Any problems with this?

[kivimagi]

Tired of having to adjust the dust collector based on the thickness of the material, I decided to follow along the lines of the air-deflector I purchased from shopbot, and fasten the dust collection foot to the router itself.

I'm curious if this is OK, or if people would have reservations of using this method. I've tried some of the other designs I've seen on the forum, but the footprint was too large for my taste.


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[richards]

Ryan,

Bit extension from the router will affect collector efficiency. The Alpha's dust skirt is similar to your design (height adjustment is fairly easy but requires an allen wrench). On my alpha, I set the height for short bits and leave it alone (and suffer a little with dust when using long bits). I had the entire Y-carriage lift when the dust skirt caught on the material and jammed things up.

[billp]

Ryan,
If it works, it's good....
I have taken off the "new" dust skirt which was on my Alpha for a few reasons ( so far); the first is that as with the previous SB dust collector it pulls it's vacuum away from where the bit is actually cutting so it's not very efficient. Then due to the movement of it being attached to the Z axis it jammed occasionally on the frame when doing deep 3D work and I got the screen message that "the drivers needed to be re-oriented"(or some similar message). I'm also not a big fan of the allen screw attachment method since it's not easy to get a good purchase with an allen wrench in such a tight spot, and by hand it's even worse. I have suggested that they add thumb screws here to facilitate a better grip... And lastly for doing deep (3") 3D work the up/down movement of the collector with the router means that for a lot of the time the collector is unable to do anything to collect the dust so it's been more trouble to me than an aid.
I have gone back to the modified "older" dust pickup which Bill Young had developed a few years back and I set it directly on the surface of the material. MUCH better dust pickup, easier to maintain position, and I know it's not going to throw my drivers out of whack..... As with any accessory I think we all have to let function prevail over form....

[beacon14]

My 2 cents, and keep in mind that I do mostly pattern work, i.e. cutting out parts from flat stock, so my comments don't apply to 3-D work, but so far with the somewhat limited amount of cutting I have done I have been more impressed with the new dust shoe than I expected. I thought that having it raise and lower with the router would be a disadvantage when working with flat material, but that has not proved to be the case. The long, flexible "fingers" do a good job of adapting to the space between the router and workpiece, and they do a MUCH better job of catching the dust when the router is working on or near the edge of the workpiece, an area where the old style skirt really fell short.

I do have the advantage of a powerful dust collection system (2HP Oneida cyclone, located very close to the ShopBot - even with other gates open at other machines I get much better dust pickup than I used to).

For me, the biggest disadvantage to the new system, like Bill P. mentioned, is the difficulty of adjusting the height (or removing the unit entirely). The "proper" setting for most of my work leaves the body of the shoe right at the level where it interferes with the wrenches when changing bits. In an ideal world, I could move a lever or something to lower the shoe out of the way for bit changes, or the shoe would stop raising for the last inch or so of z-axis travel, so by raising the router all the way it would clear the shoe. Also, since the allen screws are on the far side of the z-axis from my home position, the only convenient way for me to access them is to move the x-carriage to the far end of the table, and walk all the way around the machine to get to the screws.

Bottom line (again, my opinion, based on the work I do) is that it's a good system, much better than the previous one, with some room for further improvement.

[grant@shopbottools.com]

Bill, what kind of dust collector do you have hooked up to your dust skirt? The new design was developed for use with a high flow system. I would imagine that a shop vac would produce poor results because of the volume of air that it is designed to carry.

I'm really surprised to hear that you get better results with 3d on the old style collector. Honestly I don't see how that could be, the skirts on it were no more than 3/4" long, and shorter after it's been used a while and they get worn. The new design has 2" of flexible skirt, plus since it is following the head in our tests it was much more able to get dust in 3d applications. One of our first demo sites for the skirt was a shop that does nothing but cut huge 3d parts in tactical foam, and they were completely ecstatic with it's performance. It sounds like we should have a little more dialogue about your experience, Bill. I would be curious to see if there some way I can help you on it further.

David, the dust skirt actually has a quick release so that the entire clear plastic portion with the blue bracket on top of it pops off so that you can change a bit freely. The little two-lobed thumbscrew on the side of the aluminum mounting bar is what you turn to get it off. It's also useful as a handheld vacuum cleaner for the table. It sounds like maybe you weren't taking advantage of that feature, just wanted to make sure you knew it was there.

In regards to the skirt limiting range of motion, we know and it couldn't be helped. It was a compromise situation and in most applications it shouldn't cut your travel more than 1/2" or so.

BTW, I'm not totally satisfied myself with the procedure for adjusting height on the mounting bar, but I've been hard pressed to come up with anything better that will fit into the available space. I like the idea of a thumbscrew, but I can't get my hands up in there to access it, and my hands aren't that big. Anyone that has ideas, please shoot me an email.

Grant Bailey
ShopBot Tools Inc.

[billp]

Grant,
I have a 1 HP dust collector on the machine, same as I have always used. It's not a Shopvac. Again I think the limits of the newer unit revolve around the fact that the main suction is 6-7"away from where the bit is actually cutting so it dissipates the full force of the collector, particularly in 3 D work where after cutting for awhile you have "canyons" in the material which act to further dissipate the air flow.And also the fact that when raising and lowering the unit with the bit there is then a large area under the unit as the bit rises to cut the upper levels in 3D work. This places the entire skirt off of the table and at that point the collector is useless...I prefer to have my collector on the surface of the work.
Obviously the work I do is not the norm for most 'Botters and their experience with the newer unit may be better for them. But as with most Shopbot accessories I am sure the R/D work of everyone in the field ,combined with their feedback, will lead to a unit that the majority of owners will find satisfactory..

[beacon14]

Grant,

I saw the thumbscrew, and figured that was its intended purpose, but with my Porter-Cable router, the dust skirt is positioned all the way at the top of its available travel, and the bracket that holds the z-axis springs prevents the dust skirt from coming off even with the thumbscrew removed, so the thumbscrew is useless with the skirt in that position. Is it possible that I have the router mounted incorrectly? I currently have a typical 1/4" diameter x 1 1 /4" cutting length bit mounted, and the bottom of the "fingers" are about 1/4" below the end of the bit, so I don't think lowering the skirt is a good idea - it would be even worse with a shorter bit.
If it were that easy to remove the skirt, I would be much happier.

David

[grant@shopbottools.com]

Bill, I'm sorry that you're not getting better performance out of it. I'm still a little baffled as to why. I would have preferred to have the vacuum pickup closer to the router itself, but the table leg, Y car, potential double z setups, required hose diameter and the variety of routers that could be used with it dictated otherwise. The tests we did still showed a huge improvement over the old style skirt. Oh well, if you're happy then I'm happy. You could probably offer it for sale to someone that has a PRT. It should retrofit to any PRT machine, provided it has a bevel cut on the back of the T-rail. I know there were some machines that didn't have it, though it can be added.

David - I'm going to check this, but you should be able to move it laterally enough to get the collector to drop straight down. It is tight on the spring bracket, but there is room. The trick is to not tilt it or there won't be enough space to clear the pin.

Grant Bailey
ShopBot Tools Inc.

[paco]

And some filing of the screw slot might help too to get it some loose...

[harold_weber]

There was a side discussion of the chip collector "foot" at John Forney's Midwest Camp last week. I believe one of the owners of an Alpha has modified his by placing some baffles in it to let it only draw in air from near the tool bit. He said this gave a big improvement.

I'll send a note to who I think it was and see if he cares to share exactly what he did.

[billp]

Harold,
Thanks, I'll look for the info. One BIG improvement I have just made in my dust collection setup was to finally order the "air deflector" for the PC router made by Steve M. and sold through Shopbot. It keeps the router from "competing"with my dust collection setup and has greatly improved my percentage of dust pickup. It's a good tool, at a fair price...
The only drawback I have seen is that in cutting a LOT of foam I have been getting a buildup of it's fuzzy dust near the top of my router, but I plan to remedy that in the next few days by making a "PC ski hat" out of some leftover material from the "Dirt Bag" PC cover/filter, as they give you MUCH more material than you need for most standard PC's.

[beacon14]

Grant,

There was no play at all between the dust skirt and the spring bracket, until I bent the bracket, which allowed just enough clearance to remove the skirt using the thumbscrew. It's not pretty, but it works. That will certainly make bit changes easier. Here are before and after pics for clarification.


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589

If you are collecting ideas for future modifications for the dust skirt, here's one that might be an improvement - if the flange that the plastic strip material is attached to was turned up instead of down, it would allow the strips to be longer, and allow the skirt to get closer to the material without having the rigid parts contacting the workpiece.

Thanks for the input,
David B.