Horizontal Dust collection

Mostly Printed CNC - MPCNC Advice
1

I know this sounds like a crazy idea, but hear me out. Has anyone attempted to make a dust collector using a shop vac that blows dust towards the opposite side of the table and that side of the table vacuums it up?

The way I envisioned it working would be to create an attachment similar to one of the triangle attachments on a regular vacuum, but bigger and designed to mount on the side of the table. If you make two of them, you can have one attached to the exhaust port on your shop vac and the other to input. Assuming the air was distributed evenly across the work surface, this should provide a gentle breeze rather than a hurricane-force gale.

For fine tuning, might have to also design a way to divert some of the exhaust air if the force is still too great. The benefit to this system is that no overhead dust collection system would be required and if “bumpers” were added to the other two sides, dust shouldn’t blow off the work surface onto the floor.

2

I was actually thinking this same thing while looking at my shop vac just the other day. I might give it a go since its fair simple to rig up to test. I’ll report back if I end up getting to it.

3

This would be similar to using air assist to direct chips. It should work well.

4

Ever try this setup? Just curious if it works.

5

I did see a setup on a wood cnc ( a bob’s maybe?) that was in an enclosure. The shop vac was at the back, and the spindle dragged a hose around that was connected to the other side. As the vaccluum sucked the air out, the other hose pulled air in right to the spindle and blew most of the lighter stuff right to the vacuum.

Of course, it was a lightweight cnc and MOST of the debris was lightweight stuff.