy, so I'm not sure how the cardboard type barrels would hold up


https://www.amazon.com/Steel-Open-Head-Inhibitor-Lining-Closure/dp/B07HXKQNXP - This is the type of barrel we use. It's good because you mount the dust collector to the lid...then you can have 2-3 barrels around so when one is full, you have a new one you can swap in... Our barrels get so heavy because its pure aluminum that it takes 2 guys to lift and dump into our aluminum bin, So having a second one saves on time.

 

[ikarasu]

15 gallons isn't a lot. I wish I'd gotten one that mounted on a 55 gallon drum, as I have to clean it out once a week now. I never use mine on aluminum, figured the oily chips would hang up or that it'd disrupt my misting. ikarasu, what cnc and bit are you guys using, and do you use mist on aluminum?

We use a multicam digital express, had it for like 10 years... We're mainly a traffic company so we cut aluminum 8 hours a day pretty much every day! We use those metal barrels that you clamp the lids on... We have three of them, the dust deputy is attached to the lid so whenever it is full all you have to do is move it to a different barrel and clamp it down and you're good to go... Beats having one barrel.


You can buy a misting system for very cheap, up until last year we used it, but we started to use just air though.. you can buy a little air attachment for about 15 bucks and attach it to your CNC, it uses a lot of air but it blows right on the bit and keeps it cool.

Onsrud 64-024. It has a special coating on it, and onsrud even said it is made so that you don't need to use misters on it.. which is why we started to buy pre-etched aluminum and gave it a try.

We noticed maybe a 10% increase in bit use by not using mist... I think we average about 20 sheets of .081 per bit before we notice the cut getting bad and swap bits

 

[JBurton]

We use a multicam digital express

Curious what your hold down method is, along with your spoilboard, and whether you're cutting with a vinyl layer or not.
It sounds like you've jigged some plates for common sizes? Troughs cut into MDF spoilboards so the chips have somewhere to go? This is ideal, but not so for something along the lines of letter fabrication.
If not, I'm more curious about your cutting parameters, hold down, and whether you're using a vision registration setup.

 

[ikarasu]

Curious what your hold down method is, along with your spoilboard, and whether you're cutting with a vinyl layer or not.
It sounds like you've jigged some plates for common sizes? Troughs cut into MDF spoilboards so the chips have somewhere to go? This is ideal, but not so for something along the lines of letter fabrication.
If not, I'm more curious about your cutting parameters, hold down, and whether you're using a vision registration setup.

We use a vacuum table. We used to have a really good multicam one ... Now we use 2x blackbox vacuum tables hooked up to 4 zones.

MDF spoil board, we use a o flute upcut so the chips fly up and into the vacuum.

If we're cutting small 6" letters.... We throw a row or two of double sided tape to stick it to the spoil board.


No jigs or anything as it's always different! But we can cut 30x30 cm signs without any additional tape or anything, so the table works good.

 

[johnnysigns]

A little off topic, but tile gasket has worked wonders for the lacking vacuum system on our Axyz Infinite CNC. This is a small part we anticipated having a lot of spoils to cut w/out the tile gasket. In the end we'd lose less than 10pcs per cycle. They make a very good product. https://store.allstarcnc.com/collections/tile-gasket

These were 1/8" thick clear polycarbonate dividers for a heat bent part we produce.

 

[JBurton]

Hmm, perhaps I should give the cold gun we've had forever another try. I may just need to get a new compressor, we have tons of capacity, but topped out at 120 psi.

These were 1/8" thick clear polycarbonate dividers for a heat bent part we produce.

That's really impressive coming out of poly with a 3/16" bit in one pass. Something like that, I'd run all the parts down to .11", and then run a second pass all the way through, which of course would be double your time.

 

[johnnysigns]

Hmm, perhaps I should give the cold gun we've had forever another try. I may just need to get a new compressor, we have tons of capacity, but topped out at 120 psi.

That's really impressive coming out of poly with a 3/16" bit in one pass. Something like that, I'd run all the parts down to .11", and then run a second pass all the way through, which of course would be double your time.

That was honestly the plan before we got in touch with Allstar CNC about the tile gasket. I wouldn't gush about that stuff if it didn't deliver, but it was a game changer for small parts on our machine. I've had great success applying the heaviest transfer tape I could buy to sheets in the past to add some more depth to cut into and not spoil the vacuum, but we avoided that entirely with the TG.

 

[Bradley D]

My 2 cents....with dust collectors make sure and keep the vacuum hose large and don't reduce it at any point, keep the hose distance short, and find a collection bag/cylinder that doesn't get clogged and offers little resistance. The best option for performance is blowing it directly outside the shop but that isn't very responsible. DON'T use a wetvac. Don't reduce your dust collector hose size.

 

[Bradley D]

In response to "material hold down" comments, I personally really like a pressure foot and the use of bridges and don't like vacuum or tape hold down methods. Vacuum method too noisy and expensive and tape hold down just seems cumbersome and wasteful but I've never tried it.

 

[netsol]

not sure i follow what a pressure foot is.

subject i am very interested in getting up to speed on

could you post a picture?

 

[Bradley D]

https://cncshop.com/products/2780031-02-high-capacity-pressure-foot-with-phenolic-donut?variant=39747587702917

 

[Bradley D]

A pressure foot simply puts downward pressure around the router bit holding it down where most needed. A bridge is just a small section left uncut that is small enough to break off but usually will need a pass or two with a file to smooth out. AXYZ is the only company I think I've seen that has and promotes the pressure foot as seen in previous photo. I have a shopbot router so I made my own pressure foot cut out of butcher board material and fastened together with springs. It also has 5" port for dust collector on back side. I use a pressure foot and screws for hold down and nothing else 90% of the time. If I'm cutting out something tricky I use bridges and then just spend a little extra time with a file knocking them off after it is cut out since I don't like to have even a single piece get damaged. I don't have to use bridges for acm or plastics just aluminum.

 

[White Haus]

A little off topic, but tile gasket has worked wonders for the lacking vacuum system on our Axyz Infinite CNC. This is a small part we anticipated having a lot of spoils to cut w/out the tile gasket. In the end we'd lose less than 10pcs per cycle. They make a very good product. https://store.allstarcnc.com/collections/tile-gasket

These were 1/8" thick clear polycarbonate dividers for a heat bent part we produce.

What software are you using? Man I can't wait to get a real CNC & software. Routing on our Summa F has become a real chore and the software is just brutal to work with.

 

[White Haus]

A pressure foot simply puts downward pressure around the router bit holding it down where most needed. A bridge is just a small section left uncut that is small enough to break off but usually will need a pass or two with a file to smooth out. AXYZ is the only company I think I've seen that has and promotes the pressure foot as seen in previous photo. I have a shopbot router so I made my own pressure foot cut out of butcher board material and fastened together with springs. It also has 5" port for dust collector on back side. I use a pressure foot and screws for hold down and nothing else 90% of the time. If I'm cutting out something tricky I use bridges and then just spend a little extra time with a file knocking them off after it is cut out since I don't like to have even a single piece get damaged. I don't have to use bridges for acm or plastics just aluminum.

Interesting, I've never heard of such an animal. Seems like a really cool concept.

I spent 6 hours straight the other day fighting with routing small pieces on our Summa F. Closest thing to a solution I've found is adding application tape to the back of sheets and using 1/8" MDF as a spoilboard, even then the results aren't ideal. Vacuum just doesn't always have enough hold down to keep small pieces from drifting on the final cut, and no option to add tabs in our software. I might have to experiment a bit with adding tabs in our files manually and see how that works w/ cleanup etc.

 

[Bradley D]

I use vectric vcarve software and love it. Very user friendly and easy to learn. You can place bridges wherever you want. With bridges or tabs you can cut 1 in squares all day and not have any mess ups.

 

[Bradley D]

Vectric vcarve has a feature called photo v carve where a photo is made by cutting into material with v bit. The photo below is carved out in mdf using v bit, painted black, then sanded. This is a cool application that I hope to someday use but I pretty much just do channel letters so I'm not sure I will ever get the chance. If you look close entire photo is made by varied v carve depths in linear paths. Really fun project to make since photo doesn't really pop until it is painted and sanded.