Dust boot and shop vac hooked up. Reprinting the boot as this one had some issues but seemed to work quite well! I took an existing design off Thingiverse and modified it for my wants/needs.
Looks to me like that dust boot is working fine. Is your reprint to get rid of the duct tape, or to give more surface area for the duct tape to adhere to? 
Let me know when you put your modded one up, that might just be the first thing I printā¦ Is the plumbing 2 1/2 inch? Iāve been getting elbows and Ys and such in anticipation for my hookup.
Eliminate the duct tape, the print finished and the new boot slips onto the foot with friction lock between the layers. The Shop Vac fitting is ~1 1/2 inches at my inlet and is one of the tapered extensions that came with it.
I tried another cut without the bottom plate in place and a lot of dust was left behind. The new one should tighten things up and close some open holes to improve the suction. I also removed the lower black collar from the Dewalt to get more airflow around the bit. Having the bottom portion removable allows better access for switching the bit a well.
Itās too late to go play so Iāll get it attached tomorrow and see if I need to change anything else.
Edit: Hereās the Thingiverse link for this version. Labeled as āWIPā until I mount it up tomorrow. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1875449
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Now I have an incentive to assemble my MP3DP, I think I have all the pieces either here or in transit.
Hey David, can you take a photo from the side of your router? Iām trying to figure out how youāre attaching that dust shoe.
Internet was down all day, got some work done on the Laser mount! Pics of the new and improved one later, hereās the Dust Boot;
So cutting works well, I need better wood for the real deal though as plan to build some tight fitting 100mm x 100mm x 40mm boxes for my pickups. Iām also test fitting another piece for the dust shoe to fill the gap between the rear mount and top of shoe. Itās wide open right now. Next trick is going to be the laser. No shark yet, I want to get it all running first!
Been designing a mount to fit my cheap Chinese heatsink. It turned out well but I made the mistake of doing the holes based on their diagram of specs and not the actual heatsink. It seems the machining department didnāt understand the diagram and the holes arenāt quite where theyāre supposed to be! Theyāre straight though so I can mount by 2 holes and it doesnāt move.
I have some line lasers coming for the side and front mounts.
I like your mount and iām really curious about that laser. Keep us updated.
Iāve decided to do step one first (cutting things), then move on to step 2 (burning things with lasers). Step one involves getting some boxes cut!
Today was a big dayā¦ My 1x6 Spruce proved to be worthless for these boxes; too green and split after it was machined down to dimensions. Yesterday I hit Windsor Plywood where they have all kinds of exotics and amazing lumberā¦but pricey. I found a warped stick of Bloodwood at 1x6x7ā at a 20% discount in their offcut box. Good enough for me. I wanted Purpleheart but they were out; this stuff was pretty nice looking!
Scary enough, I read up on it when I got home and itās listed as 124.81% harder than red oakā¦ not sure what that means but I know Oak is hard so didnāt know what to expect. I also noticed I can change direction of cut in Estlcam so I did a few things to see how it would turn out as I went. Total Noob pics aheadā¦
First Pic, I was cutting across the grain and getting these weird pronounced ridges. Tool too dull? I could scrape them off easy with a fingernail so thought maybe it was just dust getting thrown down and sticking in clumps? I really donāt know.
Second pic shows changing the cut to go with the grain. The cuts were much cleaner off the hop but theā¦ sawdust? was coming off in long stringy threads. Is this bad? Looks awful and I needed to clean out the trap in my Dust Boot once along the way, but no noticeable detrimentā¦
End(ish) productā¦ Wow! I used the square edge (back side) of a utility knife to scrape the ridges clean. This turned out perfect! The pic is of the bottom half of a pickup box Iāve designed in Sketchup for some special run sets, I still have to cut the top then use my laser to burn my logo onto the lid. I also played around with holding tabs and messed up on the second box so it let go and got a nasty scar in the side when it moved into the path of the DeWalt. I have a master power switch so it wasnāt a total loss; itāll be my demo box for product shots.
Only thing left after the top and laser is to sand and stain. This wood is amazing and bloody heavy.
Looks good.
As for the issues it could be a few things, nothing major.
Stepover, I use 45% for roughing, looks like you might have went higher? You really only want to engage half of the cutter into the material. This is where climb vs conventional cutting comes in.
Perpendicular tool. I made a little perpendicularity tool on thingiverse to check if your tool is reasonably ānormal toā your work surface. If it isnāt I usually just put a layer of tape or two at the mount to adjust. This can cause your tool to cut at an angle and is usually more pronounced in one direction more than the other.
If I am wrong on both of those it is just a feed and speed thing.
Your cuts are obviously very good as is and a few very minor tweaks will take it to the next level.
Mark this one solvedā¦
I was at 40% stepover and running at 15mm/s with 1mm depth cuts. I slowed it down with the LCD knob to 70% FR but it kept doing it so bumped back up to 100%ā¦definitely a perpendicularity issue.
I was cutting the lid for my box so got to playing around with the setupā¦ Lifting the weight of the shopvac hose + attachment eliminated the extra line/cut. Iāll be revisiting the setup and removing the extension but think a hook on the Top of the Z axis anchored in the tubes should hold the weight off the shoe. Having the suction turned on keeps the hose in place well enough.
Hereās how it turned out! Bottom left you can see my hangup when my holding tabs failed (user error in setup)
Fits like a glove! Needs some finish sanding and stain as well as Laser logo addition. I never even thought about how I laid down my board but it seems I had the finished side upā¦ Live and learn for next time!
Nothing should touch the top of the z axis. All weight should be mounted on the gantry. The top of the z axis works like a breaker bar (torque multiplier) and really moves the bit. If you are using a vac also make sure to take off the long rigid end piece. Mount the hose directly to your shoe (another torque multiplier).
Makes sense. Would be nice to just park the machine where it will live forever and hang hoses from the roof, but thatās a ways off. Think itās time to design an āIV poleā to hold my vac above everything!
Printed and rigged up a system yesterday; the main bracket snaps in place and everything holds tight enoughā¦ takes all the weight off the Z-Axis. I used a small piece of the offcut conduit from the initial build.
I use elastics to hold thehose down, this allows quick removal in case of stray dust.
My first bit is getting too dull so I used it up on three sets of these! One for the MPCNC and a couple more for 2 of my printers. They look so sleek! I had some tearout on the holding tabs, more user errorā¦
Nice! I hang mine off the ceiling with bungee cord.
Update!
I was finding the good olā Das Boot was getting in the way since I added actual clamping to the MPCNC. Previously I screwed the wood down on the corners and cut to my heartās content. Adding clamps = need more room to moveā¦ bummer.
I printed the cool looking right angle Dust shoe from Thingiverse and didnāt even think of the mounting. Quickly found out (should have looked) that this thing mounts to the same spot as the standard lower mount. Time to get desinging!
This thing fits the standard HicWic quick change setup but features thicker arms and gets rid of those awful M3 bolts.
Annnd, I received the parts I cooked when trying to tune my laser. The heatsink I mounted wasnāt quite enough and the Mosfet heated up so much it desoldered itself and fell out of my board!!! This weekend should see some fun things happening again 'round here.
Hereās a link to the mounting setup if interested.
Nice design!
Laser be lasing now (vid later). Iām getting some ā¦ overburn? Not really sure what to call it. I remember seeing someone else with the issue but canāt recall where or what forum.
Iām using PEP5 and running from an SD Card but also tried being tethered over USB and still getting the lines.
Driver is an Optlaser unit, laser is a 2W M140.
Any suggestions or ideas where to start?
That is where the RC8 firmware comes inā¦it has issues though.
This is an LCD issue. RC8 fixes it but messes up the z axis, which is fine for lasing, but nothing else. The RC8 bugfix fies all of it but then you lose the menusā¦
If you want to try it out, here is the link to the Regular rc8, just remember to switch back the rc7 when you are doing anything else.