Muffled air to blow with?

[Ropdoc]

Hello, has anyone lokked into rerouting the air from the cut motor back into the carver? Use the air to blow chips into vacum.

[fwharris]

Yes there have been several who have posted about doing this...

[AskBud]

See if this post helps.
AskBud
http://forum.carvewright.com/showthread.php?14828-Dust-collection&p=124193#post124193

[bergerud]

I do not think that blowing air around in the machine is a very useful thing to do. The turbulence just makes the fine dust go everywhere. This can cause other problems like the rear roller switch fouling with dust.

(Some exhaust from the motor is already blowing near the board tracking sensor, presumably, to keep it free of dust build up.)

[Bill Pratt]

I use The Ring Neck dust system and I really do not see a big issue with pi
cking up more dust by blowing it around. I have the exhaust ducted to a tube that goes out my garage door. This is not actually for dust removal (remakkably little dust goues out the exhause) but to eliminate the high pitch noise. When I do a deep carve (1/2 or more) considerable dust stays in the machine, but stays in the piece and doed not interfere with the rollers. This I vacum off as I remove the part from the CW.

[fwharris]

I do not think that blowing air around in the machine is a very useful thing to do. The turbulence just makes the fine dust go everywhere. This can cause other problems like the rear roller switch fouling with dust.

(Some exhaust from the motor is already blowing near the board tracking sensor, presumably, to keep it free of dust build up.)

I kind of agree with you on this one. I would think that it would sort of work against the dust collection picking up the dust by blowing it away from the intake.

[b.sumner47]

You would asking for more problem with the dust blowing around. You want to get the dust out,not around.


Capt Barry

[DickB]

I also suggest differentiating between wood chips and fine dust. It's nice to get rid of the chips, but essential to remove the fine dust and keep it away from the various gears, optical, and board sensors. You need as vacuum or dust collection system for that.

[Digitalwoodshop]

Breathing the increased airborn dust was the reason I abandoned my plans to do the same.

AL

[Jeff_Birt]

I use a downdraft on my machine instead of one of the dust hoods and have a small air blast hooked up that blows a very small amount of air towards the back of the machine. The air blast is fed from the shop air compressor, through a pressure regulator set to #8, and then through some 1/4" plastic tubing up to the top of the Z truck. From the top of the Z-truck it is a piece of 1/16" copper tubing that curves around the flex shaft hat.

I've used this system for close to five years now. The combination of the air blast with the down draft works very well. Not only does the small amount of air keep the bit cool it also helps clear the chips out of pockets and moves the chips toward the rear of the machine. Since the board in the machine blocks the downdraft except towards the back of the machine the air blast moving chips back that way really helps.

As I said it does not take much air so there is no dust being blown into the recesses of the machine our out into the shop. A few years ago I tried it with the exhaust of the cut motor (at the request of the guys at CarveWright) but did not get good results. You need a little pressure to push the air through the 1/16" tubing and recirculating the dust laden air back into the machine is not ideal. If the cut motor had a completely separate fan that drew air from the outside and could develop the pressure to push the air through the small tubing it would likely work fine.