What are most people doing to clean their spoilboard in between cycles before loading a new sheet of material. One machine we are using a shop-vac and the other we are using a single bag dust collector with vacuum attachments and vacuuming the table before blowing the remaining dust off with compressed air. I have looked into some of the pneumatic driven industrial hi-vac but you need an air compressor the size of an 18 wheeler to run them. Looking to make improvements in this process and improve overall dust collection, while considering combustible dust regulations, etc.
From contributor da
I wrote a vac program that goes around the table an uses the vac on the cnc dust collector. Painless. 4" stepover running at 500 in/min
From contributor B.
Dan,
How close do you run your dust skirt to the table surface when you run the cleaning program?
Do you drop off the tool first? This seems like it would be necessary?
Can you post a photo of the machine while doing the clean up?
Lots of different configuration routers out there so it would be nice to see just how you are running this clever solution.
Thanks,
BH Davis
From contributor Le
Dan,
That is a great idea, so the program is z down to spoil board the a spoil board program with a larger step over?
From contributor Da
Normally the whiskers of the skirt just touch the spoil board. When running sheet goods the whiskers are flexed. So with no sheets on the table running the sweep program my dc gets MOST of the left over dust I'd say 95%. Good enough to throw another sheet on and cut. I thought about having a air hose ride along and give a little squirt but it hasn't been needed. I call up no tooling for this operation. Leland, yes I tell the machine it's running a 4" fly cutter with 100% step over but call up no tooling.
From contributor Br
Wow Dan You either have a lot of time on your hands or don't need much production to be able to run a blank pass just to clean the spoilboard. If the panel has a lot of small parts the operator pushes it onto an offload table then blows off the spoilboard and cycles again. If the parts are larger then you pick the parts toss the scrap and clean the board. But what ever you do the object is to get the machine back to cutting. If the bit is not in the material you are wasting time and money. With a CNC router you will find that faster is usually better and more profitable.
From contributor De
We have a drop off the main dist collector line with a flex hose with 3' of pvc on the end with a modified elbow on it.when the sheet is done running the operator runs it over areas that have accumulation. We then remove parts and blow it off and load a new sheet
From contributor da
Wow Brian heres an idea you run your shop as you see fit and Ill run mine. Dont know if you noticed that air borne wood dust is flammable. I prefer to suck it up as opposed to blow it all over the shop and machine and than have someone suck it up later. and by the way this was not my post Im just offering my two cents worth what works for me.
From contributor Da
Andy,
Do yourself a favor and give your self a little insurance, if you will. Do NOT blow dust off your CNC router table. All the reasons stated here are good ones. I would add that a little more time spent on this task will save you thousands of dollars in repair costs. According to Professional Spindle Repair of Manchester NH, the single most common cause of spindle failure is contamination. OSHA fines, if your local inspector is enforcing the current air quality standard, could cost dearly as well.
IMHO....
David Paine
National Sales Manager
Omnitech Systems / Anderson America Corp
From contributor Ma
For years I was blowing off dust with an air gun, just a quick blast after each sheet and hated it. There was not a huge amount per sheet, but besides getting it airborne and having to breathe the dust, it would accumulate behind the machine getting mucked up in the wiring, on the lead screws and on the linear bearings. Mine is a water cooled spindle, but the electronics cabinet suffered all the same.
I finally got a pair of Airpro collets for 2 of my HSK63F holders. I run them on my main tool, a 3/8 2 flute compression, and a 3/8 mortise compression I use for dados and 1/2 inch material. For me, If I use a single pass it still leaves a VERY small amount of dust, but since I onion skin all through cuts anyway, there is ZERO dust left on my table. I am about 2 years into this system and I love it. This is quicker than a sweeper pass and leaves me with better part holding. After accounting for drilling, dados and onion skinning small parts, adding the second pass to large parts as well does not cost me an awful lot of time. My average sheet cycle is 11 minutes. I could get that down to 8 or so without the second pass, but it is well worth it to me, and the machine only runs 20 to 24 hours on an average week.
I do also occasionally run my 4 inch spoilboard cutter surfacing program at .5mm in air after I have been carving or doing solid wood. This takes around 75 seconds. Some of of the wood shavings get pushed aside by the brushes and get left on the shoulders of the grid table but the spoilboard itself is pretty clean.
