Who Needs Dust Collection?

[procarve]

I have been cutting some deep foam reliefs lately. None of the dust collection mods that I have seen work will with steep relief carvings so I gave up on collecting it.

With the pc router exahust pointing straight down this makes a huge mess. I took a 4" - 3" rubber drain coupling from the depot and trimmed it off right at the 3" line, then I cut an exhaust port at the back and epoxied a thin piece of sintra to the boot. Cut a hole for the collet and now my router exhausts backwards instead of down - much less mess.

I posted a video of it in action - still some dust flying around with the 1.5" surfacing mill but not nearly what you would get without the boot - also, check out how little dust is being kicked up with the .5 ball mill -

I have run it for a few hours today and the router doesn't seem to heat up any more than usual.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMomAnXrVRk

[knight_toolworks]

I think you can do it. since you have a PRS it would not be hard to make a setup that would get most of it. mine has the hose in front and it had a 6" hose close to the machine. this makes really fast airflow and it would do well for what your doing. you can get long brushes that help though they tend to get trimmed sometimes.

[br928]

There were many posts about exhaust diverters a few years ago. A ShopBotter designed an exhaust diverter for the PC router out of Kydex. He made holsters out of this material. It was first class. It attached to the router with a simple hose clamp. I have had one for years. Dust at the bit is not even disturbed from the air flow. I don't know how anyone with a PC router can work without one.

ShopBot was selling these directly although I never have seen them on their web site. It should be a accessory sold with every PC router. At least listed as an accessory on their website.

http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/messages/27/1634.html

[ljdm]

I've made 2 so far - one plastic, one from aluminum flashing. Just a flat circle a little bigger around than the diameter of the router, bend the excess into tabs pointing up, leave two tabs longer than the rest so you can take a hose clamp around the router and clamp the 2 tabs. Air and dust blow up, not down on the material.

[tuck]

William, did you in fact seal off the air vents on the collet end of the PC so as to force all of the generated air flow to exit the opposite end? I have a big Milwaukee router and I'm looking to accomplish what you've done with just a simple custom cut piece of 1/8" sheet PVC (sintra).

[procarve]

Mark -

Yes, it works really well and i have run it for hours with no problems.

Sintra is what I used on the bottom of the rubber boot. I just epoxied the sintra to the boot and then cut a hole just large enough to fit the collet through. The bottom collet nut extends through the hole in the sintra.

You need to remove the boot to change bits but with the long run times of the jobs it wasn't a big deal.

[tuck]

Well William I needed an even simpler solution than yours because I'm changing bits constantly so here's what I did. I cut a piece of sintra to replace the plastic doogamaflothcie on the collet end of my Milwaukee that let all the air out and screwed it down. Now the router was unvented and after letting it run for a while on the bench it started getting pretty dang hot. No air was coming out of the top (bottom?) vents either. Not to be defeated, I put the router on my drill press and carefully drilled a series of 3/8" holes around the bottom of the casing to let the air escape sideways. Look carefully and you can see a few of them:

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f332/Superfan52/Router.jpg

IT WORKS!
I'm sure I've voided my warranty on the router but I don't care. My dust collection system finally has a chance to actually work now and it's doing much better, thank you!

[procarve]

not bad - it's almost as good as having a spindle eh!

[tuck]

Don't need no stinkin' spindle! LOL! ;-)

[mikek]

Stan et al. Look under Accessories in the Price List. Part Number 12013, Air Deflector Assembly for the Porter Cable Router, $26.00