Alpha Vacuum Pickup

[joe]

The new vacuum pickup, displayed on the Alpha Demo movie, appears to be a good improvement.

One feature is that it moves up and down with the Z plate. This should eleminate the necessity of adjusting it's height, as this would be automatic as one zero's the bit.

Wonder how can you change out the bit, and will this product be offered for our older machines?

J

[beacon14]

Well, now that I've had a couple of months to use the new Alpha and it's dust shoe, I must admit it's a good design. It was a little awkward at first to change the bit, but once I found the "sweet spot" in the Z-height, where the shoe is far enough off the table so it can drop down clear of the bit, but not too high where access to the release thumbscrew is hidden behind the Z-carriage (I marked a line on my Z-carriage so I can raise the router to the same level each time quickly by eye regardless of Z setting), it takes 3 or 4 quick turns of the thumbwheel to allow the shoe to drop down clear of the bit.
If you mostly use the same length bits, the dust shoe height setting will rarely need to be adjusted, but if you change from a short bit to a long bit (or vice versa), it requires a 1/8" hex wrench in an awkward spot, which is a bit of a pain.
Overall, it's not perfect (what is?) but it does a decent job of catching the majority of the dust, even around the edges of the workpiece, an area where the old design left a lot to be desired. I even used it with an old wet-dry shop vac for a week while my dust-collector motor was being repaired, and it worked fairly well.
I don't know about it being offered as a retrofit, as it is molded to fit the bottom of the Z-carriage and clamp to the carriage, so if you have an older machine some creative adapting may be required.