I am wondering why you need pods? Why don’t you just set your door directly on the spoil board and size it that way.
Maybe you don’t have enough vacuum with your set up.

With pods you can profile the edges

You can size the door and profile the top side while sitting on the spoil board and hit the back side with a laminate trimmer while sanding if the back side needs a profile.
Seems like a lot of added expense to get cups and a seperate vacuum pump .
I guess maybe I am cheap.😳

What kind of router ?

Most will accept pods on the machine bed, no need to get the spoilboard involved.

It uses the CNC vac pump to feed through the pod and you use your locator pins to position the part.

If you don't have that capability don't try, just order your doors and keep to cutting parts.

IMHO I could not ever make money making doors, I would need at bare minimum a couple shape and sand machine a cope machine , a door clamp carrier and a 75 k + sander, a moulder, a room full of profile insert cutter heads etc etc.. and another 3000 sq feet to do it all.

Just thinking about it makes me go bankrupt, yup Ill just keep buying doors.....

My router is a format4 H08. It does have a matrix table and pop up pins but we screw our spoilboard to the phenolic so taking it on and off is pretty annoying.

I hear what you’re saying re making doors in house, but honestly it’s been great for us. We were already making MDF doors and dovetail drawers, so this was the last thing we outsourced. I love being able to have the doors when I need them, as well as being able to do any other specialty rail and stile work ( island back panels etc.) that tends to get extremely expensive when purchased from a door supplier.

Not arguing against outsourcing.. we did for a long time and it makes sense for a lot of shops.

So are you doing just a few styles of door and panel and edge profiles, or did you get a lot of cutters ?

I give my customers the catalogue from my supplier and just let them choose.

What is your finish schedule for the MDF doors ? ESP sanding schedule ?

One of my hang ups in the past with MDF doors was the finishing and keeping them flat.

Also do you run flip side machining on the MDF doors to simulate a panel or are they just flat on the back ?

What is your setup for running the five piece doors.

Our supplier drops them two weeks after we order so we just figure that into the lead time and it works well. The end panels do get expensive like you stated however.

We have a full filtered spray booth with makeup air now so maybe it’s time to try the MDF doors again.

We do the drawer boxes on the CNC with baltic birch. Sides 1/8 less tall than fronts and backs , through the shaper to radius ,then gang stack and spray top edge before assembly.