Clean table

[coach]

How are you guys cleaning saw dust off the table after cutting?
Right now I cut cabinet parts in 10 minutes or so.
Clearing the saw dust via shop vac (hanging on wall at end of bot) takes about 5 minutes.
There has to be a better way.

[erik_f]

I haven't found one better than the shopvac. Maybe create a jogging routine that goes over the entire table and let the bot do it. This would have been slower in the old days when I had a PRT 4x8 pre-G4. But now with the new standard PRS this might save time and effort. You could at least be doing something else while waiting for the routine to be done. Its not that big a deal for me now with the BT48.

[wberminio]

David

I use a shopvac also, but got the widest floor piece I could find (homedepot).A bit faster than the smaller nozzle.


Erminio

[blackhawk]

This idea just came in my head while reading this post. What if you made up a 4 foot wide sweeper that you just hooked onto the Y rail after the job has finished cutting. The sweeper could have 4 or maybe just two 4" hose takeoffs. Attach some flexible 4" hose that is hooked into your main chip collector. Then run the Y carriage up your table and back. Hopefully the two passes would clean up the table pretty well. Just making it simply hook onto the Y rail at the right height would eliminate the need to worry about the Z axis position. You would need a gate valve, a high cfm collector, and have to work out the travel for the flex hose. Just thinking on the fly, it may give you some ideas.

[john_hartman]

I think the idea has some potential. For those who have Alpha's the yellow crash bar could support the attachment by resting on it, then keeping its self in place using its own weight by extending a portion of the attach under the y-gantry.

[bcammack]

We have a downward-slanted board at one end of our 'bot that terminates over a box. When a top is slid off that end onto the roll-line much of the dust falls down, onto the ramp and into the box.

I suspect that could be revised for a bigger 'bot so you could pretty much clear the table with one push of a correctly-sized broom assembly. Then all you'd have to do is empty the box regularly.

[jerry_stanek]

I use a fine shop broom to get most of the dust off then the dust collector.

[jseiler]

You might want to look here and follow up with Henrik...

http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/messages/312/28165.html

[benchmench]

Blow it off with an air hose then clean up at the end of the day or run.

----------------------------------------------
www.craftsmancnc.com (http://www.craftsmancnc.com)
www.carvedsignstudio.com (http://www.carvedsignstudio.com)

[dlcw]

The problem I've come head-to-head with in an automated cleaning setup is SB Link. All of my large panel-cutting jobs are run through the link. At the end of each sheet, you are still in the cut file so you can't run another file to do the cleanup while it's still in control.

I wish there was a way around this so that while I'm stacking parts and getting them ready for edge banding or whatever, the bot could be cleaning itself and getting ready for the next sheet to be loaded and cut. With Partworks/Aspire this is not a problem because I can control the cut file.

Oh well.....

Don
www.dlwoodworks.com (http://www.dlwoodworks.com)

[nat_wheatley]

Don,

I think you can do what you're looking to do, by creating a custom cut file for your table cleaning routine, then calling up this file in the 'Sheet Footer' in the Link. (Fairly sure that Gary taught me this).

I use this to 'park' my spindle at the end of each sheet.

Nat

[erik_f]

I don't know anything about the link...but there is no way to write a sub routine?

[dlcw]

Nat,

Now that you mention it, I could create a file that pauses until I get all the parts and scraps removed from the table then initiate a table cleaning routine I already wrote a while back and use with Partworks projects. It'd be nice the have the machine cleaning itself while I'm doing something else.

I also park my spindle at 90,55 at the end of each sheet to get it out of the way.

Great idea!

Don

[Gary Campbell]

Don...
Nat is correct. You can write a custom (CN,**) file that will run after every sheet if you enter a callup for it in the sheet footer command area. For example:

CN,** 'table clean routine
CN,** 'park routine tht lifts Z and jogs to out of the way area.

Thermwood has given us these areas so that we can run custom "stuff"
Header: before files run.. now used to call up variables file etc.
Sheet Header... operations that happen before every sheet (like vacuum or dust collection on) I have made even simple pauses that allow users with routers to receive message to manually turn on router.
Sheet Footer: operations that happen after each sheet (like vacuum or dust off)
Footer: operations that happen at end of file

There are also areas that allow us to customize what we wish to happen for flip-ops, such as pins up, vac on, pins down... run flip-op

Gary

[myxpykalix]

Why not find yourself a 4 ft wide "squeegee" type of broom head, the type used to push water around on a flooded floor and just either do it manually with one push or make a holder attached to your carriage and just do a straight path down the center of the table.

[Gary Campbell]

David...
If you do a search back a while, Henrik Olafgors had quite a bit of input into this subject with some very good ideas.

For our use, we have found that whether we scrape, sweep or vacuum, we still need to use a blower wand to remove the fine particles of dust. IF we dont, they seem to turn into ball bearings under the next sheet. Loss of friction to the spoilboard and a loss of vacuum. Double trouble.
Gary

[eaglesplsh]

I use a custom cut file to vacuum our table off. It works much like folks have speculated above and it does a good job.

I have the post processor call the custom cut automatically at the end of every job. I also have it listed under custom cuts, so I can run it whenever I want (in case the table gets dust on it from other tools used between jobs.)

The file moves the spindle to my tool change location, then posts a message on screen and waits for me to confirm that the parts have been cleared off the table and that I have removed the tool from the spindle.

When I hit go, the Z-axis drops down to hold the dust skirt a hair off the table. (The software knows the height of my dust skirt as I added a Z-axis limit switch to my homing routine and I have a sensor plate on the table that automatically senses bit lengths during tool changes.)

The computer then turns on my dust collector and opens the blast gate (electricly controlled) and the machine runs a table-sized pocketing operation at full jog speed.

When it's done vacuuming, the program turns off the dust collector (if no other machine is using it at the same time) closes the blast gate, and asks if I want the gantry/spindle moved to the sheet loading position or parked in the shut down position.

Never thought I'd have a robotic maid - almost feels like I'm living with the Jetsons.


If anyone out there plans to do something similar, there are a few things to keep in mind:

1) I've found that the dust skirt needs to be down on the table to maintain full vacuum efficiency, but with the skirt at this level, the plastic fingers have a tendency to push/plow heavy dust piles in front of the skirt, instead of allowing it the material to get inside and get sucked up. If I've got heavy dust piles I just run the vacuum routine a second time to pick up whatever was missed on the first run.

2) I'm currently using 3/4"x12" stop blocks on X=0 and Y=0. These work fine for aligning sheets, and the fingers on the dust skirt are able to pass over them OK during the vacuum routine. But, when the plastic fingers are displaced by the blocks, the vacuum drops off and dust that's stuck in the corner between the block and spoilboard is often missed. When I rebuild my spoilboard I plan to switch to pins for alignment, which should eliminate this issue.

[Gary Campbell]

Russ...
Nice to see someone using the control software for something other than driving the tool around. These tools have almost unlimited capabilities to control things to make our lives in the shop easier or quicker.

Merry Christmas to all.
Gary

[beacon14]

Clearing the saw dust via shop vac (hanging on wall at end of bot) takes about 5 minutes

Maybe you just need a better shop vac. I use a Fein I with a floor sweeping attachment. It takes us about 4 minutes starting from a freshly cut sheet to remove the parts, sweep the table, and load the next sheet.

When vacuuming the table, the first pass mostly pushes the dust piles off the edges of the table onto the floor, then a second pass scours the spoilboard with the floor attachment, leaving a nice clean table for the next sheet. I think the vacuuming process takes less than a minute.

[eaglesplsh]

The ShopBot camps inspired me to try some of these "upgrades". Seeing what Jay and Ed Lang have got going on down in Virginia and then what John Haggerty has figured out in his Pennsylvania shop made me green with envy.


I'm in the process of designing a new dust skirt that is compatible with my automatic tool changer's tool pallet. That should take things to a whole new level of fun and games.

[bcondon]

When I was going a lot of panels, I kept the
air hose hanging by the end of the table. If I was doing something permanent, I would have a tube with small holes attached to the end of a table connected to compressed air and just hit a button to release a burst and then load the next panel.

I would not want the machine wasting time cleaning. The only other setup would be similar to the drill and use the air switch and a nozzle to give a wide blast als