NEW for 3 makes of Routers - LowRider v3 Floating-Z Dust Shoe and Router Mount, for 2.5-inch Vac Hose (VacMaster Shop Vac) v1.1

LowRider CNC Hardware Development
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New version v1.1: Printables

The following is pasted from the description of the new improved edition on Printables:

After the original version’s success, I’ve made quite a few improvements (some minor, some major), which include the following. I won’t editorialize here over which are trivial tweaks versus crucial must-haves, because different things matter more to different makers. If you already built the original v1.0, consider these change notes to decide whether to stay with your current version or reprint some parts to upgrade.

Summary of what’s new:

  • Design now allows X-axis homing to happen closer to the left side of the gantry.
  • Improved new dust shoe body. This and the above can be done independently or together. An existing v1.0 build can do just this new dust shoe, or just the above, or both.
  • The new version now offers support for three trim routers (whereas the original was only for Makita):
    • DeWalt 611
    • Makita 700 series
    • Kobalt’s new “V1E-friendly” corded trim router for CNC makers.
  • In my testing on this version, I had to glue in the EVA foam bristles. I used CA glue.

Before giving you all the juicy details, here are some renders and screen shots:

Re. X-axis homing closer to the left side of LR3 gantry

  • After v1.0 was released, makers with standard LR3’s found that the original design had to homed with the aid of a screw in the X tensioner block / end stop, to have homing happen before the design bits met the left side. My apologies for not catching this sooner. (I missed it in the prototyping and testing phase because my LowRider v3 homes to the right side of my gantry, as I have my X and Y swapped.)
  • In order to get the X-axis homing point as close as possible to left side of the gantry, the following parts were modified:
    • Floating-Z Dust Shoe Mount
    • Motor Mount Upper
    • Hose Mount (2.5") (lower)
    • Hose Mount (2.5") (upper)
  • If you already made v1.0, and want to upgrade, the above are the only parts that need reprinted. All other parts will work. However, while your existing Shoe Body v1.0 will continue to work, there is a new, improved Shoe Body v1.1 in this remix. See below.
  • The additional distance gained to get homing to happen closer to left side of gantry was accomplished by:
    • Swinging (pivoting) the air column’s placement toward the right by 6.2 degrees.
    • Raising the linear rail guide and its mount upwards by about 2mm, and trimming down the left bottom side of the Linear Rail Mount part.
    • Taking 2 mm worth of height off both the Hose Mounts, to help accommodate the raising of the Linear Rail Mount part, which also helped with the following….

Re. improved Dust Shoe Body

  • On v1.0, the groove for the EVA foam bristles followed the perimeter of the shoe, while the airflow opening is only at the business end. This meant that whenever the shoe had its backside off the material, there was a loss of “seal” allowing a reduction in effective suction. This new Dust Shoe body still has bristles around the perimeter, but also how has a new stretch of bristles tightly surrounding the airflow hole at the business end. The bristles at the back side are now just optional, and I left them in place just to have “equal footing*” whenever the whole body of the shoe is “sledding” on the material. *Please pardon the pun. Dad jokes are what they are.
  • The extra groove space for this new stretch of bristles was accomplished by thickening the bottom of the shoe (by 5mm). With the aforementioned 2mm raise, this gets the bottom of the new shoe right even with the bottom of the core. This is why the 2mm raising mentioned above, was helpful.
  • The groove for the bristles now has tiny little barbs to help hold the 2.4mm thick EVA craft foam bristles. See the original v1.0 listing for BOM and affiliate links etc. Kudos and credit to @clayscustom for suggesting the barbs in a comment on the first video in the series! Thanks for the idea!
  • New design (SVG and DXF) provided for cutting new bristles (out of 2.4mm thick EVA craft foam).

Re. now supporting three different trim routers, DeWalt, Makita, and new Kobalt

  • In case you had not heard, the makers of Kobalt requested input from Ryan Z. of V1 Engineering, to focus their development of a new, corded, trim router intended to meet our “CNC maker” needs more closely than other brands. I’ve included it in the three supported routers.
  • The new Kobalt router…
    • offers support of standardized ER11 collets for use of affordable collets and affordable, readily-available bits, in a range of sizes.
    • offers a fairly wide range of speeds, including slower speeds that are helpful for CNC use of ¼" bits.
    • comes with both ¼" and 1/8" collets right out of the box.
    • lowers the price point for makers getting started with a LowRider or MPCNC.
    • shows support for V1E / LowRider by displaying a model of the LowRider v3 on its box, in product displays at Lowes stores, and on the online ordering page on the Lowes website!
      • Full disclosure: Kobalt provided one of their new trim routers to me free of charge, with only a request that I share some video of it. Below is my video of the unboxing and results of my initials cuts with it. See my YouTube channel for more great content.

And these other videos are also related to this:

And here are some pics of the box and store displays that feature a LowRider v3 CNC!

And below is how I wish the above photo looked, but they probably wouldn’t say this due to advice from their attorneys. (I didn’t verify this with their attorneys, but I’m probably right):

And here’s the box for the new router, showing off a LowRider v3 CNC!

Notes of interest:

  • I made all three editions of the motor mounts by simply grabbing Ryan’s V1 Engineering designs for all three, and then attaching my floating-Z air column stuff onto his designs.
  • I am dependent on owners of the various routers to let me know if you see any issues with the support of your model — especially for the DeWalt 611 router, since I don’t possess one and thus cannot test for it. It’s bigger and heavier, and it required its own elongated versions of the Shoe Mount, Shoe Body, Shoe Lid, etc. I have not printed those items! I have printed and tested the mounts and other items for both the Makita and the Kobalt routers.
  • Print files that are specific to a certain router will have that router’s name at the start of the file name. For example:
  • For the Dewalt Router, the file names look like:
    • DeWalt_Floating-Z Dust Shoe Mount v1.1.stl
    • Dewalt_Motor Mount Lower v1.1.stl
    • Dewalt_Motor Mount Upper v1.1.stl
    • DeWalt_Router Shield v1.1.stl
    • DeWalt_Shoe BODY (for 2.5-inch Hose) v1.1.stl
    • DeWalt_Shoe LID (for 2.5-inch Hose) v1.1.stl
  • For the Kobalt Router, the file names look like:
    • Kobalt_Floating-Z Dust Shoe Mount v1.1.stl
    • Kobalt_Motor Mount Lower v1.1.stl
    • Kobalt_Motor Mount Upper v1.1.stl
    • Kobalt_Router Shield v1.1.stl
    • Kobalt_Shoe BODY (for 2.5-inch Hose) v1.1.stl
    • Kobalt_Shoe LID (for 2.5-inch Hose) v1.1.stl
  • For the Makita Router, the file names look like:
    • Makita_Floating-Z Dust Shoe Mount v1.1.stl
    • Makita_Motor Mount Lower v1.1.stl
    • Makita_Motor Mount Upper v1.1.stl
    • Makita_Router Shield v1.1.stl
    • Makita_Shoe BODY (for 2.5-inch Hose) v1.1.stl
    • Makita_Shoe LID (for 2.5-inch Hose) v1.1.stl
  • Print files that are usable for all three routers have “Universal_” at the beginning of their files names. For example:
    • Universal_C-Clip (Hose Retainer) v1.3.stl
    • Universal_Hose Mount (2.5") (lower) v1.1.stl
    • Universal_Hose Mount (2.5") (upper) v1.1.stl
    • Universal_Linear Rail Mount v1.1-A (no slide latch).stl
    • Universal_Linear Rail Mount v1.1-B (with slide latch).stl
    • Universal_Slide Latch v1.1.stl
  • For some print files, the Kobalt and Makita files are identical. Their motor mounts are different, but most other parts are shared. To spare any confusion, whenever a DeWalt difference required separate files, I went ahead and made separate Kobalt and Makita files too.

Printing and Assembly

  • Please refer to the instructions on the original v1.0 and please watch the first three videos in the series (see below), as the printing and assembly are almost identical.
  • Re. the Hose Mount Upper: there is now no need to re-drill the access holes — where the original part caused some closing off of the tool access holes, the new version has notches to align with the access holes to keep them fully open.

Change log

  • V1.1 was ready on October 25 (a little over two months after the original was posted), but published on Nov 1, 2023, primarily due to waiting for green light on mentioning the new Kobalt router.

My PayPal tip jar: https://paypal.me/design8studio

Various LowRider 3 CNC remixes:

View all my models and remixes on Printables:

*Product links to Amazon items are affiliate links.

Part 1 video:

Part 2 video:

Part 3 video:

Part 4 video:

…pending…

3 Likes
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It would be wrong to hit it with a sharpie, right?

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Not at all! I told Ryan he should sign the first one he saw lol. Waiting for our local Lowe’s to get theirs so my wife can go put v1 stickers on the display lol

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What purpose does the attachment of bristles in the back have? There is no hole or connection to the rest, is there?

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As described here, both above and on Printables:

No… :slight_smile:

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Thanks. It was so much text to read… :stuck_out_tongue: Much appreciated.

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@Tokoloshe reads the forum all day every day…

:man_facepalming:

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

3 Likes
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Yeah, I do have my own modified dust shoe but I thought maybe Doug found something magical I’ve been missing so far. :slight_smile: But I was not so much into it to read the whole thing. :sweat_smile:

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This is awesome! First I’ve heard about the Kobalt router. I’ll investigate that… but in the meantime, I guess it’s time to slice some more parts!

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So how do I adapt this for the MPCNC? Since I’m probably the only one on this board without an LR3 because I don’t have room for it and It can’t be made to operate vertical, so I’m still running the classic Maslow and storing it over my car when not in use.

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I’m not sure, since I may be one of the few who does not also have an MPCNC.

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I want reiterate a caution mentioned previously. If you are doing a job where the dust shoe will be coming from off the material, and dragged onto the material, it’s probably best to leave the slide latch engaged. If it gets dragged on from an edge, it can get caught on the edge of the material. Then, instead of sledding, you could have it either pulled off, or cut through by your bit.

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Yes it’s basically just a way to do “sledding” on the material with a dust shoe.

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my cad skills are minimal at best… but I have a need for this to work and would really like to have a good dust option since I moved the system inside.

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I suggest this one: Printables. You lose 5mm in X and Y, but that’s it. I used it for half a year and liked it very much.

2 Likes
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Hey Doug,

When you redesigned the upper mount and the dust shoe mount, did your modifications bring the hose closer to the router body, by any chance? I have noticed two things about this new mount, after mounting it and my new Kobalt router:

  • I had to cut the 2.5" hose that goes between the upper mount and the dust shoe mount by a full turn (where v1.0 used “10 turns” of the white springy wire) - and I still might need to cut it down further to allow the shoe to move up more easily.
  • The hose seems to make contact with the lower router mount, so it doesn’t float as well as v1.0.

To be fair, I haven’t fully investigated the issues I’m seeing with the small section of 2.5" hose, as I’m still banging my head against the cutting-the-table wall. Just thought I’d throw these out there to see if you’ve noticed different behavior since you mounted up your Kobalt. Of course, what I’m seeing could certainly be a me problem!

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My memory on it is that the overall distance out to the 2.5" hose did not change on the switch from Makita to Kobalt, but it did have to change (increase) on the switch from Makita to DeWalt. However, the Kobalt was a slightly larger diameter, so even though I did not move the hose, the router gets a wee bit closer on the Kobalt setup, because the router size was up a little. But we’re talking about a very small amount. Also, I think I shortened the hose mounts a little bit, to grant more room for expansion and contraction. I would not have expected that change to require shorter hose length. However, I think I also raised the latch location up slightly (couple millimeters maybe?) and that could possibly result in how much hose is needed, yet I’m still using the same piece of hose, and it’s working.

2 Likes
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Once I get the table built, I’m going to dig into all the fine-tuning details, and I’ll investigate this further. Thanks!

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Regarding raising the latch up a little, there was already some room at the bottom for the shoe to come up higher, so logically that change should not have required any change to hose length, although in theory if it did, the change would be to increase hose length rather than decrease it, assuming some user’s differences in mounting their whatever, somehow prevented that extra space at the bottom from being used.

1 Like
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I am not sure if I mentioned it here yet, but I had placed some strips of ultra high molecular weight tape ( https://amzn.to/3TQ0USh ) onto the shoe mount area where the dust shoe slides on, to get a tighter fit…

I have been thinking about two possible improvements to the floating Z dust shoe: a “click and lock” way to keep the shoe on, and a set of one or more marbles or large ball bearings or printed globes on the bottom of the shoe, to let it “sled” higher up without the bristles being crushed, and with less resistance. I will probably tackle it one day soon. Have too much going on.