I recall seeing someone showing a dust shoe that was connected to the Z spindle mount rather than the carriage so that it moved with the spindle. This looks to me like a good idea but I can’t see anything like that here.
Has anyone out there tried this? How well does it work?
I’m still assembling my X50 woodworker with a HY 80mm spindle and I am looking for anything that will make running the machine more automatic.
You would need to have it on springs, sure , but wouldn’t having move with the head make sense?
Carbide Create sells the Sweepy, it mounts to the spindle. I use one on my smaller 65MM spindle and it works great
I personally like the Z-independent dust shoe method the best, and as silly as it sounds, is just one of many reasons I chose to get a Onefinity.
I purchased a laptop 3018 machine before getting a 1F, and the dust shoe even at this smaller scale was constantly getting in the way. The brushes were either getting crushed and thrown under the shoe where the end mill happily shredded it to pieces, or was too high off the workpiece to be effective. And, I had to adjust the height after each bit change.
Granted, when doing 3D (2.5D, whatever) carvings, there can be a large enough gap between the brushes and the bottom of the carving to let noticeable amounts of dust through. I am hoping that by upgrading to a dust shoe that supports a 4" dust hose will solve this by increased suction and volume. But until I can finish the upgrade, I have always just lowered the dust shoe a little more than the top surface of the workpiece.
I will say that when I see others with even larger machines (e.g. Avid) they have a giant “box” surrounding the bit with at least 2" if not 3" long brushes, these seem to work having the dust shoe attached to the moving spindle.
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I also prefer it to not be attached to the spindle. I had watched a video where the person measured the forces that could act on the spindle when the dust shoe brushes rub the work piece - it was fairly substantial - and I do not want anything adding to deflection.
Having an ATC set up I also needed the dust shoe/shield to clear the pull studs of the tool holders during the tool change routines, and this is what led to my designing a motorized dust shoe/shield that is synchronized with the height of the end mill. I also am experimenting with flexible clear nylon ‘fingers’ vs black bristles. I will see how it works when I resume milling tests again.
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Wow, Thankyou everyone who posted, you have changed my mind - at least for now, the dust boot will stay as is. Maybe if I get more ambitious I might try an independent one later.
TMToronoto, I look forward to hearing about your experiments !
Happy to share. You can find my build history/progress by searching “Masso G3 ATC build update…” in the forum 