A random search on youtube threw this up yesterday.
Yep, there are a zillion dust shoe designs round here and I’ve visited a lot of them, but I think from an LR3 perspective at least, the weak point with most is that they don’t move independently of the cutting head height.
The best and simplest in other systems remain a constant distance from/on the workpiece and the spindle is free to lower itself without affecting the alignment of the shoe.
Five years ago, this one claimed to be “the best dust shoe out there”, but since I haven’t come across any others like it, or even any copies, I’m going to take a wild stab in the dark and suggest it probably isn’t.
Well first impressions are, it seems to work great for him. Not sure that can translate to LR3. Seems to require losing something that makes LR3 stronger, and that is the deliberate closeness of the router to the material. That guys setup has “tons” of distance between the spindle and the material and thus a huge gap for all that flex contraption.
My initial reactions are exactly the same as yours - very cool, but the vertical loss of height and distance of tool from work would make it difficult to go to the trouble to build on the LR3.
The problem with the LR3 is that moving the router’s Z also moves the whole gantry, contrary to the vast majority of CNC out there
To achive a “floating” dust boot, you’d need the dust boot to slide on the Z axis so that it keeps the same height when the gantry moves down (or up for that matter)
Imagine something like this, but with sliders both tides of the router
This could create some binding issues though, or the boot could get stuck on the stock if it slides down in a hole you just carved (maybe add some sort of endstop?)
I agree with your summary - the next post for me was going to be something similar - I haven’t measured yet but I’m wondering about vertical rails fixed to aluminium angles mounted under the spindle mounting brackets and using the same bolts… or going "full @DougJoseph " on them and modifying the brackets as the mount.
I’m just musing at the moment - because I bought the vac hose yesterday and I’m running out of things to stick on the print list the month after next!
I love the concept of that. If you mounted it high enough it might just work. Something with a small initial adjustment so things like a travel move still resulted in the bristles being picked up but allowed for the spindle to bottom out.
If it was mounted up high enough (we have a spare screw hole) and maybe a spring or two to keep it to very little resistance…hmmm. That could be a cool idea.
The whole swiveling part scares me but I do love that aspect of it. I think I would skip the swivel in place of more flexible bristles.
Since the Jackpot has the ability to have a 6th driver, what about a dynamic dustshoe? If you were to zero the dust shoe motor and then wire it backwards from the Z motors it would effectively float at the same distance.
One area of need to be addressed is to keep the suction path tight against both the router and the dust shoe. One option is to use an “accordion” tube:
Although probably the easiest and most durable is to use some standard dust tubing:
FWIW: Alexandre Chappel’s design has suction happening both “around” the bit and off to the side of it. Notice the 3D printed part in this screen grab:
. My biggest concern would be clearing whatever clamping you use.