I do a lot of OpenDesk stuff myself, so we're in the same boat. My system is an 8 zone system that has 4 lighthouse motors: http://www.centralvacuummotor.com/shopbot.htm

These motors are the same kind of motors that you'll find in a whole house vacuum. The way I have my system setup is this:

I've got the 4 motors in a box (that has good ventilation) and each motor is plumbed to a check valve. The check valve is something you'd used in a sewer system to prevent sewer gas. This way I can have any combination of 1-4 motors pulling vacuum. From there, it's plumbed out to 8 zones, each 2' x 2'. If I'm doing a full sheet I open up all the valves and run one or two motors. If I'm running a smaller job, I can cut off zones one at a time using the valves.

Or if I'm cutting something really small I can kick on all 4 motors and direct all of that suction to one zone. It's about as flexible of a system as I could come up with for what I do. Cost? Well, I probably spent a few hundred dollars on piping (those valves can get expensive so look on eBay) and the lighthouse motors are $200 each.

2017-11-03 at 2.31 PM.jpg

Check out this SketchUp model:

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/mod...-Vacuum-System

and more pictures here: https://goo.gl/photos/MUq1RJaKRV2xxrFk7

That model is an exact "as built" model of my system. I went a little crazy with the angles because I thought it looked cool, at the end of the day I think there are only 2-3 different lengths of pipe in there that I precut so it's not as hard as it looks. You could certainly get the same result and have a less insane looking pipe setup if you wanted.

Feel free to ask any other questions here, or you can contact me at www.digitallyfabbed.com/contact

I'd be happy to help.