dust collection

[k turk]

hello all

 

We have a new onsrud 5 axis router. The dust hood works well with 2 axis work but it becomes a problem when doing anything other than flat work as the hood impacts the head rotation. The manufacturer says the first thing everyone does is remove the hood which makes sense, except for the dust of course. Our router is in a rather confined space so it doesn't take much to find yourself in an oxygen deprived cloud. I was wondering if anyone has seen / built a dust collection system that works but doesn't impact the head. We've set up a loc-line system on our 3 axis mill which works fairly well, but the bed travel is rather short. The hurdle with using the same idea with the router seems to be accommodating the eight feet of head travel - would be interested in any solutions anyone may have. We are also looking into a new dust collector and are down to an Oneida or Dantherm unit. Does anyone have a recommendation of one over the other?

 

thanks

k.

[ERIC14779]

I saw a place that built a booth around the machine and hung suction filters in the back and sucked the air in thru the front of the machine/booth and exhausted it I guess back into the room up and outside of the booth

 

maybe I saw this on wildcat99's company website??

 

I cant remember

[Thee Starry™]

I have always wondered about this as well. We have 4 different 5 axis machines and 1 3 axis. The 3 axis is the only one we have that can really utilize the dust collector. We just figure that our operators will just have to sweep up at night. If you hit on anything, or someone has a good idea, I would sure like to hear it as well.

[Tom Dorgan from American Precision]

We recommend Dantherm but don't scrimp. Go for a good system with an airlock & auger system to feed into a big hopper. The barrel type work great but you can spend a couple of hours per shift emptying the barrels and cleaning up.

As far as the dust hoods, we have clamp on dust hoods on our spindles that work without interfering with the spindle in 3 axis work. They are quickly removable for aggregate work or can be modified to accomodate an aggregate head within reason. With a 5 axis I don't believe anyone has a good solution. I have seen some machines with automatic air valves that follow the machine with air blowing behind the tool. We have toyed with a design for a table width hood that hangs behind the crossrail but it would require a large amount of CFM from the dust collector.

We have also been working on a dust box that will popup on the far side of the machine at the end of the cycle to allow the operator to blow the table off into the dust box. Then, when the box is retracted to the closed position, the CFM increases to suck the dust into the dust system.

[Ployd]

Here is a photo of our machine. We have a booth built on the back side. We have a large fan to suck the air into the back and up into the canisters.

 

When we are cutting panels we use a collector attached to our spindle housing and feeds into canisters.

 

[k turk]

my supervisor has been of the mind to keep vacuum hoses on the head in some fashion, but it strikes me as difficult to manage at best. i was thinking more in line with the solution that some are using - a filtration system pulling air to the back of the machine just to keep the air quality reasonable. my concern is, as mentioned by Tommy, how much CFM you would need to make it work. do you know the rating on your collection system Ployd? and how effective would you say it is? i don't expect to avoid sweeping, but was wondering if it keeps the finer airborne material moving out the door.

 

thanks

k

[MATT Q]

I too am looking into a large dust control system for a 5 axis machine. We cut mdf patterns and generate a huge amount of dust and it is now affecting other finishing processes that we have to do. We have one on a fiberglass cutting machine and it works well for this I will take some pictures later.

[Ployd]

I'll get you more info and maybe more photos when I go into work. Unless Nils is reading this he may know the information of motor and fan size. We have a large motor hooked up to a squirrel cage which sucks air from the back of the machine and forces the air through the filters. It works reasonably well. We have a trough that runs below the canisters that is hooked up to a 1900 cfm dust colector to collect the particles that fall down. I couldn't imagine not having a system in place. We used to use bags but switched to canisters (2 micron). Like you say we still have to sweep but our air quality is pretty good. Plus in the Winter time we can filter the air without losing heat.

[Nils N]

As you can see from Ployd's picture we have a large box behind our machine. We pull air through the box into a hopper to drop off the most of the dust and then into 12 canister filters and then back into the room. It works good for a first run try at dust collection. The hopper box is hooked into a two bag dust collectors (with canister on top) to remove build up. We use a 5hp squirrel cage fan to pull the air through, we had to adjust the amperage on the motor with a larger pulley because be started throwing breakers. Other than that the system just keeps on working.

If you have a larger budget you could look into an Airwall system (http://www.envirosystemsllc.com/)that could be the back wall of an enclosure. They're made to suck air through the filters then exhaust back into the room.